Tor Books confirms sf supersite plans

Tor Books has confirmed its rumored science fiction megasite, filled with free stuff. I've been talking with Tor about this for some time, and I'm privy to all kinds of s33kr1t stuff I can't mention, but man, if they pull off half of what they've got planned, this thing is going to kick ass. I've written something for the site, too.

“The free digital books are exactly what we say they are: an inducement to get people to pre-register as users and allow us to send them emailed progress reports,” Nielsen Hayden said. “The book-length freebies are a temporary program slated to run from now until when we launch. Although the site will be ‘giving away’ a lot of content–indeed, all of its content, as we don’t anticipate any part of it being DRMed or paywalled–the core of the site will not be built around a program of free novel giveaways. That said, we reserve the right to give away free digital books any time we think it’s a good idea to do so. (With the cooperation and consent of their authors, naturally.)”

Link (via Futurismic)

• [Jonah]

  I was thinking about signing up for this, until I read their privacy policy:
  

  We may share the information you provide with companies that are related to Macmillan through common ownership. We also share information provided by our website visitors with service providers we have retained to perform services on our behalf. In addition, we may share information about you with non-affiliated third parties whose products or services may be of interest to you. These third parties may contact you about their products and services. We will not share your information with these third parties for their own marketing purposes if you request that we not do so. We may, however, engage in joint marketing activities with selected third parties and may share personal information about our website visitors with them.

  Does “we may share information about you with non-affiliated third parties whose products or services may be of interest to you” translate to “we will sell your email address to every spammer in the universe”? Maybe not, but I don’t feel like taking a chance.

• [Jeff]

  Any published writers what to comment? I don’t mean to by overly cynical, but this release seems like a pretty obvious way for Tor to use the personal data to market. So, the CFO of Tor says that the site can generate one million a year in ad revenue, and the giveaway will generate 500k in additional sales revenue(hypothetically) and the market supports the idea because? I’ve been in business long enough to know that it always boils down to money, and it sound like this is just a way to make more, but not by selling more books. If publishers are just going to use writers to sell more ads then I’m all for it, but will the writers like being little more than bait for a publishing house that is, again, just using them to make money?

• [Chris Griswold]

  “I’ve written something for the site, too.”

  Oh, really? Is there a cool company you haven’t written for? Good god, man, leave some fun freelance gigs for the rest of us.

• [gnoodles]

  Jonah @ #4:

  The sentence after the one that you cite says that they won’t sell your email to spammers without your consent:

  We will not share your information with these third parties for their own marketing purposes if you request that we not do so.

  The sentence after that one is what bothers me:

  We may, however, engage in joint marketing activities with selected third parties and may share personal information about our website visitors with them.

  What does that mean exactly?

• [Jeff]

  Are there any good data that show the efficacy of giving away print material to stimulate sales? I’m sure if I was one of the Tor writers I could deal with handing over some free shorts or some chapters. Anything to increase book sales, which are not as good as they could be. If C.Doctorow says it’s all good, I’ll have to agree. Thanks for the sf publishing news.

• [Agent 86]

  @ gnoodles # 6

  It means TANSTAAFL, though I tend to use specially made email accounts/fake information for services like this, so good luck with them using MY information.

  Keep in mind, sharing information with companies within the Macmillan ownership umbrella (which is not something you can opt out of if you want to use their services) means somewhere around 60 diverse companies. They aren’t just a small business, think multi-national corporation.

  All that aside, I’m ecstatic about Books, free/DRM-free ebooks, and especially about anything Tor releases.

• [Sean Eric FAgan]

  Yes, Eric Flint has amassed a pretty considerable amount of data. He’s biased, of course, but he’s convinced reluctant authors to try it, and I think every one of them has noticed a statistically-unusually increase in sales. (Mercedes Lackey was the biggest one at the time.)

  I signed up for this after reading about it on John Scalzi’s blog, and they haven’t emailed me anything they said they wouldn’t.

• [Gilbert Wham]

  I want an Orbital Attack Electron Magnet…