The Last Colony, Now In Readable Electron Form
Posted on September 17, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 23 Comments
The Last Colony is now available in electronic form, both on the Kindle and apparently in other formats as well (here it is in the Sony eBook Store). So now all my books are available electronically one way or another. I wonder if I should, like, get an eBook reader now or something.
Nah, the author prefers that you buy the non-DRM versions.
Actually the author doesn’t care about DRM one way or another, except to say that if you don’t like DRM, he encourages you to get the non-DRM’d version, i.e., the actual physical books.
Amazon sells the paperback for $7.99 and the Kindle edition for $9.99.
I know what I’m going to buy.
Is there a list of where they’re available as electrons? I just finished “Ghost Brigades” (awesome!) from PanMacMillan, and definitely want “Android’s Dream”, “Last Colony” and “Zoe’s Tale”.
Don’t have a Kindle, though.
Thanks!
I’m waiting to hear more, but the plastic logic e-reader seems interesting.
I’m still leaning toward a Kindle, myself. Not, you know, that that should matter to anyone else.
I’m hoping for a Kindle(tm) in my Christmas stocking. The Scalzi collection will be one of my first buys.
Fictionwise lists Zoe’s Tale in a DRM’d to hades version for $5 more than you can buy the dead tree edition on amazon. I see stuff like that and wonder just what the heck they’re thinking.
Baen seems to be the only publisher who actually wants to, you know, sell e-books.
Why would you buy an eBook reader just to read your own books?
BooksOnBoard has DRM’d versions of Last Colony($12.46) and Zoe’s Tale($19.89). I’ve gotten them keyed to my Sony Clie.
Still stalking a non-Kindle Android’s Dream, though.
No kindle necessary. Just buy an iPhone or an iPod touch and install Stanza.
Note that I have not done this as I have more important things to spend my money on. But I hear that it’s a great combination. Very readable and easy to use.
In fact, anyone heard differently?
Perfect timing. I just finished reading Ghost Brigades on Kindle two days ago. I was agonizing over skipping it and getting Zoe’s Tale or doing something barbaric like read the paper version.
I use my Windows Mobile phone to read MS Lit format ebooks all the time, it’s my ‘book of last resort’ when I’m stuck somewhere.
I installed Mobi on it, but the port was pure crap, unusably bad. It incorrectly calculated the number of lines per page, so you’d flip pages and miss at least one line, unless it was in full-screen mode. And in full screen mode the keyboard would cover up the middle third of the bottom line.
Skar,
I prefer Book Shelf on the iPhone. But the device in general makes for a great ebook reader. Neither Book Shelf or Stanza does DRM. I’m not sure about the mobiwise reader since I’ve never looked at it.
Why? Don’t you already know what happens?
Why is Sony charging $12 for a pack of electrons? The book is out in paperback already, isn’t it?
And well and truly glad to see the 3rd book out, even if it did come out after the 4th. Wanted to wait to read Zoe until after TLC, and I have too many paper books already. Glad the E version is finally here!
Skar: Stanza doesn’t do DRM, there’s no Mobipocket Reader port for the iPhone/iPod touch platform, and Fictionwise only has the Secure Mobipocket format versions of John’s books[1]. (Well, some of them. At the moment, they only list Old Man’s War and Zoe’s Tale.)
The eReader app for the iPhone, which will handle Secure eReader files but not Secure Mobipocket, works quite well and already has a bunch of my previously purchased ebooks loaded into it.
[1] It looks like all of the Macmillan-published books that Fictionwise carries are only available in Secure Mobipocket. I won’t buy any of them, since the only thing I have that’ll run Mobipocket Reader is my old Palm TX, which I’m trying to retire. If they were in eReader format, or non-DRM Mobipocket format a la Baen, it’d be different.
It’s too bad it costs so much.
I read the entire Honor Harrington series as ebooks from Baen … but all were $6 or less. Paperback price.
I have no fundamental problem with DRM.DRM can be taken care of.
What I do have a problem with is paying hardcover prices for something that costs only server maintenance to reproduce.
The final decision as to whether I’d pay a high ebook price or not is what percentage of that goes to the author? Since there’s zero materials cost and little to no distribution cost it’s almost all profit. If the author gets most of that profit I’d happily pay for a good story.
Do you (John Scalzi) get more money per unit from ebook sales than normal sales?
I’d have to check my contract about that. I think it’s all pretty much the same in the long run.
I can’t decide if I hate you or Kindle or both. I have been a whatever reader for many months. Finally decided to try one of your books (even though Sci-Fi isn’t normally my genre). I purchased “Old Man’s War” on Kindle last night and then did not sleep AT ALL because I could not put it down. Deciding it really should be “lights out” I sat the Kindle aside only to pick it up again when I COULD NOT SLEEP AT ALL WONDERING WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!
Good news is that I did not feel “worthy” to comment on your blog when I had not even read any of your books. Well, that line has now been crossed.
Great book, by the way. I will be “kindling” more. Just not at bedtime!
I say a hearty YES to eBooks. But only in PDF or HTML (or, of course, good old Text).
I use my Zaurus PDA to read them, and man, is it nice. You can carry TONS of books with you, and if publishers are nice (*cough cough* Tor’s free ebooks *cough cough* Baen’s entire library*coughcough*) they are quite pleasurable to read.
DRM is bad, of course, but soon enough publishers will learn that no DRM is unbreakable, and they only hurt themselves in the long run.
When I, for example, buy the DRM’d LIT or Mobipocket version of a book, it takes approximately 5 seconds to convert it to nonDRMed PDF, HTML, or RTF, which I can read anytime, anywhere, on all kinds of platforms.
And, of course, eBook readers open up Project Gutenberg’s archives in all kinds of good ways.
Ghost Brigades, at least, is published in the UK by Tor UK and is also available directly from the publisher’s website (http://tinyurl.com/panebooks) without DRM, as are all the UK Pan Macmillan ebooks *if* purchased directly from that website. If purchased anywhere else, they have DRM.
Get with the revolution, Scalzi:
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/sony-reader-revolution-campaign/
Although I’d wait to see what they announce on Oct 2.
(I’d include that link but promptly wind up in the spam filter, if this single link doesn’t already do that. My blog has Search. “Confirmed! New Sony Reader October 2008” is the title.)