Now is the Time to Buy a First Generation E-Reader
Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Sony, and many others have recently released large color Android tablets/e-book readers out into the wild. Effectively the third generation of e-book readers, these tablets priced at 150-250$ USD represent the current pinnacle of our e-book world. But I'm not telling you to go buy them. Oh no. The value may be there but the price isn't right and the technology isn't optimum for reading books.
I'm telling you to buy a first generation Kindle, Nook, Kobo, or Sony Pocket e-Reader. Why? Besides all being based on superior e-ink screens that won't kill your eyes for reading, they have each and every one reached that oh so sweet 40-50$ price point on eBay.
Yep! 40-50$. For the same cost of a video game, a night out at the movies, a dinner (a cheap dinner here in Los Angeles), a pair of slacks, or two weeks of Starbucks blended drinks you can have an e-reader. Many first generation e-readers come with Wifi and some come with free 2g internet. Heck buy an extra or two to keep in a drawer at home. Take them on the bus. Take them to the beach or rock climbing. Whip them out at the bus stop or in sketchy neighborhoods. Treat them like a book. And when they are lost or stolen or drop and crack or die as all electronics invariably do, simply pull another from the drawer and move on.
Apparently people are buying my book on the Apple book store
I hadn't logged into my account in some time (I'm registered with so many publishers and sites etc I end up checking them twice a year or something) Turns out people have been buying my books on the Apple book store. That's cool, and an extra little bump in income I wasn't expecting. Not as many sales on Google books though, I wonder if that speaks to the breath of market penetration or perhaps the percentage of book readers per platform. At any rate, I'll try and post up a preview of my fourth book sometime soon.
Want to see more Hacks in Action? Follow me on Google+
I never quite got into Twitter. The value proposition just wasn't there for me and it always seemed like a passing thing. Google+ on the other hand has already given me infinite photo storage, I can put animated gifs in my stream (oh the opportunity for last-frame gif bombs!), and I can choose exactly what messages go out to which subscribers based on circles. So I'm on Google+, and that's where I post a good chunk of my smaller hacks and tidbits of life. Want to know what I've been up to between posts? Curious to see my hacks in action? Want to get a sneak peek at my hacks before they're available to the public? Then you'd better start following me on Google+ hadn't you? Just head over to profiles.google.com/huntergdavis and add me to a circle today! Need an invite to Google+? Just ask!
Splitting It Down The Middle – Book Prices at 4.99 Starting Midnight August 2nd
So after my decision to up my book prices to 9.99, sales dropped by more than 70 percent. While monetarily this made sense, (I am still making more $$ because of the increased royalty), emotionally it doesn't sit well with me. That's potentially hundreds of people that would have bought my books that now will never read them. As my sales numbers for the Smashwords sale were pretty decent, I'm going to split the difference and start selling the books at 4.99. Anyone who bought one at 9.99 will receive an automatic credit to their account through whatever store they purchased from. This shouldn't cost me more than a few hundred bucks in returns, and I am hoping the lower price helps drive the sales back up nearer to the .99c levels. As usual students who can't pay can get a free copy by emailing me.
ALSO -- There are some limited run hardback print editions of Live For Free hitting a few select stores and corner shops near you. If you're interested, or if they sell enough, I can make them available for purchase online without too much trouble. Just let me know!
PLUS -- Live For Free should be hitting the Apple eBook store sometime this week! Ipad/idevice owners keep an eye out for it in the new content section.
My Books 75% off this week for Smashwords Summer Sale!
That's right, to kick off the availability of my books on premium networks they've been added to the Smashwords Summer Sale. You can pick them up till August for 2.50$ apiece, 75% off the list cover price!!
You can view all of my current books which qualify for this promotion at my Smashwords author page here.
eBooks Update – Now Available In More Stores And Countries!
Yep. Due to the continued success of my books after the price increase, I've made them available at more places. You can now preview and purchase Hacks, Distributed Compilers, and Live For Free at new store locations! The permalink pages for each have been updated with all the new info! This will also put these titles on eReaders and in stores all over the world in many new markets. These will all trickle out over the next few weeks, so stay tuned! A few highlights:
- You can now preview, purchase, and rent my books from Google Books in all territories (NO DRM, full copy-paste support).
- Sony eBook Store
- Kobo Store
- Android Market
- Apple and Apple App Store
- Diesel eBook Store
- Scrollmotion eBook Store
- Smashwords eBook Store
Book Prices Rise at Midnight!
People (not just publishers) have been hounding me to up my book prices for some time now. While I'd like to give away everything for free, the current economy has not been good to me as an author. While I have a respectable influx of book sales each month, at 30 cents per book it's not adding up. Every couple of months "Build Your Own Distributed Compiler" will see a quick boost in sales followed by a couple of months lull. Anecdotally, it appears that my compilers guide is helpful to some subset of graduate students. This isn't specific to the Amazon or B&N bookstore either, so I can't really make any inferences as to which school(s) are using it. Along with a few good reviews (and loads of support from other authors), I've decided to up my book prices to the industry standard 9.99. If you purchase any of these books are are not satisfied with the new pricing, send me an email and let me know. I think a tenner is an exceedingly reasonable price for a textbook/guide. As always if you're a student and find yourself unable to pay I'll donate you a copy. I'll even autograph it.
You can see their permalink pages below:
Hacks
Live For Free
Build Your Own Distributed Compilation Cluster
Live For Free Now Available To Purchase Online
As some of you have pointed out to me, the links to the free review copy of my eBook "Life For Free - The Chronicles of a Nerd Saving For A Startup" have gone down. Due to an increase in demand I'm putting Live For Free back into print and it'll be available online at Amazon and Barnes and Nobles stores initially, with more stores to follow if things go well. If any of you have purchased it, please do leave an honest review and rating. It's invaluable for me to know how my books are being accepted as well as for others to know what they are getting into. I'll update the LFF permalink (top-right corner in my WordPress theme) to contain purchase links to various bookstores as it comes up. I've decided to price it at 99c, hoping that it'll be an easy impulse purchase from your Kindle or Nook.
While I remain hard at work at Discursive Labs during my 9-5 (ok maybe closer to 7-7), I have also been working on a follow-up book to LFF in my spare time. It's a bit of a departure, dealing with the consequences of financial independence and a post-exit mindset. I'm thinking of calling it "The Post-Exit Primer, How to Live Like You're The CEO Today". Kind of a wordy title, and like LFF it'll probably change a few times. Also, I've been thinking about collecting some of my technical writing and putting that into its own eBook. Let me know your feelings on that, and thanks for your continued support.
Update - Barnes and Nobles product page has gone live already
This is the title page and cover for my eBook Live For Free