I'm off to Seattle in about 36 hours, and will probably be Away From Keyboard for quite some time — possibly up to a week.
In the meantime, John Meaney and Karl Schroeder have kindly agreed to blog here: I'll introduce them tomorrow. You may see some unexpected guest contributions from elsewhere.
Final note: it has come to my attention that Harry Connolly (who you may remember blogged here last year) has a new novel out: Circle of Enemies (Kindle edition). It's the third in an excellent, very dark series of supernatural thrillers, and to spread the word his publishers have put the ebook edition of the first volume, Child of Fire on special offer at $0.99 for a month. (Yes, that link goes to the kindle store.) If you're jonesing for another of my Laundry novels, you could do a hell of a lot worse than read "Child of Fire" — I think you'll like it.
"Kindle Price: $9.65"
I am pretty sick of Amazons international pricing for kindle books.
Oh wow, Karl Schroeder is one of my favorite authors on par with you Charlie, how did you get him on board?
Scored the kindle book, thanks for the tip. Less than a comic. Greg Egan's latest I got last week in Kindle for $3.99. I read my 1st kindle book (Scalzi's "Fuzzy Nation") on an iPad a couple of weekends ago on a trip to NYC, not bad. But, I have so much of Charlie's stuff in hardback that I will keep that up. "Rule 34" in the stack.
Chris
Why didn't Harry Connolly say he had a new book out?!?!?!?!?!
Guess I know what I'm buying tonight.
Oh. It's not out until the end of August. (So that's, what, the Butcher book, the Connolly book, and the Grossman book?)
Connolly's books are great reads. I'm thrilled to hear a new one is coming out soon. I always check his spot on the shelf when I hit the bookstore.
Lars, I'm sorry that non-U.S. versions of Amazon aren't sporting the lower prices. I'm told it has to do with fact that England et al have their own Random House imprints and they are probably not buying into the promotion. That's how I understand it, anyway..
Sean, I conceal info about my upcoming books by putting it up on my blog. :)
Pish. You could have said something here. Shame on you!
One of the biggest problems I have with ebooks is that I don't have a nice bookseller who knows me remind me what's out now.
I've had the next ' Twenty Palaces ' Novel " Circle of Enemies " on pre-order since first mention of its publication ...
" Circle of Enemies: A Twenty Palaces Novel (Paperback) By (author) Harry Connolly
Free worldwide delivery
£3.72 Save £1.24 (24%) RRP £4.96 Free delivery worldwide (to United Kingdom and all these other countries) 57 days to go Pre order Add to wishlist
No short description for Circle of Enemies "
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Circle-Enemies-Harry-Connolly/9780345508911
'No short Description ' ! Well Really ! ..unless, of course, it Defies Description ? Still - only 57 days to wait.
On e books;I'm afraid that I do have trouble reading fiction from a PC screen. Not eyesight difficulties but rather personal preference ..maybe I'll change my mind when I pad 3 is released with a retina screen.:)
The US Apple iTunes book store also has it at the $0.99 price, for those inclined to go that way...
Another thumb up for the Twenty Palaces stuff. Doubly so for the second, which feels remarkably like a guy fighting Mythos critters, but without enough knowledge or bullets.
Apple iBookstore has "Child of Fire" for US$0.99 as well...
These things are actually kind of anti-marketing efforts in terms of their effect on international buyers. Had we never heard of that promotion, we wouldn't have cared and might have bought the book on Charlies recommendation (the one time I did that before, with Lauren Beukes' Moxyland, turned out greuat, after all). But now that I know that an ebook is being sold for USD 0.99, a perfect price for impulse-buying, and yet Amazon (or the publisher) is telling me "neener neener, you have to pay EUR 5.xx, because you live in the wrong country!", I'm actually pissed off.
Region-codes already were a travesty with dvds, but ebooks? Wtf?
The "britain is a different market with different rights" thing doesn't hold for Germany, anyway. Dead tree books are being sold from both publishers here, usually (british and American)
I've recently read and enjoyed 'Lady of Mazes' based on OGH's recommendation, so I look forward to Karl's blogging here.
John Meaney, OTOH, should get back to work on the Ragnarok sequence; that's a series I very much want to read more of :-)
Great picks both, Charlie!
amazon seems to have dropped the price to $6.66 in the uk
Region-codes already were a travesty with dvds, but ebooks? Wtf?
Region codes were there all along in the publishing trade -- it's just that you never noticed them until e-books came along.
Full skinny on territorial rights here, and also here for an explanation of how ebooks are sold. Putting it all together: book publishing rights are sold territorially, my books in particular are sold to different publishers in different territories, and due to boilerplate legalese going back to the 1880s the publishes are required to prevent unauthorized imports. Trying to fix this anomaly is trivially easy: I just need to sell world rights to a single publisher ... who will impose a 30% pay cut, because they won't pay me a bent cent extra for the additional territorial rights.
Beyond the " La, Sirrah ..do you mean to say that He is in Trade?! .. I'm forced to ask ..in the Common Good of readers ..Why Harry's Publishers don't do him in Hard Back ? Of course I will ..in the desperate pursuit of entertainment ..buy the paperback,and indeed have already done so, but given the balance of author reward betwixt paperback and HARD back ...why are Harry's publishers being so Horrid to him?