I was all for it, and delighted that the two publishing firms cooperated to the benefit of both.

One can't help note that some people in the book trade can actually behave like grownups and not like spoiled whiney children...

(This comment brought to you by the letters A and M)

Heh! A, in particular, because I was already thinking of them as pushy and whiny in other contexts.

But yes, B and D deserve praise for their maturity.

That's good! Baen have shown for several years now that having free books available sells more (lots of us who have read a book online or on computer then want the dead tree versions to read on the bus or in bed, and we want other books by the same author or even by other authors on the site).

(Not that I like reading large amounts of text on the computer. It's bad enough having to write it there, but my preferred reading place is in bed, with a book which doesn't need to be turned off before I go to sleep. But if the book won't come to my bed, I'll go to the book...)

So who are Suvudu? Baen's Free Library I know, but I've never heard of Suvudu before now and their website doesn't seem to have any information either (not even an "about us" or a "contact us"). Nor, as far as I can see, a list of authors or books apart from the 'new' ones. (Unless it's all buried in that mess of words on the left, all different sizes, which style gives me a headache). I mean, you being there is a recommendation, but I'd like to see a few more authors to get an idea of their 'stable' (the same way as I can make a fair guess about Baen authors from the ones I recognise on their lists).

Ah...this is a Del Rey-connected or sponsored blogsite (not sure of the right terminology.) Right down at the very bottom left you'll see the Del Rey logo and over on the bottom right the copyright notice is Random House.

Ah, thanks. They could make that a bit more obvious. (I assume that both Del Rey and Bantam are part of Random House? I totally lose track of who owns what these days.) And there is a little "contact us" text down at the bottom right -- which is just text, with no contact information if you have Javascript off. But then when I turn Javascript on I see it for about a second, and then the page goes to a "Sign In" page and I don't see any of it.

If I can ever get hold of the contact address (probably by downloading the raw HTML and reading that) I shall Have Words with the webmaster...

(Not that Baen's site is wonderful, but at least it is rather obvious to whom it belongs.)

I'm thinking that if they wanted it more obvious, they'd make it so.

It's a pity that Suvudu have zipped the epub format - means I can't download the ebook directly using Stanza (iPhone ebook reader). But yay, free books! :)

And I'm silly - when I clicked on the link on my desktop, the file it opened was a zip file, but that's because WinZip recognised that epub is effectively a zip file. The link is actually for an epub file, and hence does work directly in Stanza.

Yay!! Glad to know it worked for you!

Baen has the book, unzipped, in five formats, in their Free Book Library, which is where I got it (in MS Reader format. If I was downloading it today, it would be MobiPocket Reader format).

Its always great to see books in eFormat and I applaud authors that are willing to allow some or all of their books to be provided as free eBooks.

Will the new series be available as eBooks so that those of us who read books electronically first will be able to do so? I find that having a book on my iPhone gives me a much faster reading rate then only being able to read the book when I have it with me (especially hard backs).

There's an e-edition listed on the Del Rey site. It's accessed either by clicking on the e-editions button (upper left) and then "coming soon" (it's down several) or by clicking on "catalog search" and entering the author's name, which gets you the author's page with all his/her books, format, prices, etc. (In general, the ones with blanks instead of cover art are the e-editions.)

http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780345518996

Not to be fussy (OK, I'm being fussy) but one reason publishers have sites is so potential readers can go there and find out things like "Is there an e-edition?" and "Is the new book coming out in hardcover or paperback?"

If you don't like the site navigation, or there's some other reason you don't use their (expensively designed) site, tell _them_.

Hope you enjoy it when you get it.

Sorry, I didn't expect you to point me to it, just to reply if it was going to be one. I will definitely be contacting Del Ray about their website. Perhaps Baen and Amazon have spoiled me for user interface.

I am greatly anticipating the book having just finished re-reading Deed for about the 10th time. B-)

Thanks for the link. I have perfectly nice paper copies of your books, but Suvudu looks like a good place to discover authors whose books I don't already own.