Speaking of Free Books

I’ve been considering the possibility of making Sunborn available for free download, perhaps in installments leading up to the actual pub date (end of October). A number of writers, including Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi, have offered their books for free download and discovered that it seemed to increase their audience and interest in the novels, and thus sales of their books. While there are no doubt some readers who will read only the free version and skip the hardcopy, it seems that many more decide they’d like to own the actual book once they’ve read the electronic version. At least, that’s what these writers have reported. Past experience is no guarantee of future performance, though, as the mutual funds tell us.

I’d be interested in knowing what you folks think. This is new territory for all of us in the fiction world, and I’m feeling my way in the dark just like everyone else.

(I’ve already used this quote, but it just seems to fit, so here’s an encore…)

“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow

BSG Novel—Free at Tor.com!

The e-book version, that is. This week only, you can download my novelization of Battlestar Galactica (the miniseries that began the new BSG) for free from Tor Books. And by the way, if you like e-books, Tor offers a weekly free book. If you sign up for their email newsletter, you’ll get a reminder notice each week when a new title becomes available. You have to act fast, though, because when a new one comes, the old one goes away. (Sort of like woot.com, but without the price and the funny descriptions.)

Speaking of e-books, here’s a reminder that many of my novels are available as e-books in various formats. Go to e-reads.com for a complete listing. And, of course, you can also order new, bound-paper codices (books) directly from me.

“The profession of book-writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.” —John Steinbeck

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