

Free e-copy of Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice - renai42
http://www.keepingthedoor.com/2009/08/16/free-copy-of-assassins-apprentice-last-chance/

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KirinDave
I actually got "Assassin's Apprentice" for free via Kindle (which is still
available: [http://www.amazon.com/Assassins-Apprentice-
ebook/dp/B000FBFM...](http://www.amazon.com/Assassins-Apprentice-
ebook/dp/B000FBFMG6)). The book was great, and touched off a whirlwind reading
of the whole trilogy.

Great series, but the ending was really depressing even though it was pretty
clear what would happen to the main character from book one onward.

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runevault
Did you read the Fool's trilogy? It's a continuation of the story and also
very good.

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patio11
The Baan Free Library once gave away books from the Honor Harrington series, a
decision which made them at least $100 from me. I can't understand why they
don't do it more often. Well, OK, I know the reasons (contractual/rights
issues, mostly) but the businessman in me says screw the reasons and get it
done.

There is zero marginal cost to distributing the back lists. The core customer
for these products grows to like a character/author/series and then is hooked,
producing a LTV upwards of a hundred dollars. Lifetime profit is lower because
_cough_ publishing sucks, but the sales generated by most of the back catalog
are miniscule anyway.

They should just get the lawyers involved and start renegotiating contracts on
an industrial scale. Hello, Author #147. You own 19 books with us, each
covered by a separate contract. We are offering you a one-time no-negotiation
deal: license us perpetual electronic reprint rights on book #1. We will use
it to market your other books. We may inform you of particular promotions and
details as a courtesy, but might not have the time, make sure to check our
blog.

If you agree to this deal, we will establish a baseline for how many sales you
had on books #2 through #19 last year. Your royalty on all sales above the
baseline triples. Help us help you.

If not, firm handshake and move on to the next author. The publishers will get
returns with scale more than anything else.

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jamie_ca
It's too bad they're PDFs, I'd love to get ePubs without needing to run them
through Calibre and then hand-tweaking them.

Or, scratch that. Calibre is sucking on these ones.

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jedediah
Have a look at the links they provide... One can get the book in a variety of
formats through different stores. For instance, I got a few of these books for
free via the Sony Store today.

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dave_au
Free e-copy of Red Mars at the same link.

I've got the series in dead tree form already, but may as well grab it while
it's there.

