I got a nice plug from a site called Ereader News Today, which highlights books in the Kindle store. Looks like another good place to keep an eye on ebook deals.
Anyone who’d like to help give me a boost could go there and “like” it, or whatever. (This Facebook “like” business makes me shake my head like some old-timer going, “What are these crazy kids up to now?” I have to admit. But it does seem to help generate a buzz. So if you’re inclined to do that, I’d appreciate the “buzz.”) Thanks!
International readers! You can now buy Sunborn (The Chaos Chronicles #4) in Kindle format outside the U.S.! This has been a long time coming, and it’s mostly my fault, because I didn’t realize for a long time that Tor only had U.S. ebook rights. Anyway, I’ve put a lot of time into trying to make sure everything is right in this ebook version. (If you find any typos, please let me know.)
(Hmm. I just discovered that Tor has a Kindle edition in the German store. That’s a mistake and should be coming down soon, as Tor doesn’t have rights in that geographical area. You should buy the Tor edition in the U.S. and the Starstream version outside the U.S.)
This cover is temporary, by the way, until my crack designer can get to doing a more polished version.
This Starstream edition is DRM-free, and readers of other formats are welcome to convert it to suit their needs. (Calibre is an excellent free program for converting formats and much more.)
An ePub version is coming soon to the Apple store, and that will also be DRM-free.
Let the fireworks begin! It’s July 4th, so I’m taking one-fourth off the price of Dragon Space: A Star Rigger Omnibus, and its fellow star rigger novel, Eternity’s End! The following coupons will get you the discounted prices at Smashwords, where you can download multiple formats, including .mobi for the Kindle and .epub for just about every other reader, including the Nook and Sony. The coupons are good at Smashwords for all of July. You paste them in at checkout.
Many of my fellow Backlist Ebooks authors are also advertising books at great prices. Edit: You can see a list of some of them by clicking Comments under the Smashwords thread here.
I’ve known for a while that folks outside the U.S. have been unable to buy the Sunborn ebook, at least in the Kindle store. All this time, I thought it was a glitch at Tor. Turns out it was a glitch here at the Starrigger Ranch. It seems Tor only holds U.S. ebook rights. This discovery has caused yet another flurry of consternation and ebook production here at Starrigger Central, as I gear up to publish an international edition, for readers in the rest of the world.
This involves several steps:
Preparing the actual ebook. (I can’t just put up the Tor-designed ebook, and I’ve learned a lot about formatting since I put up the free edition, a couple of years ago. So there’s work involved.)
Preparing a cover. My designer, Pat, is booked up until mid-August. I don’t want to wait that long to release the world edition, so we’ll have a temporary cover until then.
Figuring out where to publish it. There’s Amazon.UK and Amazon.DE for the Kindle editions. But the ePub version is trickier, especially if I have to block sales in the U.S. I’m exploring some options right now.
That said, I hope to have it up in a couple of weeks. So if you’re outside the U.S., and you’ve read the first three Chaos books and have been wondering why the hell you can’t buy the fourth, please be patient just a little longer!
If you bought a copy of the ebook of Eternity’s End prior to May 25 or so, you may want to download a fresh copy from wherever you bought it. I discovered, belatedly, that some of the text formatting had gotten lost in the final preparation for this newest ebook edition. Mostly, this consisted of italics that were lost. But there was a lot of it, erratically sprinkled through the book. And because this is a Star Rigger book and communication between riggers is denoted by italics, these was an egregious error that brought quite a tongue-lashing, by me, down on the hapless production people (also me), who then went through the whole blasted book again, comparing the e-text to the printed edition. The production department has promised not to let this happen again. Also, we’re sorry.
I think most stores will allow a fresh download without hassle. But if you have trouble, please drop me a line and tell me where you bought it and in what format, and I’ll get a corrected copy to you right away. You can always reach me at jeff at-thingy starrigger point net.
(If you downloaded the book during the free period prior to this year, your copy shouldn’t have this problem. It was during the reformatting for Smashwords, Kindle, and Nook that the devious little gremlin crept in unnoticed, as gremlins are wont to do.)
My friends at Backlist eBooks have organized another big ebook sale, this time with 50-plus authors participating, and nearly 200 titles discounted—this week only. Genres include Mystery & Suspense, Contemporary Romance, Historical Romance, SF/Fantasy, and more. These are all books from traditionally published authors who have self-republished their backlists as ebooks. Most of their books are low-priced to begin with, but this week, they’ll be even lower. Even though I just had my own special a few weeks ago, I’m participating as well. Go to the Backlist eBooks specials page to see the complete list and get the coupon codes to buy the books at Smashwords. (In most cases, you’ll need to copy and paste the codes from there into the Smashwords shopping cart.)
Edit: An extension of the sale to the Sony store, previously reported here, fell through for complicated reasons. Maybe next time.
I’m sorely tempted myself, even though my e-to-read pile is already causing my virtual shelves to sag.
Yes, there are dragons in them stars. And now, for the first time ever, my two dragon novels—Dragons in the Stars and Dragon Rigger—appear together in one volume, just out in ebook, Dragon Space: A Star Rigger Omnibus. Science fiction with a fantasy dimension! This new book appears under my own imprint, Starstream Publications, in cooperation with E-reads, which publishes the novels separately in ebook form.
Both books were published in paper by Tor, just before I got started with The Chaos Chronicles. The story—set chronologically in the Star Rigger universe sometime after Panglor but before Star Rigger’s Way and Eternity’s End—really started with a short story, “Though All the Mountains Lie Between,” that I wrote for an Orson Scott Card-edited anthology, Dragons of Darkness (though the story actually appeared first in newspaper format in the Science Fiction Times). You can read it here. Dragons in the Stars, which includes the events of that story, recounts the journey of star rigger Jael LeBrae, whose life is changed by an encounter with dragons in the “mountain region” of the hyperspatial Flux that riggers navigate between the stars. With that meeting, Jael becomes caught up in an age-old prophecy claiming that “One from outside” will come and speak her name to a dragon, and in so doing bring upheaval and a new beginning in the dragon realm. Jael has a life to live as a star pilot, but she finds she is bound inextricably to Highwing, the dragon who befriended her and whose life she later holds in her hands.
In the sequel Dragon Rigger, we experience through the dragons’ eyes the war that is tearing the realm apart. For there are more than just dragons here; there are false dragons, and ifflings and false ifflings, and the tormented spirit of a captured rigger. And seeking control of all, there is Tar-skel, the Nail of Strength—a being from beyond the realm who seeks to spin all of the magic of the dragons into a web of power and deceit—encompassing not just the dragon realm, but all of the Flux where the riggers fly, and all of the layers of normal-space that lie beyond. Into this war, Jael must return. If the prophecy is correct, only she can lead the realm out of the impending darkness. But if the prophecy is correct, the price of that victory is her own death.
In their original publication, Dragons in the Stars did very nicely. But Dragon Rigger—a personal favorite of mine!—suffered from a series of distribution and marketing snafus, and never really found its audience. Both have been out of print in paper for many years, but they returned as E-reads ebooks two years ago. This is their first publication in one, low-cost volume—complete with the map that graced the paper editions. I’ve been working on it for months, and I’m delighted to have a new cover design by Pat Ryan, based on the original work from artist Jael (no relation to the protagonist!).
Dragon Space is available right now in the Kindle store, in multiple formats at Smashwords, and is “processing” in the Nook store. Over the next few weeks, it should start showing up in the Apply, Sony, Kobo, and Diesel ebook stores.
Please give it a look, and tell all of your dragon-loving friends!
Dragon Space: A Star Rigger Omnibus:
At Kindle | Smashwords (all-format) | Nook and others (coming) Free excerpts here
What with one thing or another, I never got around to posting my Easter greetings to everyone. So, thinking in a time-travel fashion (ghoststream, as it is called in the still-nascent Reefs of Time), I will now wish all of you Happy Easter! And Happy Passover! And if you don’t celebrate Easter or Passover, and even if you’re allergic to chocolate bunnies, I hope you had a great weekend, anyway.
During the weekend, my Chaos omnibus got a nice featured mention on Spalding’s Racket, the indie-book-oriented blog of writer Nick Spalding. His blog is well worth perusing, if you’re interested in seeing work by some writers you might not know yet.
Family members have been coming and going here. Allysen was gone for two weeks and has returned. Alexandra was home for a week and has left again. Julia was gone for a week and has returned. Talula, our house guest, was here but just left on a trip. Me, I’ve just been settin’ here coughin’ on the pollen and wonderin’ why God or evolution invented allergies, anyway. (But grateful for the Roombas and Scooba.) And wondering, why does our attic smell like mildew? Please tell me we don’t need a new roof. (But I think we probably do.)
Here for your amusement are a few fun pages that appeared recently at Syfy.com:
Edit: That sale is now over. But everything below is still true.
Meanwhile, the prices are coming down on my other books sold through E-reads. It’s taking a while for the price drops to trickle down, but in the Kindle store, you can now get:
Maybe you can show them that lower prices are better! Those prices should appear in all the other stores eventually–I hope sooner rather than later.
Watch for an announcement soon about Dragon Space, my new omnibus of Dragons in the Stars and Dragon Rigger. I recently put the cool map created by Ellisa Mitchell on my website, here. It’s being incorporated into the new ebook, as well. I’m just waiting for the cover art to be finished. I’m very excited about it.
Today I’m the interview subject (Don’t hurt me!) at a blog called Two Ends of the Pen, which is worth looking at if writing interests you at all. (I mean the blog is worth looking at, though I would hope you find my interview interesting, too.) My host at Two Ends is Debra L. Martin, who it turns out is just a stone’s throw down the road from me, at MIT. This one focuses on writing, and also some of the differences between publishing the traditional way, and the indie way. For a look, go to http://twoendsofthepen.blogspot.com/. (Here’s the permanent link.)
Speaking of MIT, my friend and SF colleague Joe Haldeman is scheduled to be interviewed this Thursday on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” with Neal Conan from 3PM to 3:40PM. According to his wife Gay, he’ll be talking about the effect his experience in the Army (and presumably in Vietnam) has had on the rest of his life. Definitely should be worth a listen.
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