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Stieg Larsson Is First Author To Sell 1M E-Books 122

Posted by timothy from the nice-tattoo dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that the late Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson, author of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, has become the first author to sell more than one million e-books on Amazon. The Swedish noir thrillers feature Lisbeth Salander, an asocial and extremely intelligent hacker and researcher, specialized in investigations of persons, and investigative journalist Mikael Blomqvist. Quercus has sold 3.3M copies of Larsson's books in the UK, and estimates that worldwide sales of the three novels are somewhere between 35-40M copies."
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Stieg Larsson Is First Author To Sell 1M E-Books More

Stieg Larsson Is First Author To Sell 1M E-Books

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  • Heh (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Pojut ( 1027544 ) on Thursday July 29, 2010 @02:50PM (#33074812) Homepage

    The title of his books remind me of The Flower that Drank the Moon. "Dustoff Varnya is such a brilliant director. Did you see his last film, "The Flower that Drank the Moon"? It was simply glorious!"

    • Re:Heh (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29, 2010 @02:59PM (#33074984)

      Interestingly, the titles of book one and three are not really translations of the original Swedish titles:

      Men who hate women
      The girl who played with fire
      The sky castle that blew up

    • I avoided reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because the title sounded like that song Willie Nelson did for the Taco Bell ad, The Girl with the Rose Tattoo.

      Glad I waited. Found it in hardcover at a garage sale for a buck. Totally awesome read.

    • The title of his books (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) * on Thursday July 29, 2010 @03:36PM (#33075552)

      The title of his books remind me of

      Two of those titles aren't his original titles. The first one was originally titled, "Men Who Hate Women." The title was so important to Larsson that he had a bit of a battle on his hands to keep it called that. It's a great description of the underlying purpose of the books, and kind of sad that it got changed.

      The third was originally called, "The Air Castle That Exploded". I'm glad that one got changed. :)

      I _do_ think it was a good marketing strategy to rename them with a common naming scheme, and probably helped bring the books to the attention of more people, which is good. I think once David Fincher's English-language movies come out, the books will experience another rennaisance of popularity. I've read all three and seen all three Swedish movies, and while the first two are quite good and remain pretty faithful to the parts of the books they cover, the third had some serious issues, I thought. The books are quite a bit better than the movies could be because of the nature of Lisbeth (the Girl) is so introverted that you only know what's going on in her head; you can't tell much of anything by just watching her do things in the movies. Also, the books are quite large, so by necessity, they had to cut major parts of the story out.

      Yes, they're huge books. Read them, anyway.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tenco ( 773732 )
        Still sounds better than their translations to german: "Dazzlement", "Perdition" and "Absolution".

      • The third was originally called, "The Air Castle That Exploded". I'm glad that one got changed. :)

        That is because an "air castle" has a special mening in Swedish (means something this looks strong but that in reality is not, hence like a castle made out of air) of which I do not know if there is an equivalent in English so naming it the Hornets Nest was probably the best they could do.

        • Come to think that perhaps "House Of Cards" is the English equivalient?

          • Come to think that perhaps "House Of Cards" is the English equivalient?

            Yeah, that sounds right. "The House of Cards that Exploded" would still be an awkward title, though.

        • I've heard an english phrase "Building castles in the sky/air" that seems to mean pretty much the same thing, no?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jgrahn ( 181062 )

        I _do_ think it was a good marketing strategy to rename them with a common naming scheme, and probably helped bring the books to the attention of more people, which is good.

        Ironically, it's also the same naming scheme applied in Sweden to *all* movies starring Goldie Hawn in the 70s and early 80s ...

        BTW, weren't also all movies starring Dudley Moore renamed "The dude who ..."? Except the ones starring Goldie Hawn *and* Dudley Moore; I believe Goldie took precedence.

    • He died mere months before publishing his first book. That is fate kicking your ass right there.

  • "Men Who Hate Women" (Score:5, Informative)

    by johndiii ( 229824 ) * on Thursday July 29, 2010 @02:55PM (#33074924) Journal

    The original title of the first book is a bit more descriptive, but probably had to be sanitized for the US market. If you can, see the Swedish movie made from that book. It is very well done. Be warned, though - it is as brutal as the book. I don't have much hope for the Hollywood movie. Probably turn Blomkvist into some kind of James Bond figure.

    It's too bad that Larsson is not alive to see this. His success is well-deserved.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bigdaddyhame ( 623739 )
      "probably turn Blomkvist into some kind of James Bond figure" ...no kidding! Daniel Craig's been slated to play him in the movie!
      • It could be salvaged if Ellen Page played Lisbeth and could redeem her reputation from that dreck flick she was in Juno, too. Reading the book, I imagined Lisbeth to be a mix of her as Treena Lahey and her role in Hard Candy. Was sad to hear she's no longer up for the role.

        I loved the Swedish version and can't see it being improved upon. Wonder if they going to recast the location, too?
        • I think Ellen Page could pull it off. It's a bit more brutal than Hard Candy and just as dark.
        • Ellen Page? have you *read* the books?

          Keira Knightley or Olivia Thirlby....
          yeh, Thirlby FTW....

          Ellen Page could do it if you have like....
          michael cera as blomkvist and Bill Murray as Vanger....

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bberens ( 965711 )
      As an American who didn't know it was Swedish or even based off a book I rented it on a lark from redbox because it had good reviews. The movie is quite good. I was impressed. Now that I know it's a book (just learned from this /. article) I will probably go read the series.

      • For those who are mystified by the above comment: There has already been a movie made [imdb.com]

        • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          In fact, there are three movies.

          Part 1 [imdb.com]
          Part 2 [imdb.com]
          Part 3 [imdb.com]

          The three movies were also released as a six-part extended mini series, called "Millenium".

          Link [imdb.com]

          I've only seen the mini series and while I enjoyed watching it, I thought that was a bit short given the long and complicated story. I doubt that the movies are anywhere long enough to really tell the story.

          The story can be described as a dark comic book-style action/thriller/crime/mystery with Lisbeth as the hero (young, misunderstood, dangerous) and Mikael as the

    • I don't have much hope for the Hollywood movie. Probably turn Blomkvist into some kind of James Bond figure.

      I'm not convinced of that, as the guy doing it is David Fincher, who also made Fight Club and Se7en. I've seen all three Swedish movies, and the third one had some serious problems. I'd like to see a more faithful adaptation of the books. Honestly, the books are way better than even the Swedish movies since you can know what's going through the girl's head. She's a very interesting character, and the

  • No "ideologies" to hold him back (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Darkness404 ( 1287218 ) on Thursday July 29, 2010 @02:56PM (#33074948)
    You know, I think this might be more of a testament to why a lack of ideologies preventing people from selling e-books makes them money.

    So many authors have come out and refused to sell e-books rather than embracing them. With a dead author like Stieg Larsson, there isn't any ideology keeping his estate from selling books in every way possible, and that has been a great thing for them.

    • Re:No "ideologies" to hold him back (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) * <Satanicpuppy@nosPAm.gmail.com> on Thursday July 29, 2010 @03:05PM (#33075094) Journal

      Wow, that's pretty ignorant.

      Most times the authors are against it because the publishing houses offer them a tiny flat fee and no percentage of the sales...As far as THEY are concerned, it's just one printing! And the author gets crap, which is wildly unfair given that the costs to the publishing house are non-existent.

      In this case, since he's dead, there is no one to stop the publishing houses from raping his corpse.

      • >Most times the authors are against it because the publishing houses offer them a tiny flat fee and no percentage of the sales

        Doesn't Amazon offer 70% of the sales?

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) *

          It all depends on who you are and what your deal is. Generally, if you've released anything since the e-book thing has blown up, then you dealt with it in your original contract, and you may see as much as 25% of the 70% that Amazon pays your publishing house coming back to you...Which isn't bad but isn't good either.

          Some literary agents have started bypassing the publishing houses altogether [venturebeat.com] which is good for the authors' e-book percentages, but bad if they want to sell paper books as well. On-demand print

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by emj ( 15659 )

            On-demand printing may offset some of this.

            On-demand only works for very low volume and books that are old and sell a low but steady volume over a long time, that's probably why those people can afford to do the ebook deal with Amazon there is a steady demand for their books.

            • Agreed, but your upfront is a lot lower than a more traditional printer would require.

              Still, no, not a great solution, but it's perfectly within the power of the publishing houses to blacklist people who skip straight to digital publishing.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by metrometro ( 1092237 )

        > In this case, since he's dead, there is no one to stop the publishing houses from raping his corpse.

        Ironic, given that raping corpses figures prominently in his books. In soviet russia, the books...

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by woodsrunner ( 746751 )
          Well there is still the dispute over his estate. He died without a will and as I understand it his father and brother split up his money and took the book rights. The woman he lived with for many years claims to have the only copy of a nearly complete fourth volume of the originally intended series of ten but refuses to let it see the light of day. Although other stories say she is working on completing it. Have also heard she somehow was able to get the film rights.

          • Actually the woman has sued his family, claiming that it was really her who wrote the books (after his ideas) because he had so shoddy writing skills. Given the books are gorgeously well written (or translated *g*) that might actually be true.

      • If he was smart and planned well his "estate" which has been set aside for his kids, charity, etc. can certainly hold the rights and if there were instructions given as to what could/couldnt be done with his works they would follow them. JRR Tolkien has been dead a LONG time but his estate (managed by his son) negotiates all the rights for his works. That would subvert the "rape" you talk about (without giving any facts to back it up). It's a well know fact that SOME authors get very large fees for writing
      • Which is why authors need to renegotiate their contracts with the publishers. The same thing happens to signed musicians who allow their record companies to arrange the digital distribution deals with iTunes, Amazon etc. They get a tiny percentage of the sales amount. If musicians take it upon themselves to do the digital distribution part of the sales themselves, and it is not hard to do (would the record company allow it? - very unlikely) they can make 90% of sales using for example CDBaby as the middlema

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) *

          I think that, in the future, this is very likely to happen, and I think it's a very good thing.

          Right now though...Distribution and marketing costs of printed books is prohibitively expensive, well out of reach of the average writer. So you've got to cut your devils deal with a publisher, and they take whatever they can get from you, up to and including all future publishing rights on all media.

          Lot of people aren't in a position to renegotiate, and those people are the ones whose books are published to e-boo

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by oldmac31310 ( 1845668 )
            They 'need' to renegotiate...I'm not so naive as to think the publishers would even consider it. Surely the distribution costs are minimal. It is a ridiculously simple task to format a book and upload a PDF to a server. The design quality might vary and the authors might baulk at taking the job on themselves, but really these days there is so little real editing done at the big publishers the only factor missing for the the author without a book deal is the marketing. It is the marketing that is the key to
      • Then why did he, assuming he was the same as just about every other author out there, send his manuscripts to the publishers and beg for them to take him on, while they had to turn down 50 submissions for every one they print? Why didn't he just publish them himself? The reason is simple: marketing (note: marketing != advertising). Don't get me wrong, I hope we are moving away from that model, but this idea that publishers are raping authors without giving anything in return is belied by the simple fact tha

        • Are you talking to me? Dude, you don't have to tell me why he submitted his works to a publishing house: printed books are still king. You're going to lose the vast majority of your sales if you don't go print.

          Generally though, as a first timer (he wrote some non-fiction, so maybe he didn't have to go through what others do) you have very little pull, and you get a pretty raw deal.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Azundris ( 81821 )

          I suppose there is no particular reason to expect men not to make light of rape in a discussion about a book called "Men who hate women."

      • >>Most times the authors are against it because the publishing houses offer them a tiny flat fee and no percentage of the sales

        I just chatted with a neat author (Maxwell Alexander Drake; http://www.maxwellalexanderdrake.com/ [maxwellale...rdrake.com]) at Comicon. We was opposed to coming out with an e-book since he was afraid of piracy, but after a while came around and did it anyway after someone pointed out to him that if people are trying to steal your stuff, that means they want your stuff. I think his royalties (~$1/book)

        • Googling for the title of my first book found you a link to a place where you can download a pirated copy[1]. I still insisted on making my second one DRM free, because it's not like DRM, or even not making the eBook available, prevent piracy. Lots of people get the PDF, between me and the printer, and it only takes one of them to leak it (intentionally or accidentally) and any pirates who want a copy can have one. On the other hand, not making an eBook available means that no one who wants an eBook is a

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Yoozer ( 1055188 )

          someone pointed out to him that if people are trying to steal your stuff, that means they want your stuff

          More importantly: if people want to distribute your stuff without your permission, they'll do so, and if one of 'm has done it, the war is already lost. Lots of industrious pirates who'll gladly scan and clean up whatever you want - no eBook needed. Sometimes they'll even do a better job than the official ones.

          eBooks make it easier, but are absolutely not necessary.

    • Re:No "ideologies" to hold him back (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Vintermann ( 400722 ) on Thursday July 29, 2010 @03:27PM (#33075414) Homepage

      I don't know about that. There was a lot of dispute over Larsson's estate. His partner through many years, didn't get anything, because they never married or registered their relationship - and the reason they never did was that they were hiding from neo-nazis, which Larsson had royally pissed off.
      Disputes over rights aren't exactly ideal from a publisher's perspective. I think the success is a lot about the rather extreme anti-banker/capitalist/influental people sentiment in his stories, which has hit a nerve in the current troubles. Maybe that is also a genre of fiction which US audiences has been somewhat short on, due to a generation of films sanitized from such topics by Hollywood blacklists.

      • I think that it has to go beyond the story, I've read the books and thought they were good, but certainly not the greatest author ever (yeah, a lot of it has to be because translations usually destroy the language while leaving the story sort of intact) but really, Larsson/his estate has done a great job of hitting every media possible, audiobooks, e-books, paperbacks, movies, etc.

        There have been some really great stories I've read that because they didn't branch out into other media types and formats,

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrHanky ( 141717 )

      Actually, that's entirely irrelevant. Stieg Larsson already was an international bestseller long before being the first past the 1M mark for ebooks, currently occupying the top 3 on Amazon's .co.uk site for paperbacks. Other best selling writers, like Dan Brown, are also available for the Kindle.

      Being dead probably did help him gaining best selling status, though. "Oh, this guy had worked for so many years on his three novels, and then he died shortly after sending them to the publisher. It's so sad. Buy, b

      • Sure, but he was dead long before e-books really took off. A lot of authors such as J.K. Rowlings have come out and said that they will not have their books be digitized (of course, she recently reversed this decision) just like a lot of artists don't offer downloads of their music such as the Beatles. Artists/authors who do this generally end up reducing their possible income and long-term reputation.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MrHanky ( 141717 )

          I don't think The Beatles' long term reputation is in any danger at all, compared to just about anyone breaking through since 2000. Neither do I think Stieg Larsson's long term reputation will be all that great. He's just another also-ran in the huge market of genre fiction. Better than Dan Brown, of course, but he, too, will be forgotten in 10 years.

        • A lot of authors such as J.K. Rowlings have come out and said that they will not have their books be digitized

          Of all people, she ought to know better. Scanned copies of the last few Harry Potter books were available before the book actually hit the shelves - all she did was give the pirates a monopoly on the electronic form.

  • I'm surprised. According to Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org], there were 2.8 million books downloaded from their site in the past 30 days. Maybe this chart [gutenberg.org] gives us a clue - only about 5% of those downloads were in Kindle format.

    • Re:It took this long? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Darkness404 ( 1287218 ) on Thursday July 29, 2010 @03:03PM (#33075062)
      Yes, but when things are free and memory is cheap, why -not- download them all?

      Even 2 GB is a lot of memory when it comes to text files, if I'm not paying for them, why not download them for various reasons? This is important because people are spending what? $10 a download? I'll download free files till my hard drive fills up, but spending money on downloads is a different thing.
      • Might be true, but look at the #1 book over the last month: The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana. It's not just random downloading, people are being selective!

        • Re: (Score:1, Redundant)

          by twiddlingbits ( 707452 )
          Not any more...Top 50 downloads from Project Guttenberg...(note how many are "classics" published long ago where no one gets a cut) Top 100 EBooks yesterday 1. How to Analyze People on Sight by Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict (819) 2. The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana by Vatsyayana (802) 3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (605) 4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (468) 5. The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete by Leonardo da Vinci (389)
          • Wow, someone who reads /. and doesn't know the difference between a day and a month! Fascinating.

          • (note how many are "classics" published long ago where no one gets a cut)

            Um, isn't the entire point of Project Gutenberg to be an online repository of public domain texts? I mean, I guess a few CC titles might qualify, but the entire site is made for public domain books.

            • Amazon sells the Project Gutenberg texts for $0.00 each. They are simply using their store to make them easily available to the Kindle. I have downloaded a fair number of them, and the only problems are no chapter markers, and sometines each text line ends in a hard break, instead of letting the paragraphs flow as they should. But the same problems exist in some of the $$ books.

              • Really? I grab PG books for my iLiad via feedbooks.com, and they are beautifully typeset (they run them through a script then through LaTeX). I've never had a problem with how any of them flow - I think they have a preset for the Kindle, so maybe you should try them instead of Amazon...

      • You don't want random downloaded crap clogging up the Kindle interface. It doesn't scale well.

    • It was Amazon who came up with the stats, who wants 'ebook' to be synonymous with 'Kindle', and thus puts out PR. I am confident that Jane Austin has done pretty well in ebooks over the years, but our economic institutions (and attendant media) do not have tools to value the enjoyment these books bring people. Only books which extract profit from readers are worth counting.

  • How much would it suck to write a bestselling series and die before the first book hit print?

  • The real story is the custody battle (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Terje Mathisen ( 128806 ) on Thursday July 29, 2010 @03:24PM (#33075368)

    When Stieg Larsson died suddenly, and after writing just 3 of the planned 10 books about Blomquist and Salander, he left behind Eva Gabrielsson, his common-law wife of 30+ years.

    Unfortunately, with no explicit will and no legal acceptance of common-law marriage in Sweden, she inherited absolutely nothing.

    See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1240159/Stieg-Larssons-widow-seen-penny-20m-fortune-earned-together.html [dailymail.co.uk]

    Terje
    PS. I loved the books, read them all in Swedish instead of waiting for the Norwegian translation.

    • Re:The real story is the custody battle (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Stray7Xi ( 698337 ) on Thursday July 29, 2010 @03:41PM (#33075650)

      You left out the tragic reason why he couldn't marry her. Before he wrote the books he did a lot of work investigating extremist groups, he made a lot of enemies. His marriage would have put details of him and his wife into public view and he was unwilling to take that risk. Sad story.

    • "Unfortunately, with no explicit will and no legal acceptance of common-law marriage in Sweden, she inherited absolutely nothing."

      Unfortunately, with no proper ESTATE PLANNING, she inherited absolutely nothing. She could have been a co-owner with right of survivorship, been gifted some of the revenue, etc, and not had to go through probate (if local law resembles US law in those respects).

      We can all die right now. If you care about others, be prepared.

      • The gossipy rumour is that his common-law wife has a nearly-finished manuscript for the fourth book in the series, but is refusing to release it until she is satisfied with the division of revenue from the first three titles.

        • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

          by tacktick ( 1866274 )

          Its not a rumor.
          In an interview with her she stated that she has his computer with a partially written novel on it and will not give it up unless they agree to let her finish it and share in the revenue.
          She says that she was part of his writing process and has the know-how to finish it in line with his vision.
          Personally I agree that she is the only who could do it and still keep his name on the book. You bring in another author and it would not be the same.

          Hopefully they let her do it or give her a good chu

  • Missing from TFA is that readers can now pair thier PDAs, iphones and kindles with google maps to sync the core story with the gps acquired locations of Lundegattan, Sulsen and Dfhseewwwnchcgatten.

    Also, I can't get this keyboard to produce umlauts [newyorker.com].

  • Its a shame (Score:1, Interesting)

    by tacktick ( 1866274 )

    What is this world coming to when sadistic cliche-ridden trash become the top selling e-books?
    I would have thought people with ebook readers would read better written novels.

    There has been a massive marketing campaign by Amazon and big chain bookstores to sell Larsson's books so that might explain it.
    I heard from someone who walked into Borders and got pitched Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by an employee before he even opened his mouth.
    Then the cashier asked him if an employee has recommended the book. When h

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by b00le ( 714402 )
      Thank you. Nowhere in all this fuss have I seen mentioned that the Larsson books are very, very bad: ill-written, tedious, preposterous, paper-thin characters and highly misogynist despite their feminist pretensions. Books are like money: the bad drives out the good.

      • Thank you. Nowhere in all this fuss have I seen mentioned that the Larsson books are very, very bad: ill-written, tedious, preposterous, paper-thin characters and highly misogynist despite their feminist pretensions. Books are like money: the bad drives out the good.

        If it's so bad, how about you write something equal or better and subsequently become a multimillionaire? Just do it for the money; afterwards you can write all the marvellously artistic work that plebes don't understand all you want.

        Put up or shut up.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by b00le ( 714402 )
          If only it were that simple! But mere badness is no guarantee of success. For every Dan Brown there are thousands of talentless hacks slaving away in well-deserved obscurity. Gore Vidal put it neatly: "Shit has its own integrity."

          I have written something better -- much better. Still waiting for my money.... I confess: I don't know how to connect with the semi-literate millions.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by jgrahn ( 181062 )

      What is this world coming to when sadistic cliche-ridden trash become the top selling e-books? I would have thought people with ebook readers would read better written novels.

      There has been a massive marketing campaign by Amazon and big chain bookstores to sell Larsson's books so that might explain it. I heard from someone who walked into Borders and got pitched Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by an employee before he even opened his mouth.

      My impression too is that the books suck (never read them, but I thin

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • e-book != Kindle (Score:5, Informative)

    by gambit3 ( 463693 ) on Thursday July 29, 2010 @03:32PM (#33075484) Homepage Journal

    This bothers me in slashdot, of all places. Articles that reference Amazon e-books ONLY COUNT THE NUMBER SOLD ON AMAZON. NOT ALL E-BOOKS!
    Just like the earlier misleading story headline that e-books outsold hardcovers for the first time... NO. Amazon KINDLE e-books outsold HARDCOVER books on AMAZON for the first time.

    There are plenty other e-book and physical book sellers out there that are NOT amazon. It doesn't emcompass the whole literary universe, so it shouldn't be written as such.

    • But is there anyplace that amalgamate book numbers together? I don't know of any. I think we are stuck with partial number sets.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by slyrat ( 1143997 )

        But is there anyplace that amalgamate book numbers together? I don't know of any. I think we are stuck with partial number sets.

        Well I do know that fictionwise [fictionwise.com] says at the top that they are a barnes and noble company. So they should be able to do similar comparisons between the physical b&n stores and their website sales. I think amazon just has been trying to do more trumpeting of the numbers than anyone as of yet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kalidor ( 94097 )

      Agreed, the Millienium Cycle probably sold a heck of a lot more than 1 Million E-books. I know far more people reading it on the Sony Reader than the Kindle, so I'm not so sure that even doubling the number is far fetched if all actual ebook sales are reviewed.

  • The title is incorrect. Larsson is the first to sell 1 Million Kindle ebooks. James Patterson was the first author to sell 1+ Million ebooks across all platforms.
  • I wonder how many David Weber has sold on Baen?
  • Only thing I dislike of the books is hackers in it using Apple computers.

  • I always wanted to write eBooks and even came up with character names, ideas, and stuff I role played all over the Internet to see what people think and how to improve my writing skills and make corrections and changes.

    I submitted an Ask Slashdot Story on how to write FOSS eBooks [slashdot.org] but it hasn't been voted on yet to be a real story.

    Look first eBook attempt was by Microsoft in 1999/2000 or whatever and the Microsoft Reader software and books in LIT format that the MS Reader could read on Windows CE devices and

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by slyrat ( 1143997 )

      More than that Nintendo just make 100 classic books for the DS series, and why not make more eBook stuff for the other video game consoles? Playstation 3 Sony claims it does everything? Make it read eBooks and synch up with a PSP Go to put the eBooks on it to make it another eBook reader.

      If anything sony would have it sync with their prs ereader devices. I guess the psp could also work, but if they wanted to promote ebooks they would do it with their existing hardware built for ebooks.

      • Just my own views and opinions here, but Sony's business model is to make video games, movies, music, etc work on all they existing and planned hardware. Why not an eBook also?

        Sony sells eBooks. The Nintendo DS has the ability to read eBooks, so why shouldn't the PSP Go that competes with it also read eBooks? If the Nintendo DS series has eBook carts and the PS3 is advertised to do everything and Sony does not make software to make it buy eBooks from the Playstation network, isn't that false advertising? If

  • I've read all three (one on paper, the other two on my Kindle), and seen the movies. I enjoyed them all, although the books are clearly better. One thing I did find annoying, though, was the misstatement of Fermat's last theorem in the second and third books. The book (the English translation at least) has it as x^3+y^3=z^3, rather than the correct x^n+y^n=z^n. Proving the n=3 case isn't especially difficult either - it's a straightforward infinite descent proof. I'm a little surprised nobody caught it bet

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