In good company, but sold out?

Like many authors these days, I have a “google alert.” This is a nifty service which sends me an email when someone does a search for either Pamela J. Dodd or Trinity on Tylos, and lets me know what that person clicked on after doing the search. My latest alert apprised me that Trinity is now available from The Dungeon Bookstore. Okay, I admit, my first thought was, “Say what? There’s not any BDSM in Trinity!” I touched on that in The Gift Horse, but not in Trinity. However, a visit to the site states: Science Fiction, fantasy, horror, and witch craft/magic books are our main categories, we've also begun to add science fiction dvd's and comic graphic novels.

Some of The Dungeon Bookstore’s other offerings are books I like quite a lot, including the series by Elizabeth Vaughan which begins with Warprize. Indeed, they have titles from Tor, Baen, and Eos, which is top notch content, and I am really glad to be included. Another great aspect of this site is that they offer free shipping, without up-pricing the books. The printer, Pawprints, sells it via Amazon, and they raised the price a dollar, which along with Amazon’s standard shipping price of 3.49 yields a purchase price of $18.48. Ouch.

Unfortunately, the product page lists the book as being sold out. I clicked on a couple of my fellow Whiskey Creek Press author’s titles, they were “sold out” as well. I asked over at the WCP author group, and the webmaster replied that this page just links to the WCP site, and customers are supposed to buy there. That's too bad, huh? I guess I'll always be "sold out" in the Dungeon.

In Memory of Jim Baen

Since I have no idea if any science fiction fans ever read this, I don’t know if you’ll recognize the name Jim Baen. As a publisher, he was one of the more influential people in modern science fiction and fantasy. He died June 28, after having suffered a massive stroke on the 16th.

I didn't know him, although I once met his executive editor, Toni Weisskopf, at a writer’s conference. I am a great fan of Lois McMaster Bujold, whose debut manuscript was picked out of the slush pile by Baen. Through the sort of nurturing along that is rare today, but a trademark of Baen Books, she became a literary star. The Baen imprint is also home to David Weber, John Ringo and many other writers whose work I have enjoyed. Unlike most other publishers, he regularly took on new, unagented authors.

Baen's friend, David Drake, wrote an obituary, which is available online here:
http://david-drake.com/baen.html

Certainly, I hope that his friends and family will be comforted by the knowledge that he made a real difference in the lives of many people who never met him.

Titles and Devices

Hopefully, some of you are interested in trying eBooks. First, how are you going to read an eBook? You’ll need a reading device, and I have experience with two of the top devices: a laptop computer and a PDA. My current computer is an iBook G4, which I’ve had for about 18 months. It replaced a 3 year old Ti Powerbook, so I’ve been in laptop land for a long time. At first, I downloaded books in html format, but with those page breaks and chapter breaks, along with much of the formatting, bite the dust. The thing I like best about this format is you can read fast, due to fairly large type and all you have to do is scroll. As I continued buying eBooks, I switched to Adobe pdf, which preserves much of the publisher’s formatting.

Several months ago, the Whiskey Creek Press author’s group had a thread going about eBook readers and PDA’s, which sounded better than a computer for reading. I did a bit of research and although the dedicated reader was interesting, I bought a “blemished” Palm Tungsten E, at Overstock.com, for $50.00 less than most other vendors were offering their closeouts. The Palm was a natural choice, since the software is Mac friendly, and it will do more than just display my books. The learning curve wasn’t that bad, and I have really enjoyed this device. I have downloaded some of my Adobe pdf titles to it, but I much prefer eReader or Mobipocket formats for reading on this PDA. Some of my older friends say, “How can you see that tiny thing?” but I haven’t had any problems with that aspect. Really, the screen is much brighter and more crisp than my son’s GameBoy. Of course, these same older friends live in a different time period— one where you write checks for small purchases at the local discount store, after driving up in a really long car with a big V-8 engine.

Not all titles I might want to read are available as eBooks, of course, but the selection of available titles is quite good, and the prices range from free to about what you’d pay for a hardcover at Amazon. I don’t buy those at the top end of the price range. The best freebies are found at Baen books. That publisher and many of their authors are forward thinking, and by offering free samples, they are enhancing their image as a publisher and increasing their sales of eBooks and print ones, too. Some Baen hardcover titles include a CD with other titles in eBook formats from the publisher for free. Fictionwise also has freebies, especially short fiction and samples. Another thing I love about Fictionwise is that they seem to like a sale as much as I do! Also, once you’ve purchased a book there, you can download it again, for no additional charge, even if you want a different format. I bought some books from the site in pdf for my laptop, and when I moved to the Palm, I downloaded my favorites again, as PalmDocs. Cool!

There are many sites which sell eBooks on the web, but my favorite ePublishers are Whiskey Creek Press, Wings ePress, and Baen, and I’ve bought books from their sites as well as at Fictionwise. If you can buy books at Amazon or Barnes and Noble online, then you shouldn’t have any trouble purchasing eBooks. If you’re reading this, you own a computer and are online, so you are on the way to sampling eBooks. Once you try them, I think you’ll find something to like.