10 ms·
Humble eBook Bundle
- buster 14y agoWow.. ok, now i bought it but i didn't think it would be so much trouble reading the books on my iPad.. itunes? syncing? Bahh, i don't even know when i last used itunes :( boots into windows to update some crappy buggy software to read an ebook on his tablet
- druidsbane 14y agoWhy not open the ePub links from Safari and say "Open With..." iBooks? Worked fine for me. They will sync over to iTunes and your computer or the cloud when you next sync up.
- buster 14y agoOh ok, sounds better, so i can use the links on the ipad and skip itunes? Then ignore my comment, i'm happy again ;)
- freehunter 14y agoCan you just email yourself the ebook and open it that way?
- buster 14y agoThey should mention that on the instructions page, thanks
- Cushman 14y agoYou shouldn't need to-- you can load a PDF or ePub into iBooks straight from Safari or email.
- buster 14y agoThey should mention that on the instructions page, thanks
- jeff18 14y agoWe are working on updating our instructions in favor of a direct download approach, which seems to be way better. Sorry about the iTunes favoritism! -Jeff from Humble Bundle
- buster 14y agoAwesome, jeff! Love Humble Bundle! p.s.: i just saw that kindle is also on the appstore. So i may sync without itunes AND have it on my smartphone (android) and the ipad. yay!
- nathos 14y agoYou might want to consider adding "Add to Readmill" buttons to the post-checkout page: https://readmill.com/developers/send-to-readmill https://readmill.com/developers/send-to-readmill (and no, I'm not affiliated with them, I just think they've built a great platform)
- homosaur 14y agoYESSSS Please do this, I'm really liking Readmill integration for the DRM free eBooks lately.
- intellegacy 14y agoJeff, when I try to download PDF, my browser (Chrome) downloads "viewer.html" instead of the PDF. I think this is a chrome PDF viewer issue. You may want to fix this.
- nathos 14y agoyou should check out Readmill: http://readmill.com http://readmill.com It's quickly become my favorite book-reading app on the iPad, and their webapp is pretty awesome too. You can load any unprotected EPUB.
- john2x 14y agoI saved it to my Dropbox, then I can open it on my iPad directly.
- kqr2 14y agoIt would be cool if they could offer "kindle keys" just like they do with steam keys.
- lazerwalker 14y agoThat was my initial thought as well, but it wouldn't surprise me if there are layers of Amazon bureaucracy that would make that difficult. I'd settle for a simple way to enter my Kindle's email address and have them email the mobi file right to my device.
- kqr2 14y agoI purchased the bundle and they will email the files to your kindle. You have to go to your Amazon account settings and whitelist kindle@humblebundle.com, however, in order to receive it.
- lazerwalker 14y agoOh, awesome! I purchased it as well, but somehow missed the gigantic bold link offering to do that.
- GotNothing 14y agoI'm still missing it... any help for us blind bats?
- melg 14y agoThe option "send to Kindle" appears on the page https://www.humblebundle.com/downloads?key=YOURUNIQUEKEY https://www.humblebundle.com/downloads?key=YOURUNIQUEKEY after you purchase the bundle.
- GotNothing 14y agoAh! Twas looking under my account, has no such link... Thanks for your help!
- adhipg 14y agoI had two of the books there on my Reading List. Instant buy!
- robobenjie 14y ago"Pump 6" is a fantastic book. I find the genre of Science Fiction short stories is very hit-and-miss. Pump 6 is a hit.
- vsviridov 14y agoThere's also a Story Bundle (http://storybundle.com/ http://storybundle.com/) that is happening right now. I think they also did the first eBook bundle some months ago, before Humble Bundle.
- TylerE 14y agoI actually find storybundle a much more intriguing project, whereas Humble is it's usual "Hipster" self - e.g. stuff I've already heard about, stuff that has a fair amount of promotion behind it in there first place. With books, mostly unlike with video games, curation is an actual value-add: there's absolutely no way any one person could keep on top of all the new book releases.
- waterlesscloud 14y agoThe Humble stuff is largely from a certain clique of writers, a little monoculture in a way. I like the stuff, but I'd also like to see a little more diversity. Even if it's all contemporary sci-fi there's a lot more to choose from than the small group represented here.
- peterarmstrong 14y agoIf you want diversity, Leanpub authors can create their own bundles of Leanpub books (both their own and of other authors). Here's an example of what one of these looks like: https://leanpub.com/b/node https://leanpub.com/b/node Of course, we're currently a bit of a monoculture too: mostly programming books, since our early adopters are largely programmers. But that will change as we grow, hopefully...
- jdboyd 14y agoThe Humble stuff is also their first book offering, so maybe in the future they will choose book bundles more broadly.
- homosaur 14y agoSo it's hipster because you've heard of it? That's some self incrimination right there.
- drharris 14y agoSome good books here. Well worth the buy.
- engtech 14y agoThe Scalzi and Bacigalupi books are so worth it. Bacigalupi is a great author. I really liked the Wind Up Girl, and about 80% of the short stories in Pump 6 were good. Old Man's War is a recent classic. I've read all the books in the series, and the first is the best. I've read all the Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean collaborations, and honestly I don't care for McKean's artwork. It took me a while of looking at the preview to realize I'd already read Signal-to-Noise. Forgettable. I haven't read: Cory Doctorow: Pirate Cinema Lauren Beukes: Zoo City Mercedes Lackey: Invasion Kelly Link: Stranger Things Happen Kelly Link: Magic for Beginners Although I own the Kelly Link books. Never got around to them. My wife liked Magic for Beginners.
- engtech 14y agoInvasion sounds a bit like Wild Cards and Bitter Seeds, both of which I loved. I hadn't realize that Wild Cards is finally back in print! http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Cards-George-R-R-Martin/dp/0765365073/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349805784&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Cards-George-R-R-Martin/dp/076536... http://www.amazon.com/Bitter-Seeds-Ian-Tregillis/dp/0765361205/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349805676&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Bitter-Seeds-Ian-Tregillis/dp/07653612...
- dudurocha 14y agoI loved the McKean artwork after I've read the Magic of Reality, from Richard Dawkins. Amazing illustrations.
- verisimilidude 14y agoThis bundle has some fantastic books. They did a really good job putting it together. On to more interesting thoughts, I wonder if future ebook bundles will be filled with serial titles. In other words, you pay the nominal Humble fee to sample the first novel of several series; publishers will bite hoping you'll get hooked at full price. I don't recall seeing an appeal to episodic content in other Humble Bundles, but ebooks are a different market with different publishers looking at different trends. Interesting times.
- thirdtruck 14y agoI'm working on a serialized novel "bundle" of my own, one that mixes multiple media with each monthly module.
- bryanlarsen 14y agoThe next John Scalzi book is going to be episodic. I'd far rather buy it from Humble Bundle than from Amazon...
- zem 14y agothe baen free library has plenty of "first novel in series" books. the amazon sub-$2 daily sale does it a lot too. both have successfully got me to buy the next several books in the series.
- _djo_ 14y agoFantastic extension of the Humble Bundle concept. Good titles too, Old Man's War, Pump Six and Zoo City are all great books I've read recently.
- Bakkot 14y agoI find it interesting that they still provide payment breakdowns by platform... and that Linux and Mac OS are still so much higher than Windows. When those two were paying for games it was obvious why that should be, since games on Linux are so comparatively scare, but it doesn't make so much sense with eBooks.
- snewe 14y agoPerhaps Mac users are wealthier than the average Windows user? I am not so sure about the Linux differential. It would be interesting to see the differences conditional on income.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- eridius 14y agoI would say it's less likely that Mac users are wealthier, and more likely that Mac users are willing to pay for things that they want to have.
- zerohm 14y agoI think a more accurate way to say this is, for people that it makes more sense to buy a budget laptop/desktop ($300-500), Apple does not have an offering.
- nnnnni 14y agoThe Mac Mini is in that price range -- or at least has been traditionally. It does what most people need in a desktop machine.
- PotatoEngineer 14y agoMy theory is that Linux is used by experts, usually people with high-paying programming jobs, who can afford to drop a little more money. Macs are more expensive, so they'll also belong to people with higher income. Windows machines are cheap, so they're bought by everyone else, and (on average) they can't afford to drop as much money on the various bundles. Also, since Windows machines are cheaper, they're more likely to be bought by cheapskates.
- ernesth 14y agoA few things really upset me with that: First, books are a special kind of products, they do not obey the same rules as commercial products, they are culture. To explain a little, I am french and we have a law for the unique price of books: the price you will pay for a book will be the same on amazon, at fnac, in your local bookshop or in a supermarket. Second, the word e-reader is nowhere to be found, ePub is also not prominently featured, contrary to iPad and Kindle. For a no-DRM ebook offer, I would have thought that the standard format for ebooks would be more important than the name of the most DRM-filled devices. Third, Pirate Cinema, Stranger Things Happen and Magic for Beginners are CC licensed (some NC-ND, some only NC), I would be happy to know the license of the books that are here sold (included the other ones) and in the case of Magic for Beginners if it includes the non CC licensed short stories. For the first humble indie bundle, there was a promise that some games would be opensourced, a similar promise would be great here.
- manojlds 14y agoAre we reading the same page? Doesn't it mention ebook readers ( thought not e-reader if that is what you CTRL+Fing or something )
- w1ntermute 14y ago> First, books are a special kind of products, they do not obey the same rules as commercial products, they are culture. To explain a little, I am french and we have a law for the unique price of books: the price you will pay for a book will be the same on amazon, at fnac, in your local bookshop or in a supermarket. And that idea itself is a cultural thing. Most Americans (even liberals) would literally barf at the idea of having "a law for the unique price of books" as being European-style socialism.
- eru 14y ago> And that idea itself is a cultural thing. Most Americans (even liberals) would literally barf at the idea of having "a law for the unique price of books" as being European-style socialism. And there's another meta-cultural observation: European-style liberals barf at that idea, too.
- noirman 14y agoOh, they made an illustration for "hungry author" too: http://cdn.humblebundle.com/1/hbb1/sad_author.jpg http://cdn.humblebundle.com/1/hbb1/sad_author.jpg
- kqr2 14y agoLinks to Amazon reviews for all the books: http://www.amazon.com/Pirate-Cinema-Cory-Doctorow/dp/0765329085/ http://www.amazon.com/Pirate-Cinema-Cory-Doctorow/dp/0765329... http://www.amazon.com/Pump-Other-Stories-Paolo-Bacigalupi/dp/1597802026/ http://www.amazon.com/Pump-Other-Stories-Paolo-Bacigalupi/dp... http://www.amazon.com/Zoo-City-Lauren-Beukes/dp/0857662163/ http://www.amazon.com/Zoo-City-Lauren-Beukes/dp/0857662163/ http://www.amazon.com/Invasion-Secret-World-Chronicle-Chronicles/dp/1451637721/ http://www.amazon.com/Invasion-Secret-World-Chronicle-Chroni... http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Things-Happen-Kelly-Link/dp/1931520003/ http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Things-Happen-Kelly-Link/dp/1... http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Beginners-Kelly-Link/dp/0156031876/ http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Beginners-Kelly-Link/dp/01560318... Bonus Books (If you pay more than average) : http://www.amazon.com/Signal-Noise-Edition-Neil-Gaiman/dp/1593077521/ http://www.amazon.com/Signal-Noise-Edition-Neil-Gaiman/dp/15... http://www.amazon.com/Old-Mans-War-John-Scalzi/dp/0765348276/ http://www.amazon.com/Old-Mans-War-John-Scalzi/dp/0765348276...
- roryokane 14y agoAlso, links to reviews on Goodreads: Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13539171-pirate-cinema http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13539171-pirate-cinema (rating: 3.82) Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8503271-pump-six-and-other-stories http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8503271-pump-six-and-othe... (rating: 4.11) Zoo City by Lauren Beukes – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11351953-zoo-city http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11351953-zoo-city (rating: 3.68) Invasion: Book One of the Secret World Chronicle by Mercedes Lackey – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10824696-invasion http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10824696-invasion (rating: 3.73) Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66659.Stranger_Things_Happen http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66659.Stranger_Things_Hap... (rating: 4.00) Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66657.Magic_for_Beginners http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66657.Magic_for_Beginners (rating: 4.01) bonus books: Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/957373.Signal_to_Noise http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/957373.Signal_to_Noise (rating: 3.88) Old Man’s War by John Scalzi – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51964.Old_Man_s_War http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51964.Old_Man_s_War (rating: 4.18)
- cicloid 14y agoIs really hard for my wallet to resist bundles like this. When the price and process get together, is easy to give your money. Just bought a bundle for myself and one for my girlfriend.
- mxfh 14y agoHere's the post from Humble bundle blog, with a very short synopses for each book on one page. http://blog.humblebundle.com/post/33237485887/introducing-the-humble-ebook-bundle http://blog.humblebundle.com/post/33237485887/introducing-th...
- artursapek 14y agoHumble Bundle has such a great website design.
- bravoyankee 14y agoWhy is Neil Gaimen in the humble bundle? I thought this was to help under-exposed artists, not writers who are already a massive success. I say make room for talented writers who could use the money.
- hesdeadjim 14y agoCould be a strategy to help people pull the trigger on a sale. When you do not recognize any writers in the bundle besides Gaiman, you can think "At least I get one book from someone I know to be talented." Then the indie writers you wish to receive money also end up with more for being grouped with a superstar "non-indie".
- theevocater 14y agoNeil Gaimen was likely included to drive people to the bundle. You get a work that you know will be good (if you like Neil) and a bunch of works that are possibly risky to you. Plus, think of the valuable marketing you get from Neil blogging/tweeting/etc about it.
- a_bonobo 14y agoGaiman's book is actually a graphic novel - you could say this showcases more the work of the illustrator Dave McKean than Gaiman's work, with two more stories written and illustrated by McKean. So you could say Gaiman's name is for the pull, while the majority of the work was done by McKean, who'll probably get most of the money, too.
- dorm 14y agoTry donating $0.01 and see what happens ;)
- graham_king_3 14y agoOn an unrelated note, that site uses SPDY (looks like it's on app engine or apps for your domain).
- squidsoup 14y agoMight be worth mentioning that the two Kelly Link collections are licensed Creative Commons and available here free: http://smallbeerpress.com/creative-commons/ http://smallbeerpress.com/creative-commons/ Well worth checking out if you enjoy contemporary 'weird' fiction.
- bryanlarsen 14y agoThe instructions for Android seem needlessly complicated. Here's easier ones. - install FBReader - click on the EPUB link Depending on whether you've done this before, you may get a dialog asking whether you want to make FBReader the default for epub. What's more surprising is that neither Aldiko nor Kobo work this simply.
- Wingman4l7 14y agoFWIW, Cory Doctorow's Pirate Cinema is CC licensed and is [legally] available for free from his personal website: http://craphound.com/pc/download/ http://craphound.com/pc/download/
- darklajid 14y agoIf anyone cares, my two cents so far. Disclaimer: I love scifi and fantasy stuff in general and think that I have a rather high bullshit tolerance. Started with Old Man's War and finished it in one go. Liked it a lot, although it was really simple. It was a great start for this bundle and set some high expectations. I started Magic for beginners, a collection of short stories. The first one was.. weird. But fun and a good read. The second was unreadable. I tried multiple times, restarted.. No luck. Checked the third and it's a freak story in a q/a format.. Tried, failed. Last chance, story four. Maybe that one isn't bad, I was annoyed by now. The beginning is.. totally off though. I stopped, deleted the book. How about Invasion? Deleted it after 10 minutes. I'll keep it in an index of reference books for crap that is impossibly bad. Its like a C-movie, but without the special effects and with a worse plot. Granted, Hitler/Nazi plots have a hard time with this German reader. If an author thinks that it makes sense to drop German-except-not-really quotes on every other page I'm deeply disgusted. Don't. Oh my god is it bad. So.. I'm now disillusioned. I love the Humble Bundle stuff, but so far this particular one was exceptional in only one way, a bad way. Obviously this is a matter of taste and maybe everything else is good anyway, but I cannot recommend this Bundle to friends.