Updates 25 Oct 2010 03:43 pm by David !

Book previews! The day is here!


(click for a closer look at the full TOC, to see who’s illustrated each story in the book)

• MOD on Reddit! I have upboated it.

• We’re going to make the Kindle version available in the future; it won’t be by tomorrow though. It won’t have the illustrations, because the Kindle’s screen will just ruin 75% of them, but it’ll be the full text. Update: Working on solving this. We’re going to make it a paid download like anything else in the Amazon store, but if you forward us your receipt from a purchase of the printed book we’ll send you a Kindle-compatible file for free! (As soon as we finish formatting the file; might be a week or so.)

We can’t necessarily make the same offer regarding every ebook format; there are just too many of them. If your Sony Reader or whatever can handle a .TXT file, though, great! Send us your receipt. We’ll look into an ePub version too; I don’t even know what that entails, but we’ll try.

If you want to buy the printed book on Tuesday to support the effort, but do not actually want the book itself, feel free to have it sent to us. We’ll donate any books we receive to libraries, schools, use them promotionally, etc.

Wondermark Enterprises
Attn: MOD
2554 Lincoln Blvd #214
Venice, CA 90291

Or, have it sent to a friend!

If you want to wait and buy the Kindle version once it goes on sale, that’s cool too. We appreciate the support no matter what form it takes.

• Some folks have been asking for a preview of the book, or more information about the contents. Perfectly reasonable! Here are some of the MOD stories that’re available online already:

“FLAMING MARSHMALLOW,”
by Camille Alexa, online in audio form in Escape Pod (under its original title, “Flaming Marshmallow and Other Deaths”)

“EXPLODED,” by Tom Francis
. Posted by the author on Google Docs.

And here is the story “HIV INFECTION FROM MACHINE OF DEATH NEEDLE,” by Brian Quinlan, in its entirety:

“Well,” I thought, “that sucks.”

In the book it is illustrated by KC Green.

• Who are these authors? A few biographical tidbits:

Many of the authors are working writers with extensive publishing credits: James L. Sutter, Tom Francis, Pelotard, and Jeff Stautz, to name a few.

This was Camille Alexa‘s first published story first story written and submitted anywhere. She has since gone on to an illustrious writing career; her short story collection Push of the Sky (which includes her MOD story) is a finalist for the Endeavour Award, given annually to Pacific Northwest authors of science fiction & fantasy.

Rafa Franco lives in Argentina; C. E. Guimont lives in Germany; Gord Sellar lives in South Korea; Pelotard lives in Sweden.

Daliso Chaponda is a Malawian stand-up comedian and writer currently based in the UK.

David Michael Wharton is an editor for Creative Screenwriting magazine.

Erin McKean is a lexicographer, former dictionary editor, and the founder of Wordnik.com.

Kit Yona runs an auto salvage yard in New Jersey.

Yahtzee Croshaw is the creator of the “Zero Punctuation” video-game reviews for The Escapist magazine.

Shaenon K. Garrity and Jeffrey Channing Wells, individual contributors, are also the collaborative authors of the comic strip Skin Horse.

Randall Munroe is the author of the webcomic xkcd.

• Our (free) audiobook will include the voice talents of many of the authors, plus Jesse Thorn, MC Frontalot, Zach Weiner, Lore Sjöberg, Dave Kellett, Kris Straub, Colleen AF Venable, Joel Watson, and one other secret person we’re waiting to confirm. Yahtzee Croshaw reads his own story.

• The full PDF of the book will be made available next month — but we can share this preview with you now:

CLICK ME

It’s the first forty pages (several stories’ worth) and it should give you a pretty decent sense of the quality of the book!

BUY IT OCT. 26 (AMAZON LINK)

Thank you!

18 Responses to “Book previews! The day is here!”

  1. on 25 Jan 2007 at 7:24 am 1.Don Hensley said …

    My submission didn’t make the cut, but that’s OK –I had fun writing it!

    Now, at last, I’m going to have even more fun reading the stories of those that did!

    Ordered my copy from Amazon just after 2 am (west coast USA), today (Oct. 26).

    Job well done, congrats to all!

    Don.

  2. on 26 Oct 2010 at 12:41 am 2.Wm.Grallo said …

    Guys,

    This is William Grallo, one of the authors. I saw you wanted to get in touch with me, so I sent you an email. Stoked for the book! Thank you!

  3. on 26 Oct 2010 at 1:24 am 3.Elisa said …

    I would really, really encourage you to keep the illustrations for the e-book versions. I find the pictures on my Kindle to be not perfect, but decent.

  4. on 26 Oct 2010 at 1:45 am 4.Ben Vail said …

    You’re already at the top of Movers and Shakers… And it’s not even 5am in the US! 🙂

  5. on 26 Oct 2010 at 2:46 am 5.Pelotard said …

    “Working writer”, me? Well – OK – translator. So, yes, definitely writing-related. But this is the first time I get anything published that I wrote from scratch (in a paid market).

  6. on 26 Oct 2010 at 2:56 am 6.Don Hensley said …

    If that post time of: 25 Jan 2007 at 7:24 am on my first post sticks, and if this one is dated correctly, the problem may have been ‘no-script’… it’s the only thing I can think of, and the only thing changed between my two posts.

    Or maybe I’ve been time traveling…

    Don.

  7. on 26 Oct 2010 at 5:17 am 7.cDave said …

    Gah! I want this, but the shipping alone is $8 to the UK.

    It’s already at number 12 though. Well done!

  8. on 26 Oct 2010 at 6:57 am 8.James said …

    I’ve just bought my dead-tree copy, and I’ll definitely take up the offer of a version for my kindle.

    But I can’t stress enough how important it is to put the illustrations in the ebook as well. I’m perfectly aware that my Kindle’s screen isn’t a billion-colour HDTV behemoth; so I’m quite happy to get a best-effort conversion of the source material. But simply leaving out a chunk of the content because the creator ‘doesn’t think it looks good’ just comes across as lazy and inconsiderate.

    (and besides, I *like* how pictures look on the Kindle!)

  9. on 26 Oct 2010 at 7:14 am 9.Jack said …

    Just bought four dead-tree copies (the book’s #5 on Amazon now, woooooohoo), and am requesting an eventual iBooks-compatible version for the iPad. Illustrations (even color ones!) come through beautifully in iBooks, so you wouldn’t have the problem you’re having with the Kindle version. Please look into it. Thanks! 🙂

  10. on 26 Oct 2010 at 7:14 am 10.Terran said …

    Ensured many of my friends pitched in and bought a copy. #5 in the best sellers list now, almost there!

  11. on 26 Oct 2010 at 7:52 am 11.Zac said …

    Hey guys, Calibre can convert text and HTML into ePub, and it’s free:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibre_%28software%29

  12. on 26 Oct 2010 at 7:55 am 12.Randy said …

    Just bought a physical copy for my boyfriend, though I hope there will eventually be a version compatible with my Nook. The PDF version will probably work.

  13. on 26 Oct 2010 at 8:20 am 13.Rick Umali said …

    I bought the book! Peace everyone…

  14. on 26 Oct 2010 at 8:27 am 14.Joshua J. Slone said …

    Haha, I see I’m not the first to come in saying it’s better to leave in the illustrations for a Kindle version, even if some details are lost. However, I think I’m the first to offer a demonstration. I took the four illustrations from the 40 page preview, shrunk them, lowered the palette (with dithering), and put them into a simple test file. As the Kindle by default forces borders they’re shrunk even more at first, but selecting them for the full-screen view brings them to the full size (that I shrunk them to).

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/705763/machineofdeathtest.prc

    There are some blank pages between them, but the four are in there.

  15. on 26 Oct 2010 at 10:15 am 15.Terran said …

    We did it! Congrats guys!

  16. on 26 Oct 2010 at 1:19 pm 16.Jason said …

    The goal was met, any chance we could get a sales number for Oct 26 in a few days when it’s figured out?

  17. on 26 Oct 2010 at 4:25 pm 17.Aerliss said …

    You made it! Cool.

    Just forward the order confirmation email? I can remove a few details, right? Not that I don’t trust you… I’m just paranoid.

    Really.

    *cough*

  18. on 27 Oct 2010 at 1:01 am 18.Colin Jacobs said …

    Looks like a hilarious project. As I’m in Oz and you made #1 already, I’m going to hang out for the Kindle version. Please hurry!