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PG: The Art of Funding a Startup is now free on Amazon
- lylejohnson 14y agoLooks like its getting great reviews at Amazon.com.
- davewasthere 14y agoYeah, it's a shame that poor formatting is so irritating. It's not hard to format a book properly. That said, I didn't think it was all that bad. UK link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paul-Graham-Funding-Interview-ebook/dp/B005MEG11Q/ref=sr_1_1 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paul-Graham-Funding-Interview-ebook/...
- arihant 14y agoI believe the reviews are bad because of people's high expectations. This is essentially an interview transcript. Most PG interviews are laid back and most Andrew Warner's are about getting the information out rather than creating a documentary. That combination gives an informative video, not a book. This is still a good read for a short flight. Definitely better than the 2-star rating Amazon has for it.
- wilfra 14y agoThis is very common in the App Store. Apps that decide to go free after charging typically take a full one-star downgrade to their rating. Lots of people download them because they are free and don't care that much about them and are uber-quick to think they are terrible and move on to the next free app. Whereas people who pay are much more interested in what it has to offer, give it more time before they move on etc. App.net is probably experiencing some of this with their backers. If it were free it would likely have much worse 'reviews' from people. Not that there is anything wrong with the product, just that people who spent $50 are much more likely to give it more than a quick once-over before making up their minds about it.
- briandear 14y agoThe App.net effect is due to sample bias -- the people paying are the one's most likely to be enthusiastic about it, so they are enthusiastic about it to justify the fact that they spent $50 for it. They don't want to feel like they've wasted their money. With App.net, users have a vested interest in other users adopting the service, hence the cheerleading.
- jeremyjh 14y agoSeveral of the reviews complain about the price in this case.
- norswap 14y agoIf you read through the review, you'll see it got bitten because of: - Paying for material available for free elsewhere. - Horrible formatting for some devices.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- mahaluxmi 14y agoGreat...
- adnam 14y ago"Free on Kindle" <> free.
- brk 14y agoHow so? You can read it online, or in a number of free Kindle apps for other devices.
- tnorthcutt 14y agoI assume adnam is talking about free as in freedom, vs. free as in beer.
- eli 14y agoAssuming your goal is to read the book (not remix it), it doesn't seem like that would be a huge difference in practice.
- th 14y agoIn this case there happens to be a big difference. Try putting this book on your Nook or any other eReader that doesn't have a Kindle app.
- eli 14y agoFair enough (though I think the Nook is pretty much the only eReader in that category)
- rprasad 14y agoI did. It took about 30 seconds, from downloading the ebook from Amazon, converting it in Calibre, and pushing it to my Nook. Removing DRM is acceptable for certain personal uses, including, for example, making purchased media usable on your personal hardware.
- patrickg 14y ago
- davidw 14y agoFormatting problems with your Kindle books? We can help: http://www.liberwriter.com http://www.liberwriter.com
- pc86 14y agoI'm somewhat curious why this spam hasn't been downvoted into oblivion.
- davidw 14y ago> I'm somewhat curious why this spam hasn't been downvoted into oblivion. Because I'm a long-time member of this community who has a bootstrapped company dealing with Kindle formatting, and because it was appropriate to this thread? People were complaining about the book's formatting. Honestly, people on this site aren't the target market in any case, as anyone with a bit of tech skills can likely create the correct HTML and XML files, but you never know. Actual spammers tend to repeat the same thing over and over, as well. I rarely mention LW in my comments here.
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoThen we are happy to support you - but, could I point out I had to read this defence before I knew that - maybe when plugging your own work in context its worth pointing that out. PS David, I suspect many HNers are like me - interested in reading the book, no Kindle. I tried the "Cloud reader" but am stuck giving amazon a valid serial number of the Kindle I don't own. so, is Google right in telling me you cannot use cloud reader without at least one Kindle purchase? (Have not dared brave the Amazon tech support line) edit - about third rewrite - cannot make the thing about "please say you are bootstrapping HNer" sound anything other than snarky - apologies.
- jsight 14y agoI do not own a Kindle and the Cloud Reader works fine for me. I've never had it ask for a serial # or anything like that. Perhaps this is a requirement for new accounts?
- lazyjones 14y agoIf I want to borrow it (for free) and not own it, I can borrow the book also. But generally I prefer buying physical books that I actually own.
- raphinou 14y agoVery good initiative, but giving an epub option would have been even better.
- pjmo 14y agoI just got it, but would never actually pay to read an interview.
- q_revert 14y agofrom one of the amazon reviews: "The price to content ratio of this publication is enormous and much of the information can be gleaned from a web search. " for a free book it seems harsh but probably fair
- Chico75 14y agoThe book probably wasn't free at the time of this review
- thebluesky 14y agoEither that or he got a divide by zero error...
- pbhjpbhj 14y agoA review on Amazon.com: "the value received was not equal to the $4.99 I paid".
- mfringel 14y agoThanks for the posting. This has inspired me to learn how to write Mozilla plugins. My first project will be to write one that will strip (or at least alert on) referrer codes.
- davidw 14y agoGod forbid anyone should make a bit of money by recommending a book that is of interest to you. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4360330 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4360330 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4402285 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4402285
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- JoeAltmaier 14y agoThanks!
- OoTheNigerian 14y agoYet again, African dwellers are not allowed to have access to information http://awesomescreenshot.com/031ee7aa1 http://awesomescreenshot.com/031ee7aa1
- tetomb 14y agoI can access it from South Africa.
- alpb 14y agoCould anybody get an ePub file? Amazon is not available in my country. I feel bad. :(
- skeletonjelly 14y agohttp://rapidgator.net/file/37153300/Paul_Graham__The_Art_of_Funding_a_Startup_(A_Mixergy_Interview).zip.html http://rapidgator.net/file/37153300/Paul_Graham__The_Art_of_... Incidentally, what's the legality on this? Seems confusing to me.
- alpb 14y agoI think so. Thanks anyway for the conversion. That was quite nice of you.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- davidpayne11 14y agoIf you find yourself frustrated with the Kindle walled garden, and want the book in another format (PDF, EPUB, etc), then you can convert your kindle books to PDF/Whatever format by following this procedure. Please note - This may not be legal, and is demonstrated for educational purposes only! 1)Download and install Kindle for PC (Or Mac, if you have a Mac) 2)Download and install freeware Calibre (Open Source) (http://calibre-ebook.com/download http://calibre-ebook.com/download) 3)Download and install DRM removal plug-ins for Calibre (if you use Kindle for PC app, you will just need to add the Kindle plug-in to Calibre) 4)Download your .AZW (Amazon's proprietary format) ebook onto Kindle For PC 5)Run Calibre 6)Find the folder with Kindle for PC ebooks (My documents/My Kindle Content) 7)Select DRM-protected AZW files and drag-n-drop them onto Calibre 8)Calibre will remove DRM protection from AZW ebook(s) 9)Convert your DRM-free MOBI ebooks to any other format (like ePub/fb2/LRF/Mobi/PDF/PDB/TXT/RTF/LIT) using Calibre if needed. 10)Enjoy reading the book in your new format. This is another way to say 'fuck you' to walled gardens like the Kindle.
- ccoggins 14y agoAs an aside, Calibre does a pretty good job of converting epub and the like into the kindle format. It can also create the "Collections" on your kindle, which makes finding your books much easier on the kindle.
- sp4rki 14y agoI've been tempted to do just that: Convert all my Amazon kindle books into MOBI and get out of the "walled garden" as you put it. There was one thing stopping me though. I have an inherent need to support authors as much as I can since I not only wanted to be a writer when I was a kid, but I actually ended up writing a few short stories and a couple of novels. All unpublished off course since they where not mature (as in experience and style) enough. I fear that if I get out of the walled garden I'll end up buying a lot less books (and supporting authors less and less) because of how easy it is to get books online, and I don't necessarily mean pirating FYI. So yeah, I installed Calibre and was amazed by the flexibility it gave me... and I uninstalled it an hour later because I realized that I couldn't support authors if it was that easy not to do so. In any case this is great information, thanks for the walkthrough. maybe one day I'll go ahead with it and get out of Amazons lawn (get it get it? garden && lawn?)
- its_so_on 14y agoFree with purchase of Kindle
- klausjensen 14y agoI wonder if I was the only one, who read the headline and thought of some sort of Bizspark-like program for amazon (free hosting for startups).
- msutherl 14y agoHey PG, as a former painter, did you have a hand in designing the book cover? If so, can you tell us a bit about the color and layout choices? The electric blue and the not-quite desaturated photograph create a pretty striking effect and the layout seems kind of unusual with the photo taking up not-quite the bottom half of the cover.