That’s right. After what for me has been an interminably long period of “hurry up and wait,” I woke up this morning to discover that our very first Pyr Kindle books have miraculously appeared. Five titles are available for download in the Kindle store. Oddly, it contains a second book in a series and a third book in a series, but I think these are just the first few to appear. There are a lot more coming in back of this, and the conversion process is on Amazon’s end, so I expect we’ll see more pop up in the near future as they get to them (and I’ll report here as I see them.) Meanwhile, many will be happy to learn that the often-requested Infoquake is in this first list of offerings.
The books:
Going Under (Quantum Gravity, Book 3)
Very nice. I have FF2 in trade form, it will be good to get FF1 for Kindle and transport it around easily. Maybe now I'll also get a chance to finish Infoquake (took it out of the library, got about halfway through before I had to bring it back, been meaning to buy it ever since).
I think Infoquake is going to do very well on the Kindle by its very nature. Also, we got a lot of requests for that one in ebook form.
Oh, yay! I've been really excited for this. Now to go fire up the horseless library…
Well, you got one sale right now, I just popped over and purchased Infoquake. Now I only have to figure out where I left off…
Thanks for leaving us non-Kindle owners out. Way to go, Pyr.
I don't have a Kindle and I don't have an iPod. There are other good devices out there that some of us prefer to them.
:grumpy:
Janice, we're in talks with two other platforms, it's just that there are a lot of hoops to jump through, both contractual and technical. Kindle has appeared first, but you'll see other formats eventually. I'm hopeful fictionwise will be next.
Rene, you are cracking me up.
Christian, much appreciated.
Why not the first Starship book. What sense does it make to start with the second?
None. Nor any sense to start with the third Quantum Gravity book. That's all on Amazon's end. We authorized them to begin conversion on a large number of Pyr titles. They are uploading them as they do the conversion on their end. I expect the others will appear shortly (?), as all books in the respective series have been authorized by us.
Good to hear. I'll keep my eye out for them.
Thanks Ken. With any luck, it will show up next (and not, say, book 3 or 4). I just went and clicked "I'd like to read this book on the Kindle" on MUTINY to see if I could add weight to their priority list. I know they share those requests with us…
Thanks, Lou. I just get weary of some folks (not you) acting like Kindle is the only game in town.
I bought a Handspring Visor about 2 weeks after I found out you could read books on them, so I've been an ebook customer for ages.
Pyr has such good titles available that it's really vexing not to see them in ebook format. I've almost given up reading p-books anymore. I just like ebooks better. There are more formatting options, e.g., font size, that are really helpful when you have problems with your eyes, as I do.
I'm a loyal Fictionwise customer, so I'll keep an eye out over there.
Thanks Janice. Part of the reason Kindle appeared first is that you send them a PDF and they do the conversion, whereas there are more technical hoops to jump through for some of the other formats. I imagine it will be like this has been, an interminably long wait and then one day, poof, they are out.
Lou, I want to add my voice to those asking for other formats. I'd own a Kindle if I could, but in Canada I'm limited to the (also excellent) SOny Reader. I'd snap up quite a few Pyr books the very day they went up on the Sony eBook store.
Thanks David. I know we are in talks with Sony but don't know the status. I'll pass on your comment to lend weight to my dark master's decisions.
Again, Kindle has appeared first because Amazon makes it so easy, but I am sure other formats will follow. Just not as fast as I'd like!
It's a shame you guys aren't doing the conversion yourself (for most books, a fairly tedious but trivial task using automated tools and the original digital manuscript). Letting Amazon do it means they are scanning the books, which always introduces errors, plus the resulting books are in the infamous Topaz format. These are bloated due to inclusion of the "fonts" used for each letter/character and almost always look far worse than the book would in a mobi format, using the fonts optimized for the screen (plus they are slower to use and can't be searched … all in all, a poor choice and one that will cause many readers to skip these editions).
We are doing some of the conversion for other formats. Those in charge may know more than me, but how does one do conversion for AMZ format for Kindle? (Forgive my ignorance, not my department/responsibility).
Thank you for making your books available on Kindle. I just got my DX and I WILL be re-buying the Starship series on Kindle as it comes out. Is Pyr going to keep the Text-to-Speech enabled, or are you exercising the option to disable it? Just curious, mind you. I've already got the entire series through Audible.
First, I am amazed, and Mike will be thrilled, that you are going to have the series complete in two formats! Second, that's a good question. I haven't heard that we've disabled it. I'll see what I can learn. Having sampled some text to speech, I certainly don't think it's a threat to a good audio production. I recently listened to Audible's production of Blood of Ambrose and was really impressed.
Unfortunately I have to second Janice's antagonism towards the Kindle – as all customers outside the US for lack of availability have to.
I'd really love to see fictionwise (or better: epub) versions on the market, and seeing as the azw file format the kindle is in fact the mobipocket file format with a kindle specific DRM – and therefore simply a bundle of compressed html, picture, and metadescription files – this shouldn't be a problem. If you get Amazon to leave you the converted html's or convert the pdf's to html yourself that means.
Anyway, my hope is on for more fictionwise titles… 🙂
Again, we are in talks with other formats and hope to have news soon. Again, Amazon just happened first. (They don't, however, share their AMZ files, so we are starting from scrach elsewhere.)