Archive for the ‘Reading’ Category
Overclocked
Cory Doctorow has written an excellent sci-fi short story anthology titled Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present. All of the stories (particularly After the Siege) are excellent and available in a variety of formats free of charge from the Overclocked site.
Noticing that there was no way to download the entire book as one file, I had Matt merge the HTML versions together into one document. Then, I cleaned up the formatting, added a table of contents and some polish, and turned it into a Mobipocket/Amazon Kindle compatible file. It’s available for download here.
Writing is thinking on paper
I know I’ve been raving about the Kindle, but I had to mention Amazon’s Digital Text Platform. It’s a remarkably easy way to get just about anything published in the Kindle Store with a little formatting work on your end. You get a 35% cut of the original retail price you set (even if Amazon discounts it later), which is excellent considering there are no upfront costs to get into the system.
What a great way for unknown writers to get out into the marketplace!
Ebooks for free (as in beer)
There’s a company out there called WOWIO that lets you download three e-books from their catalogue per day. Ernst and Young sponsors the site, there’s a decent selection, and everything comes in .PDF format. I’d prefer something more portable, like the mobiPocket .MOBI format, but I’m not complaining. I got Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, a copy of Brave New World, and a book on Legends and Myths of the World.
You need to provide some proof of identity when you register, be it a non-anonymous email, a credit card number, or an ID scan.
eBook Reading Goes Mainstream
Amazon.com announced their wireless reading device, Kindle, this morning. It’s in direct competition with the Sony Reader, same electronic paper screen and all. While the Sony Reader is cheaper, the books are more expensive than Amazon.com’s selection and there aren’t as many books to choose from. The Kindle also has free EVDO wireless connectivity (by Sprint) included with the device, so you don’t need a computer to do your book shopping. Newspaper and magazine subscriptions can also be purchased, and Wikipedia access is integrated into the system software.
I think that the $399.99 asking price is its largest flaw so far. We’ll see how it sells over the holiday season!