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.

Cryoburn (Miles Vorkosigan) $16.50 Miles Vorkosigan is back! Kibou-daini is a planet obsessed with cheating death. Barrayaran Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan can hardly disapprove—he’s been cheating death his whole life, on the theory that turnabout is fair play. But when a Kibou-daini cryocorp—an immortal company whose job it is to shepherd its all-too-mortal frozen patrons into an unknown future…

Mission of Honor (Honor Harrington, Book 12) $12.15 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 …

What Distant Deeps (Lt. Leary) $16.50 NO REST FOR THE WEARY Captain Daniel Leary and his friend, the spy Adele Mundy, have been in the front lines of Cinnabar’s struggle against the totalitarian Alliance. Now these galactic superpowers have signed a peace of mutual exhaustion– But the jackals are moving in! The Republic of Cinnabar was on the verge of collapse under the weight of taxes, casualties, an…

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, 24×36 $2.61 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 Stormtroopers Empire Art Poster Print $1.46 All 3 Posters Measure: 22″ x 34″ inches Series & Type: Wall PosterCondition: Mint – This is a brand new item.Additional Products: This is just one of the many posters we have to offer….

Doctor Who – Dalek LED 3 Phrase Topper Alarm Clock $17.99 Exterminate sleep and wake up to Dr Who Dalek alarm LED lights & sounds Dalek wake up bedside alarm clock. Emits 4 phrases including “Exterminate”, “You are an enemy of the Daleks, “You must be destroyed” & “You would make a good Dalek” Requires 3 x AAA (Batteries not included)…

Repo! The Genetic Opera $6.99 Likening Repo! The Genetic Opera to its predecessors, Little Shop of Horrors and Rocky Horror Picture Show, conveys this film’s high camp and operatic bursts of song, but does little to describe how absolutely bizarre Repo! is. Like Rocky Horror, Repo! was written for stage performance by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich, who stars as a Graverobber, dolled up in vampiric makeup to resemble…

Labyrinth [Blu-ray] $12.97 Sarah (a teenage Jennifer Connelly) rehearses the role of a fairy-tale queen, performing for her stuffed animals. She is about to discover that the time has come to leave her childhood behind. In real life she has to baby-sit her brother and contend with parents who don’t understand her at all. Her petulance leads her to call the goblins to take the baby away, but when they actually do, she realiz…

Baby Einstein: Baby Neptune – Discovering Water $13.48 Set to classical music, babies are introduced to all aspects of water in their world from bath time to seas, rivers and lakes….

Luminglas 16 Triangle Shape Plasma Illumination Display Set Single Color BLUE Contemporary Luminglass Disk/Disc Night Light (170) $69.95 Luminglas is an interactive, kinetic lighting display that combines the long life and vibrant colors used in neon with the animation and interactivity of a plasma globe-all sealed into a customizable plate glass display. The display is powered by a low-voltage power supply that runs off of a UL-listed 12V wall transformer. The speed of motion of the display is fully adjustable and can be sound-in…

Apex [VHS] $9.98 …

Star Wars Episode 1 – 18 Mylar Balloon This everyday balloon would look great in a Star Wars or Sci-Fi themed party. Create a bouquet and make lasting memorries with this balloon. The balloon comes uninflated….

Harry Potter Deluxe Party Kit for 8 $29.99 The Harry Potter Deluxe Party Kit includes- 8 9 inch Dinner Plates- 8 7 inch Dessert Plates- 8 9 oz. Paper Cups- 16 Lunch Napkins- 8 Invitations with envelopes- 24 Piece Black Cutlery Set*- 8 Forks 8 Spoons 8 Knives- 24 Black Cake Candles*- 1 Plastic Tablecover- 18 12 inch Latex Balloons*- 6 each- Radiant Gold- Pitch Black and Bright Orange- 1 18 inch Harry Potter Foil Balloon with balloon cup* an…

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.”A Book of Blogs? WTF!!Sarah Boxer, a former New York Ti…

Cyberspaces Of Their Own: Female Fandoms Online (Digital Formations, V. 25) $26.95 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 links betwe…

Oxford Literacy Web Non-Fiction Year 5 Guided Reading Cards-Communications: Web Guided Reading These time-saving laminated cards provide teaching ideas for using Year 5 Web Non-Fiction Communication books for guided reading in the Literacy Hour. They highlight key teaching points and learning objectives at text, sentence, and word level, and give strategies for teaching guided reading using the series. The full NLS range is covered and assessment suggestions are given….

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

The History of English Literature (Naxos AudioBooks Histories series) $16.37 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….

Winter’s Heart (The Wheel of Time, Book 9) $69.95 Is Robert Jordan still doing the Light’s work? Even loyal fans have to wonder. (And if you’re not a fan yet, you’ll have to read the previous 6,789 pages in this bestselling series to understand what all the fuss is about.) Everyone’s in agreement on the Wheel of Time’s first four or five volumes: They’re topnotch, where-have-you-been-all-my-life epic fantasy, the best in anybody’s memo…

War and Peace (Abridged 4 CDs) $15.05 Tim Pigott-Smith reads Tolstoy’s War and Peace. There are four audio CD’s in a plastic case….

Over 600 Audiobooks on 8 DVD’s from Www.DVDAudiobooks.com …

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

The Rembrandt Affair (Gabriel Allon) $14.00 Determined to sever his ties with the Office, Gabriel Allon has retreated to the windswept cliffs of Cornwall with his beautiful Venetian-born wife, Chiara. But once again his seclusion is interrupted by a visitor from his tangled past: the endearingly eccentric London art dealer Julian Isherwood. As usual, Isherwood has a problem. And it is one only Gabriel can solve.In the ancient English city o…

The Screwtape Letters: First Ever Full-cast Dramatization of the Diabolical Classic (Radio Theatre) $23.14 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…

Great American Stories: Ten Unabridged Classics $17.96 These ten classic stories from four of America’s greatest authors of the 19th and early 20th century were selected for their literary importance as well as their dramatic oral qualities. The stories include Mark Twain’s “The One-Million Pound Bank Note,” “A Visit to Niagara,” and “A Mysterious Visit;” Stephen Crane’s “The Blue Hotel;” Ambrose Bierce’s “The Eyes of the Panther;” and Jack London�…