Also Coming Soon To An iPod Near Me

Last week I did sometihng I haven’t done in around 20 years–I went to an actual science fiction convention. (More on that later.)

Scott of SFFAudio reminded me of something that I learned at the convention: There is a publishing house that offers ordinary HTML texts of many of the books it sci-fi books it publishes for download–either free or, in some cases, for a subscription fee.

The publisher is Baen, and it’s part of an interesting marketing philosophy that they’re trying out (i.e., letting people read some for free will prime their appetite to also purchase material, so you’ll end up making money).

Ordinary HTML files are great for me (as opposed to the formats many eBooks are published in) because I can easily turn them into audio books using my TextAloud program.

So I’m definitely going to be visiting their site.

CHECK IT OUT.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

6 thoughts on “Also Coming Soon To An iPod Near Me”

  2. I have converted many of the books available at Baen via Text Aloud to listen to on my iPod. Fallen Angels by Niven/Pournelle is pretty fun for SF fans.
    Eric Flint who helps to run the site has many of his books available and has an editorial on the site why offering books for free can help sales. I agree since I have bought one of his other books after listening to the majority of the ones of his on the site and will probably buy others that concludes some series available on the site. I have a feeling though that he is a lapsed Catholic with a Catholic school education. His books contain many plots based on alternate history that often times includes the early Church in the plots and bits of philosophy (one where there is a division between the Pauline and the Petrine church). Though not all of his books are like that and he does have some interesting novels other than alternate time-lines that are pretty inventive.

  4. The selection of authors looks great Jimmy, but not having read much science fiction written after 1940 (yeah, I’m a diehard Hugo Gernsback rivet-headed dinosaur boy), I’m not familiar with a great many of the names.
    Wonderful resource, though, to become acquainted with the works of currently published authors.
    My last sf convention was probably eight years ago, Concave in Michigan. Very fond memories of my time there, very bright people in attendance. In one room, the Star Trek guests failed to show, so we just had a good time sitting around talking about why Y2K wouldn’t be as disasterous as many believed, for various reasons. Great time.

  5. Jimmy, if you haven’t already, check out “The Mountains of Mourning” there by Lois McMaster Bujold. Great story with a very pro-life theme about infanticide and disabilities. The hero is the disabled son of the local Count who is sent to investigate the infanticide of a baby girl in the backwoods of their planet.

  6. The Baen online library is a blessing for folks like me who can’t buy books without a good look at them– in the store I usually look at the cover, then read the back, then read the first few pages before I really want to buy.
    Usually, I’m at least two hours of highway driving from the nearest bookstore. So, Amazon.com owes these folks a *lot*…..

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