Finding Free E-Books
A link to The Man Who Can’t Die is now on the blog Finding Free E-Books, which I’ve put in my links. Already it has generated some traffic for this site, and a few downloads of the PDF file, for which I am grateful. If you are looking for more free E-Books, please go to the site where you will find links to many other authors, as well as info about free downloads from big publishers. The great thing about free E-Books is that it not only cuts out the publisher, but the distributer too. It means for me as an author I only have to spend time writing and posting my books, not printing and mailing them.
Some people will probably argue that without the publishers, the editors, and the agents to vet the material readers risk having to wade through amateur garbage. Well, it all depends on your definition of garbage and amateur, doesn’t it? When you go to a farmer’s market, do you look at those vegetables and think how much better off you’d be if they were washed, waxed and displayed under lights at your local supermarket, after travelling thousands of miles by truck? It is true with free E-Books the reader will have to make more choices, do more searching, but the reward will be literature written without gross anticipation of what the market will bear, literature written out of love of the form by authors who cannot, for whatever reason, spend all of their time on self-promotion. Like any other indie moment (independent production of art is a constant and cyclical phenomenon), low budget or free distribution networks create and allow the eccentricitie and varietie necessarie for a healthy literary culture. Like indie record labels and free music downloads or small galleries in nasty neighborhoods, and cafes and coffee shops with open mikes, free E Books are where the reader will find what’s new and different and in a slightly raw state. They will not be professionally edited. There may be typos. There may be moments where stories go off the rails. You may encounter a shit-smeared screaming psychopath. But you will be entertained, and FOR FREE. And your relationship with the author will be direct.
Below is Chapter 19 of The Last Bender. This too will be available for free download when I am done posting it, some time next summer. After that I will begin serial, free, e-publication of Endangered Species. If you found me, please find others like me. Let’s keep it going.
I do find that some free ebooks are badly written, or there are way too many mistakes, or maybe the story sucks and I quit reading them, but I also find more interesting books to read too. The last publisher book I read was so boringly predictable that I thought I might scream. It reminded me that at least independent ebooks aren’t forcibly shaped to fit a mold, and I think that’s a good thing.
There are some poorly edited and unedited books in the ebook world, it’s true. Editing’s a real skill in the publishing chain, and hopefully will find a way to work within an ebook world. Hugh and the guys at Bookoven (http://bookoven.com/) promise to elevate self/e-publishing to professional ranks, and I think they have the tools and the smarts to help get us there.
I’ll be the last person on the free and foul world to give up on books, but I’m all for the big beary two-armed embrace of a rekindled relationship between writer and reader.
I certainly haven’t given up on USED books. And if they ever decide to start publishing, and keeping in print, midlist fiction again, i might start buying new books again.