SF Signal: Books: Try Before You Buy

Books: Try Before You Buy

With so many authors offering their books for free online (not to mention the Baen Free Library), it's easy to forget that age-old concept of the excerpt. Publishers continue their efforts to get books noticed by offering teaser chapters of books. Here are just some of the current and future science fiction titles that you can try online for free.

Divergence by Tony Ballantyne
Ragamuffin by Tobias Buckell
Bright of the Sky (Book One of the Entire and the Rose) by Kay Kenyon
Antagonist by Gordon R. Dickson & David W. Wixon
Death's Head by David Gunn
Brasyl by Ian McDonald
The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald
Gradisil by Adam Roberts
Farseed by Pamela Sargent
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer
The Last Colony by John Scalzi
Breakaway (A Cassandra Kresnov Novel) by Joel Shepherd
The Hanging Mountains (Books of the Cataclysm: Three) by Sean Williams
Titans of Chaos by John C. Wright

The problem with excerpts is the same as Movie Trailers. They pick the excerpt as a way of selling the book. That means you're likely to see only the best part of the book. Granted, excerpts can't be edited like previews or back cover descriptions, but I still don't trust them. I'd much rather see the whole book online and buy it if I like it, or have as much time as I want in a book store to read through and again, buy if I like.

GJ
http://www.60in3.com

Posted by Gal Josefsberg on Thursday May 03, 2007 at 11:03 AM

Gal: most authors use the first chapter, so that isn't too much of a cherry pick.

In my case I post the first 1/3 of the book, with the idea that, if you don't like the book by the end of the first 1/3, you probably don't like it enough to buy it anyway :-)

Posted by tobias s buckell on Thursday May 03, 2007 at 12:41 PM

Oh goodness, please Mr. Buckell do not encourage him. We already had to widen some doors and I am not sure the building will have enough structural integrity if his head gets any larger.

Posted by Tim on Thursday May 03, 2007 at 9:08 PM