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Free Neil Gaiman Book
A follow up to the free Neil Gaiman book we discussed earlier: It appears the book chosen was American Gods. Of course, rather than being truly free, the book is fully available, but only by paging through page images online. Cory Doctorow (BoingBoing) is less than pleased with the format:
However, I think that Harper Collins got this one wrong. They’ve put the text of American Gods up in a wrapper that loads pictures of the pages from the printed book, one page at a time, with no facility for offline reading. The whole thing runs incredibly slowly and is unbelievably painful to use. I think we can be pretty sure that no one will read this version instead of buying the printed book—but that’s only because practically no one is going to read this version, period.
Gaiman himself recognizes things aren’t perfect:
I’m currently talking to Harpers about ways we can make the American Gods online reading experience a more pleasant one. And about ways to give American Gods away that would make Harper Collins happy while also making, say, Cory Doctorow happy too.
In the meantime, regardless of form, American Gods is available online, and for you Gaiman fans, also note that Volume 1 of his Sandman (pdf) comic/graphic novel is available online.
— michael | March 3, 2008 09:31 AM | Reading rants & raves
