Vin Diesel and Downloadable Books

Posted on July 10, 2008    Posted by John Scalzi

Another Thursday, another AMC science fiction movie column. In this one, I explain why The Chronicles of Riddick is a perfect example of how not to make a science fiction sequel. Yes, folks, the nerdgassery in this one will be mighty — but in the end you will have learned something for free that Universal Pictures paid $105 million (plus marketing costs) to find out. So that’s value. For you at least.

And while I’m sending you off to other places to read other things, I’m quoted in an article at Bloggasm, about whether offering Tor offering free e-book downloads (Old Man’s War included) helped sales of the books. I can’t speak for others, and (as I say in the article) I don’t think you can account for every variable, but I do know this: In the 20 weeks since we offered OMW as an e-book, weekly sales of the mass markert paperback have been lower than the week before we offered the book only three times, and then by only a relatively trivial amount. It certainly hasn’t hurt my sales, is what I am saying.

In both the Riddick and e-books articles, if you’ve got some comment you’re dying to offer, offer ’em there — these other sites need comment love, too.