In addition to the paperback book (which will be available for preorder soon!) we’ll be releasing the e-book and the audio book online for free! As soon as the book is published on Amazon, we’ll post one chapter in the blog each week, in both text and MP3 format. We’ll have a discussion with y’all about the topic of the chapter and answer any questions you have. Then, when all the chapters have been posted, we’ll wrap them all up in a nice PDF that anyone can download.
As a sneak preview, you can listen to Chapter 1 of the audiobook here! (8:36)
We’re releasing the entire book, in all its forms, under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike License (by-nc-sa). 
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this work non-commercially, as long as they credit the authors and license their new creations under the identical terms.
Some people have said that it’s bad business to give away the entire e-book and audiobook for free. They’ve suggested giving away just certain chapters as a teaser and selling the rest. We’re not worried, though. People still like to have paper copies of books that they can hold in their hands and carry around with them, so we’re not worried about it hurting sales of the paperback. And anyway, the usual way of handling copyright is far too restrictive; it’s important to us that people to have free and easy access to good stuff about communication.
When it comes to giving e-book versions of paper books away for free, we’re in good company. Cory Doctorow thinks it’s a cool idea, and he releases all his books as free downloads. Neil Gaiman released his best-seller American Gods as a free e-book (temporarily), and sales quadrupled. If you know of others, big names or small, please leave a comment. I’m accumulating a list. (:
We’re very excited about sharing the book with you, in all its myriad forms. We’ll let you know when it’s available for preorder!
 Have you read our book, The Usual Error? It teaches you how to solve communication issues with compassion and understanding, how to get rid of needless conflict from your life, how to make your relationships smoother, and how to generally be happier. Also, the illustrations are super cool. (:You can buy it on Amazon or read it for free online. |
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow! I am loving the audio book! I would love to buy the whole book in that format. Thank you for sharing it.
Seems to me that buying a paperback gets you a lot nicer version than printing out a PDF for a better price. Think about the cost of paper and ink cartridges and your time. So giving the e-book away for free lets people have a free trial of the book and decide if it is the kind of thing they are going to refer to a lot and would thus be better in print on a shelf. Which is a long way of saying that I think it is a good idea, too.
Dude, I can’t WAIT to listen to the rest of the audiobook. And I’ve been craving a paperback version of this material for… well… YEARS. (I guess that could theoretically be evidenced by how hard I have worked to help make it available. See? It’s not selfless at all. :D)
Jonathan Coulton puts all of his music up under CC. He says he makes more now than when he was a programmer.
Also, Lawrence Lessig has all of his books up under CC.
Oooh, that reminds me! Coulton is helping to raise money for Creative Commons by putting an unreleased album on a CC-branded USB stick — not only the regular tracks, but all of the separate audio tracks that people can use to remix the music on their own. This is TERRIBLY exciting to me and makes me want badly to give them money: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/17/unreleased-jonathan.html
Wow. This is completely awesome. Thanks!
I can’t wait to purchase the book. ^^
Brilliant!
I so look forward to reading this and wonder: would there be a few pages about fear of mis communicating that would be a good excerpt for the (not) free e-book and audio thing I’m creating about fear during uncertain times? Would there be a section that would lend itself to being excerpted? I ask because several people in my survey mentioned not being able to communicate and feeling fearful because of that as one of their concerns…
BUT FORGET THAT FOR A MOMENT AND LET ME SAY BIG CONGRATS and whoo-hoos and hugs for getting your big project done!
Email me if you want to talk about this.
@Tanya: Cool, we’re glad you like it! It was a lot of fun to record, too. We do plan to sell the audiobook as well. It’ll be interesting to see how the free audiobook podcasts affect the sales of the audiobook product. We’ll let you know! You’re on the mailing list, right?
@JoVE: Thanks! Also, the book is 5×8 instead of 8½x11, so it wouldn’t print out nicely on normal size paper.
@Megan: We can’t wait to record the rest of the audiobook, either! There’s been a bit of sore-throat-induced delay, but we’l start up again soon! And thanks for the Coulton USB link!
@Athene: Yeah, I had forgotten about both of them! Thank you!
@Nick: You won’t need to wait much longer! (:
@Justin: Thanks!
@Jen: Woohoo!!!!! Thanks! (: (: (: And we totally emailed you, too.
I am indeed on the mailing list! Due to technology issues too complex to waste time on here, the audiobook product is a MUCH better fit for me right now than the podcast. If the audiobook weren’t available, I’d have to string the podcasts together and burn disks myself, which would not be anywhere near as much fun as just getting a disk with your names already on it. :)
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