Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

The free sample is a tried-and-true marketing device, and it is essential for online book selling. To give away a book’s content may seem counterproductive to selling the book, but as charities like to say, there are many levels of giving. Online book marketing does not mean standing on the street corner passing out bound copies, but it definitely should include a free download of a book excerpt or sometimes even the whole book.

The public and publishers have been reportedly underwhelmed by ebooks, but the fact is that people do look at ebooks and sometimes even buy them. A free digital version of a book excerpt at an author’s or publisher’s website can draw readers in and convert some of them to buyers.

Let’s forget the internet for a moment and look at the traditional ways people are motivated to buy a book.

1. A person has had a book recommended by a relative or acquaintance.
2. A person has heard about a book in a media report or author interview and decided it was interesting.
3. A person enters a bookstore and looks at a book, scanning the table of contents, reading the first chapter, and skimming other chapters.

The first two points above can easily apply to an online book marketing website. A person has been motivated to visit the book’s website by word-of-mouth or marketing. However, if the website does not offer an ebook excerpt, then the experience of entering the bookstore and actually looking at the book cannot be replicated.

Science fiction writer Cory Doctorow has become well known for giving away his novels as free ebooks and thereby generating more print sales. Doctorow reports that the free ebooks let readers get interested in his stories and then they often decide to buy the print format. This happens because most people prefer to read book-length works as books.

Another example of successful book marketing with free ebooks is Baen Books, a science fiction publisher. Baen Books has included its free library at its website for years. Because many of its publications are fiction series, free ebook downloads of selected titles have helped spur sales and keep the Baen backlist going. Once again the principle has been to focus on letting a potential customer look at the book instead of fretting over piracy.

Even nonfiction titles benefit from offering an online digital portion of the book. Unlike fiction, which does not seem to be hurt by offering the entire book as a free ebook, only an excerpt of a nonfiction book would be appropriate. Giving away every bit of an author’s valuable research and experience could be harmful because nonfiction readers are often just looking for a few important facts and may not even need to read the whole book. For nonfiction, a meaty excerpt that is illustrative of the book’s quality is appropriate online as a free sample. It will allow the reader to judge the book and then perhaps purchase it. Exceptions to only providing an excerpt of a nonfiction book would be a memoir or biography. Those kinds of books are meant to be read in their entireties and a free ebook could generate interest and drive print sales.

As an online book marketer, you should not have a knee-jerk reaction against using a free ebook as a marketing strategy. At a minimum, an online excerpt is necessary and there is no evidence of harm. Most visitors to a book’s online sales page are book buyers and their reasonable desire to have a look at the product needs to be satisfied. Many software vendors have been giving out free trials for years and the software industry has not collapsed.

An example of a website with a free ebook is at Brave Luck Books. You can see how author Tracy Falbe set up her free fantasy ebook marketing. Tracy Falbe is the author of the well-reviewed fantasy fiction series The Rys Chronicles.

Mission Of Honor (Honor Harrington Series) $17.82 The Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Republic of Haven have been enemies for Honor Harrington's entire life, and she has paid a price for the victories she's achieved in that conflict. And now the unstoppable juggernaut of the mighty Solarian League is on a collision course with Manticore. The millions who have already died may have been only a foretaste of the billions of casualties just over th...

Bound In Blood (Seeker) $9.97 The long-awaited fifth novel in P. C. Hodgell's acclaimed fantasy adventure series....

Live Free Or Die (Troy Rising) $14.79 Beginning a new military science fiction series by a New York Times bestselling author John Ringo....

Science-fiction novels are generally based on imagined or actual scientific discoveries. The creation of self-aware robots, space travel, the discovery of other intelligent beings in space are some the common subjects for science fiction. English novelist Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) is often considered as one of the precursors to science-fiction novels. The novel is the story of a doctor who constructs an artificial man making use of body parts.

Influence on the Science Fiction:

H. G. Wells, in the late 1800s, served as a great influence on science fiction. He gave thrilling novels like The Time Machine (1895), a tale about a man who travels forward in time; The Invisible Man (1897), a story about a man who invisible; and The War of the Worlds (1898), about a Martian invasion of Earth.

In the early 20th century, the best science fiction was written and published in magazines. In mid-century, some authors revived the genre in the novel form. They were Stanislaw Lem (Solaris, 1961; translated 1970) and Isaac Asimov (The Foundation Trilogy, 1951-1953), and Ursula K. Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness, 1969).

Cyberpunk Authors:

In the early 21st century, one movement in science-fiction novels came on the surface called cyberpunk. The authors of cyberpunk constructed action-oriented plots and featured hardcore scientific technology in their novels. Some of the major cyberpunk writers were Pat Cadigan, John Shirley, William Gibson, and Bruce Sterling.

Humanist Writers:

There are some science-fiction novelists, also known as so-called humanist writers. They focus on characterization and pay little attention to scientific developments. These humanist writers are Orson Scott Card, Ian Watson, and Vonda McIntyre. Other science-fiction novelists like Terry Brooks, Brian Aldiss, Arthur C. Clarke, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Michael Moorcock are also the influential writres.

Rakesh Patel is an aspiring poet, freelance writer, self-published author and teacher. Read his blog http://typesofpoetry99.blogspot.com

Star Wars Trilogy Entertainment Poster Print, 24x36 $2.50 AllPosters.com is the world's #1 seller of posters, prints, photographs, specialty products and framed art. We're dedicated to bringing our customers the best selection of high quality wall décor that is perfect for their home or office. Browse our catalog of over 300,000 items that include entertainment and specialty posters, decorative prints, and art reproductions. Whether you're looking for y...

Star Wars Trilogy Poster Print, 24x36 $6.95 AllPosters.com is the world's #1 seller of posters, prints, photographs, specialty products and framed art. We're dedicated to bringing our customers the best selection of high quality wall décor that is perfect for their home or office. Browse our catalog of over 300,000 items that include entertainment and specialty posters, decorative prints, and art reproductions. Whether you're looking for y...

Star Wars - Clone Wars Entertainment Poster Print, 36x24 $7.00 AllPosters.com is the world's #1 seller of posters, prints, photographs, specialty products and framed art. We're dedicated to bringing our customers the best selection of high quality wall décor that is perfect for their home or office. Browse our catalog of over 300,000 items that include entertainment and specialty posters, decorative prints, and art reproductions. Whether you're looking for y...

Space Buddies $4.99 Studio: Buena Vista Home Video Release Date: 02/03/2009...

Terminator 2: Judgment Day $14.50 After he pushed the envelope of computer-generated special effects in The Abyss, director James Cameron turned this hotly anticipated sequel to Terminator into a well-written, action-packed showcase for advanced special effects and for one of the most invincible villains ever imagined. Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a legitimate sequel: there's more story to tell about a hulking, leather-clad andro...

Godzilla - The Original Animated Series, Vol. 3 $4.33 Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 10/02/2007 Run time: 113 minutes...

Star Wars Trilogy [VHS] $8.94 The Star Wars trilogy had the rare distinction of becoming more than just a series of movies, but a cultural phenomenon, a life-defining event for its generation. On its surface, George Lucas's original 1977 film is a rollicking and humorous space fantasy that owes debts to more influences than one can count on two hands, but filmgoers became entranced by its basic struggle of good vs. evil "a lo...

Star Wars - Episode I, The Phantom Menace [VHS] $1.45 "I have a bad feeling about this," says the young Obi-Wan Kenobi (played by Ewan McGregor) in Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace as he steps off a spaceship and into the most anticipated cinematic event... well, ever. He might as well be speaking for the legions of fans of the original episodes in the Star Wars saga who can't help but secretly ask themselves: Sure, this is Star Wars, bu...

E.T. (VHS Tape) $0.40 Classic sci-fi film! Never goes out of style!...

Ramsey TFM3C Tri Field Meter and Ghost Detector Kit $74.95 Call it a Tri-Field Meter, an Electrical, Magnetic, and RF Detector, a Ghost Detector, or a Tricorder that even Mr. Spock would like, but what ever you call it, it works great to detect all three invisible fields! The TFM3C has three separate field sensors that are user selectable to provide a really cool readout on two highly graphical LED bargraphs! Utilizing the latest technology, including H...

Close your eyes and imagine you’re on a beach straight out of one of those rum adverts. You’re in a tropical paradise surrounded by sun, sea and sand. You stretch out on your towel, liberally applying suntan lotion and reach into your bag for a good read. Out comes something the shape and size of a hardback, but instead of pages it has a screen.

You idly page through the scores of novels you downloaded from the Net before you came on holiday. And you idly rub your shoulder, reflecting on all the weight you didn’t have to lug through the airport because you weren’t carrying 20 different books. You select John Grisham’s latest lawyer tale, roll over on your front and begin to read. Five minutes later, thoroughly bored by legal blandness, you flip over to some Scottish swearing courtesy of Irvine Welsh. That’s better. Not so much a page turner as a real screen scroller…

This is the reading utopia promised by the en masse arrival of ebooks, heralded as the greatest revolution since the advent of the paperback. Most online book sellers enable you to download books or periodicals from the Net for a fee. They offer illuminated screens for night time reading and the ability to bookmark pages, make notes in the margin and search the complete text. No more pencil scribbles or dog-eared pages. Most are in Abobe’s PDF (Acrobat) format.

Already some of you will be squirming in your seats. Reading novels off a screen? Ridiculous. Who’d want to take a glorified laptop to the beach or in bed with them when they want a good read? The idea of reading a novel by Dickens from a screen is mad.

Maybe. But there’s a distinct method in the madness of the ebook manufacturers. The reason why they have emerged, is the ever increasing prevalence of the Net. Reading has become sexy again, thanks to the Web which, despite all the whiz-bang grooviness of animations and streaming audio, still remains a medium primarily of text and pictures.

People who complain about children not reading books forget that they’re spending an increasing amount of time online, reading Web pages, sending email and using search engines, all of which develop literacy. Thanks to the Net, more and more people are becoming used to the idea of reading from a screen, and computer monitors have come on in leaps and bounds in the last few years.

As such, the arrival of the ebook is the natural extension of this secret love affair with the screen. It’s easy to see why the ebook manufacturers are initially targeting students, academics and business people as their main audiences.

There’s also a distinct similarity between paperless books and the MP3 music format. Both technologies revolve around a different perspective of books and records. While we’re currently used to the idea of a record or book containing a particular chunk of information, technology is changing this.

The ebook and MP3 are moving towards the concept of the book and music player as simply containers for content, whether it’s literary or musical. You buy the device, then plug in only the titles or tracks you want.

Save trees, hug an ebook.

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Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web (Vintage Original) $2.00 “What are you working on?”“An anthology of blogs.”“I didn’t know you had a blog.”“I don’t. It’s an anthology of other people’s blogs.” “How do you find good blogs?”“I read. I surf. I look at blog contests. I follow links. I ask people about the blogs they like.” “Is a good blog hard to find?”“Yes. Very.�...

Cyberspaces Of Their Own: Female Fandoms Online (Digital Formations, V. 25) $19.95 Cyberspaces of Their Own interrogates the social and spatial relations of the rapidly expanding virtual terrain of media fandom. For the first time, issues of identity, community and space are brought together in this in-depth ethnographic study of two female internet communities. Members are fans of the American television series The X- Files and the Canadian series Due South. Forging link...

Oxford Literacy Web: Fiction: Variety: Stage 5 Pack A: Pack (1 of Each Title) $33.48 Variety books provide a support and an extension of reading skills acquired from reading Duck Green School Stories. They are divided into consolidation stories and extension stories. They cover a wide range of genres, authors and writing styles....

First a little about me. I drive a truck for a living, picking up and delivering refrigerated freight all over the lower 48 states. Driving 8 to 11 hour per day gets very tedious. It is not boring as there is always some thing or some one getting crazy to keep you on your toes. I own well over 150 audio books, mostly Graphic Audio format. The Graphic Audio format I refer to is basically every thing that a move has except the picture. That is to say they include sound effects.

Ok, now for the book, Rogue Angel number 1 Destiny. The heroine in this book is Annja Creed an archaeologist and researcher for a TV show Chasing History Monsters. Through a twist of fate she finds herself heir to Joan of Arc’s mystic sword. She finds herself involved in countless adventures involving ancient treasures all over the globe.

Even though this series of books, currently up to #14, is action adventure. The author keeps a historic base through out the stories. The stories are fiction with enough reality to be believable. The author keeps you guessing what is going to happen next. The historic references are real, sometimes mythology although some would say that is historic also.

This is not a super hero type book, as Annja is not sure she believes that the sword she now has is real or not.

The main character has the same daily problems as everyone else. She lives in a loft apartment in New York City, and lives on a budget like normal people do. Her boyfriend is a NYC cop, he is unaware of her ability with Joan of Arc’s sword.

A simple drivers review of audio books I like and a day to day diary of my travels/job. I drive in all of the lower 48 states. I have been married for 38 years to a wonderful East Texas girl. We live in East Texas, the company I work for is in Mississippi. I am a Vietnam vet. I served 7 years in the Army (First Calvary Division 1/7 Calvary). I am what Rednecks call a Jack of all Trades but a Master of none.

http://www.travelingaudio.blogspot.com

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The History of English Literature (Naxos AudioBooks Histories series) $20.26 Perry Keenlyside tells the remarkable story of the world's richest literary resource. The book covers the story-telling, the poetry, the growth of the novel and the great histories and essays which have informed the language and the imagination wherever English is spoken....

War and Peace (Abridged 4 CDs) $16.47 Tim Pigott-Smith reads Tolstoy's War and Peace. There are four audio CD's in a plastic case....

Ulysses (Naxos AudioBooks) $89.69 "Ulysses" is one of the greatest literary works in the English language. In his remarkable tour de force, Joyce catalogues one day - June 16, 1904 - in immense detail as Leopold Bloom wanders through Dublin, talking, observing, musing and always remembering Molly, his passionate, wayward wife. Set in the shadow of Homer's "Odyssey" and internal thoughts, Joyce's famous stream of consciousness give...

Fantasy in Death $24.26 Bart Minnock, founder of the computer gaming giant U-Play, enters his private room, and eagerly can’t wait to lose himself in an imaginary world, to take on the role of a sword-wielding warrior king, in his company’s latest top-secret project, Fantastical.The next morning, he is found in the same locked room, in a pool of blood, his head separated from his body. It is the most puzzling c...

The Screwtape Letters: First Ever Full-cast Dramatization of the Diabolical Classic (Radio Theatre) $23.99 From the award-winning audio drama team that brought you Radio Theatre’s Amazing Grace and The Chronicles of Narnia. In his enduringly popular masterpiece The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis re-imagines Hell as a gruesome bureaucracy. With spiritual insight and wry wit, Lewis suggests that demons, laboring in a vast enterprise, have horribly recognizable human attributes: competition, greed, a...

Magic Tree House: Books 29-32: #29 Christmas in Camelot; #30 Haunted Castle on Hallow's Eve; #31 Summer of the Sea Serpent; #32 Winter of the Ice Wizard $16.95 Christmas in CamelotIt begins with a simple invitation to spend Christmas Eve in Camelot, a magical place that exists only in myth and fantasy. What Jack and Annie don’t know is that the invitation will send them on a quest to save Camelot itself — not from destruction, but from being forgotten forever.Haunted Castle on Hallow’s Eve The castle looms dark against the light of the moo...

Best of Jack London $29.95 BEST OF JACK LONDON (AUDIOBOOK) (AUDIO BOOK)...