Sunborn is a book, available in fine stores everywhere! Yay! I even have copies myself! By a wonderful fluke, the case I ordered for the upcoming book signing at the Menotomy Beer and Wine store (see earlier post) arrived on my doorstep today. So I get to see it, too! (This may sound odd, but usually the writer is the last to get copies. Well, sometimes the editor is last, and the writer is second to last. Indeed, there’s no telling when my regular “author’s comp copies” will arrive.)
Order now from: If you’d like to read before you buy, here’s the deal on downloads. I’ve put up a regular PDF version for free download. This will look nice on your computer (but probably not so great on your small device). In addition, I’m offering anyone who buys the hardcover a free ebook in other ebook formats, straight from me! Buy the book from me or from any store—and just send me proof of purchase of any kind. Details are on my downloads page.
I don’t quite have the ebook ready at this moment. I’ve been untangling the formatting on Tor’s typesetting file, which required a somewhat messy Quark to Word conversion. That’s just about done, and very soon I’ll be able to start converting it into the formats that ebook readers prefer.
The long wait is over!
Anonymous
I’ve started reading Sunborn and i’m glad I not only re-read the previous three chaos books but before that “From A Changeling Star” and “Down The Stream Of Stars”. After all there seems to be some connection between those two and Sunborn, Jeaves at the very least and of course the whole concept of sentient stars. Basically over the past two or three months all my recreational reading has been in your universe Jeff!
-tsmacro (Marco)
Jeffrey A. Carver
Cool! Makes me feel a sense of responsibility, if you’re spending that much time in my universe.
You are correct about the Starstream books connecting with the Chaos books. Big time. The starstream itself comes into major play in The Reefs of Time.
Jeffrey A. Carver
Oh–I forgot to mention in the original post–if you want a proper ebook version of Sunborn but you don’t want to buy the hardcover, Tor will be releasing their own multi-format ebook edition. I can’t tell you when, though, because I don’t know, nor do I know the price.
You could always buy the hardcover as a gift for someone else, and get the ebook from me. 🙂
Charlza
From a Changeling Star and Down The Stream of Stars were 2 of the first non Star Trek books I read when I started moving away from Star Trek eons ago.
I read about 35 pages yesterday and and am looking forward to my coffee shop time next door this weekend.
substandardTim
i’m so conflicted. i own the first three books but here you are offering a digital download for free. I’m the type of person that never reads a book more than once so if I download it then I’ll never buy it.
Also PDF books look just fine on my smartphone. It has the ability to change the view to “wordwrap” and then it looks just like any other text. That is where I do all of my non-fiction reading but I do prefer physical books for fiction so I’m not sure what I’m going to do.
Glad to see it finally released, I had lost all track of time and didn’t even realize it had come out.
Jeffrey A. Carver
Enjoy your coffeshop, Charlza! 🙂
Tim, don’t worry, whatever you do is fine. I know putting it up for free means some people will read it for free and that will be it. I’m just hoping that more people will decide either a) they want to own it, or b) they want to get a copy for someone else. I always suggest that latter option for people on the fence. 🙂
I would be interested in hearing whether or not you can, in fact, read this PDF on your smartphone. Someone reported to me that it did not view well on his Cybook. When I tested it on my desktop Adobe Reader, I couldn’t make the text reflow for different sizes, and usually if it’ll reflow anywhere it’ll reflow there. (But…hm, that’s interesting; I just tried it on my laptop, and it did reflow for me there. I wonder what the difference is.)
First book signing is tonight, at UMass Lowell.
substandardTim
yep looks just fine on my phone. I downloaded it just to test for you. Haven’t decided whether or not to read it on there though.
Jeffrey A. Carver
Thanks, Tim. That’s useful to me to know.
Web stats seem to indicate over 3000 downloads of the PDF in two days!
substandardTim
many musicians have recently started a trend where people can either email their friends about the band and download an album for free or they can pay whatever amount they feel like for the album. A setup like that would still give people the ability to get your book for free while still either getting your name out there more or garnering you some money. Though I confess I don’t know how to set these things up. noisetrade.com is a good example if you’d like to see what I’m talking about.
I’m still hoping that one day you will make your writing course into a pdf. And incidentally not only do I do a good amount of reading on my phone I also write all of the articles on my website and am 3chapters into a novel with it by pairing it with a bluetooth keyboard.
Jeffrey A. Carver
I’m sort of doing that already, Tim, with the Paypal donation button on my downloads page. A fair number of people have donated, some quite generously. Most people don’t. It’s brought in a few hundred dollars since I started the downloads. The main reason I opted not to make the full spectrum of ebook formats available for free on Sunborn is that I didn’t want to undercut Tor’s forthcoming ebook release. But I think Tor and I would both pick a hardcover sale over an ebook sale, if we had to choose.
substandardTim
From a financial standpoint I would think it would be the other way around because there are no material costs involved with digital books but from an author standpoint I can see wanting to have physical books. It gives you the sense that it’s something tangible that will live on for many years.
Liz
Is there a standard rate that would seem fair to you for the PDF version? I ask because I do my reading on my laptop whenever possible and don’t mind the PDF format.
I do, however, have chemical sensitivities that make it difficult to read a lot of physical books (without hanging them out in the gazebo rafters to air out for six months first). I’d hate to actually buy a hardcover copy, not only because they’re too expensive, because it often gets tossed when I manage to snag a PDF version.
Charlza
I finished Sunborn on Tuesday night while watching the U.S. Presidential election returns.
All in all, I really liked it. The second half was a real page turner that kept me up late several nights. *grumble* Hah!
I’ve added the mini-review to my booklist: http://tinyurl.com/6hqft6
Jeffrey A. Carver
Thanks for the very nice review, Charlza!
Rivaryn
Back in a used book store, I bought a copy of Neptune Crossing. After reading it, I was hooked and bought the next two books. Since the final page of the third book, I’ve been waiting for the next book. I’ll definitely end up purchasing the book for my collection, but having the PDF available is wonderful! Thank you so much!
Jeffrey A. Carver
You’re welcome! I hope you enjoy it.