Both the Scalzi and the Jane Lindskold Firekeeper series seem like series I’d love to read more of. Tor should sell the subsequent books electronically, the way Baen does.

Physical paperbacks are upwards of $8. Heck, that’s TWO stops at Starbucks! I don’t even hesitate to make the comparison; it’s become my new yardstick. Both are guilty pleasures for me, both are transient experiences. When I’m ready to indulge myself, I lean towards something that I can rely on to deliver.

I’m not opposed to trying new things, I’m willing to do prelim research into new authors. But, if you’re a fiction author, you’ve got serious competition for my attention — not just sample chapters and free ebooks, but podcasts, seminars, lectures, audio books and readings. . . my days of buying random paperbacks at the bookstore are over.

Good luck, I’ll be in the back corner at Starbucks, hunched over a laptop, reading and sucking down a grande iced mocha.

Starbucks vs. Star-books?

I’m crying a little in my heart.

OW!

* Math-oriented folks might want to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation, but correlation merely shows “that when x occurs, y seems to occur, but we really don’t know that x causes y”.

** Causality is slightly less mathmatically defined in Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality.

See also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

“The first fix is free” is an old and proven marketing tactic, and giving a whole book away may be a better way to pique interest and build loyalty than just offering an extract. Doing what Tor did in some cases – give the book away and then add the first chapter of the sequel on the end – may be the smartest move of all, because it gets the reader when they’re at their most vulnerable, er, enthusiastic.

I certainly hope the experiment works out for Tor and the authors who have participated.

I would have purchased the sequel(s?) to Old Man’s War right after I read it if it weren’t for the fact that my local Barnes and Noble told me that Mr. Scalzi had only ever written one other book, and that it was humor, not sci-fi. Now that I know, I plan to go out and get them – just not from Barnes and Noble!

Are they available for purchase as eBooks (preferably Microsoft or Mobipocket) anywhere? I’d rather not have to carry around a paper book on the bus.

P.S. Here’s another Fiction site with free content:
– Baen Free Library: http://baen.com/library/

There’s no problem at all with proving “scientifically” that free e-books cause a statistically significant change in sales. All it would take is one well-designed experiment, albeit over rather a lot of titles and with good random controls. But showing causation is just not that hard–it constitutes a significant fraction of what scientists do.

Got a mail back from him from the donation, expressing his thanks, which made me even more prone to buy his works in the future.

Another advantage. Web-published free ebooks also makes written works *incredibly* googleable — I blanked on Peter Watt’s name and (ironically) Blindsight’s title, so I just googled “vampires and consciousness in space”. Bing! First link was about the book!

I’m reminded of the following exchange from the Simpsons:

Lisa Simpson (in awe): “Are you reading Gravity’s Rainbow?”
College Girl (snidely): “Well, re-reading.”

Of course, this is because Scalzi’s work impressed me. I, personally, would not buy additional books from every author who had a free eBook released under TOR’s promotion. It’s a great, low-risk way to discover new authors, though.

I, who doesn’t usually have time to read very much or find new authors, get a free book delivered to my inbox every week.

The authors and publisher get free publicity and potentially a new customer.

nobody has lost anything of value, and both parties gain something of value.

thus: win-win

#14, Thank you for exemplifying one of the points I tried to make in my response to the above comment: http://bloggasm.com/did-tors-free-ebooks-affect-sales#comment-77092

#16, Here are some of my favourite sites, I’d love to hear your additions:

Fiction:
– Podiobooks: http://www.podiobooks.com/
– SFFaudio: http://www.sffaudio.com/
– Voices in the Dark: http://voicesinthedark.com/
– Cory’s page (d’uh): http://craphound.com/

Non-Fiction:
– WGBH Forum Network: http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/
– APM Word for Word: http://wordforword.publicradio.org/
– TED: http://www.ted.org/
– OpenCourseware: http://ocw.mit.edu/
– Conexions: http://cnx.org/