Big things are afoot at Tor - major sf publisher goes web2.0

Paul Raven @ 18-02-2008

Tor-Books-logo If you went through last week’s Friday Free Fiction, you’d have noticed me mention Tor Books’ new email newsletter/giveaway program.

As good as that appeared in its own right, it seems much more is in the pipeline at Tor - Simon “Bloggasm” Owens has the scoop on this one, complete with anonymous tip-offs from within the organisation. The Tor site will have simple social networking features in addition to original content (fiction and non-fiction) from authors both on and off the Tor roster.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden confirms the rumours:

“The free digital books are exactly what we say they are: an inducement to get people to pre-register as users and allow us to send them emailed progress reports,” Nielsen Hayden said. “The book-length freebies are a temporary program slated to run from now until when we launch.

Although the site will be ‘giving away’ a lot of content – indeed, all of its content, as we don’t anticipate any part of it being DRMed or paywalled – the core of the site will not be built around a program of free novel giveaways. That said, we reserve the right to give away free digital books any time we think it’s a good idea to do so. (With the cooperation and consent of their authors, naturally.)”

Best go get signed up, if you haven’t already!


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Google to charge for books online?

Paul Raven @ 10-09-2007

Text on the page of a bookWhile there is still no official word from the Big G itself, word on the street seems to suggest that Google will begin charging for full access to texts through its BookSearch service. Given the amount of hassle they’ve been getting from publishers and copyright owners about the Universal Library project, we probably shouldn’t be surprised … but I also expect there’ll be more to the idea than has been initially reported once an official announcement arrives. [Image by Laineys Repertoire]


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Doctorow’s ‘whuffie’ made real

Paul Raven @ 17-07-2007

Via Bruce Sterling comes yet another example of a science fictional idea brought to life - RapLeaf looks to be a nascent incarnation of the ‘whuffie’ reputation economy from Cory Doctorow’s
novel Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom
.


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