Humble eBook Bundle

http://www.humblebundle.com/?humbleEbookBundle

by josso • 14 years ago

245 123 14 years ago

humblebundle.com

adhipg• 14 years ago

I had two of the books there on my Reading List. Instant buy!

robobenjie• 14 years 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• 14 years ago

There's also a Story Bundle (http://storybundle.com/) that is happening right now.

I think they also did the first eBook bundle some months ago, before Humble Bundle.

TylerE2• 14 years ago

I 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• 14 years ago

The 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.

homosaur2• 14 years ago

So it's hipster because you've heard of it? That's some self incrimination right there.

lucian1900• 14 years ago

I found the tone of that website a bit offensive. After I bought it, it said something like "if your family or friends would like to read these books, tell them to buy them".

Wtf?! After I just paid, you're telling me to not do what I'd to with a physical book? (lend it)

zanny• 14 years ago

You don't have a physical book. You bought a license to legally own a duplicate of information. You didn't buy a physical product, or you would have the legal capacity to modify or recreate your product for non-commercial reasons. You don't have the right to redistribute it or duplicate it, so they are complaining about it.

It isn't that much their fault either, since it is inherent human nature and culture to share, and having grotesque IP laws that conflict with what your perceived normalcy is can potentially damage profits!

drharris• 14 years ago

Some good books here. Well worth the buy.

engtech2• 14 years ago

The 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.

engtech2• 14 years ago

Invasion 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/076536...

http://www.amazon.com/Bitter-Seeds-Ian-Tregillis/dp/07653612...

dudurocha• 14 years ago

I loved the McKean artwork after I've read the Magic of Reality, from Richard Dawkins. Amazing illustrations.

verisimilidude• 14 years ago

This 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.

bryanlarsen2• 14 years ago

The next John Scalzi book is going to be episodic. I'd far rather buy it from Humble Bundle than from Amazon...

thirdtruck2• 14 years ago

I'm working on a serialized novel "bundle" of my own, one that mixes multiple media with each monthly module.

zem• 14 years ago

the 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_• 14 years ago

Fantastic 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• 14 years ago

I 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• 14 years ago

Perhaps 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.

eridius• 14 years ago

I 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• 14 years ago

I 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.

PotatoEngineer• 14 years ago

My 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.

leftnode• 14 years ago

For the Games bundles, I always figured it was Linux users showing that they're willing to buy games if people will make them for Linux.

dagw3• 14 years ago

Windows user here.

On Linux the humble bundle was almost always the first chance to get a hold of the games, while on Windows they'd often all already been out for 6-12 month. I'd almost always already bought and played at least 3 of games in the bundle for $10-20 each and often the games that I hadn't bought where games that I wasn't interested in. So for me 'buying' the Humble bundle was a straight up donation to support a concept I liked, rather than a way to get games. I suspect many windows users where in the same position.

armored_mammal• 14 years ago

I'm a developer using Linux at work but it's sure not a high-paying job.

I'm usually around average Linux when I buy a Humble Bundle and I'm making under $50k a year.

freehunter2• 14 years ago

On the first humble bundle, the speculation was that Linux users are happy to pay a little extra for something they normally do not have access to. Game developers often do not target Linux, so a bundle of indie games with explicit Linux support was fairly novel. Many who commented said they wanted to show the market potential for Linux support, and by keeping the platform average higher than other, more supported platforms, they would achieve this goal.

I don't have any hard evidence on the success of that, nor do I necessarily feel it is relevant to expand this out to an ebook or music bundle, but the information is there as presented.

yk• 14 years ago

I noticed that too, but I do not think it is very surprising, since the percentage of Linux users who think about copy-left related issues is higher than for Windows or Mac users. ( At least this is my guess, if you just care about a free as in beer OS you can just pirate Windows.) So the percentage of Linux users who pay a 'political' price is higher than in the case of Mac or Windows.

a_bonobo4• 14 years ago

By now, Windows has around 50-60% of the total share, with Linux being at only around 20% and Mac around 30%.

aerique• 14 years ago

I find 20% to be fairly substantial actually. If a certain market would be 20% of your income, would you ignore it?

(Given that it is not that hard to develop cross-platform especially since OS X is usually targeted as well.)

ernesth4• 14 years ago

A 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.

kapilkale• 14 years ago

They do mention e-readers and formats.

"Compatible with computers and mobile devices. These books are available in multiple formats including PDF, MOBI, and ePub so they work great on your computer, eBook readers, and a wide array of mobile devices!"

ernesth4• 14 years ago

Indeed "ebook readers" is written deep in the page. I thought e-reader was the most used term, apparently I was wrong. but the one that really surprised me was "ebook reading device". What sort of periphrase is this?

manojlds• 14 years ago

Are 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• 14 years 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.

eru3• 14 years 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.

jd• 14 years ago

Wait a second, you consider price-fixing of (e)books in France a good thing?

Where I live it's cheaper to buy books online in the UK and have them shipped over than to buy them in the local bookstore. So that's what people do. And local bookstores are dying. No surprise, given that it's illegal for them to drop their prices to a competitive level.

ernesth4• 14 years ago

Yes I do consider fixed prices for books a good thing.

If it were not for this "prix unique" law, there would be as many local bookstores as there are local disc stores out of Paris: 0, and apart from amazon and fnac, there would be no big bookstores. But we have quite a number of them (chapitre, le furet, cultura, decitre...). Don't forget that Amazon Europe is located in Luxembourg where the tax on books is one of the lowest in Europe (3%).

So I am happy to be able to buy my ebooks from independent french bookstores for the same price as it would be from amazon.

thirdtruck2• 14 years ago

Hey ernesth. I can understand where you're coming from with the concern about the culture of books, speaking as a novel writer.

Speaking from that side of the keyboard, though, and as a hobbyist game developer, I see the exact same cultural experience with games.

When I witness people building their own Mass Effect Shepherd armor (or, heck, my own cosplay) standing alongside Harry Potter costumes at DragonCon, the dividing line disappears for me.

I would love to see this new bundle follow the same product rules that provided crazy exposure and crazy sales* for game developers.

jere• 14 years ago

>First, books are a special kind of products, they do not obey the same rules as commercial products, they are culture.

Following the logic that books are not "commercial products" and instead culture, then shouldn't they be free?

dagw3• 14 years ago

In Sweden, while books aren't free, they have a much lower sales tax than most products and services.

jlgreco6• 14 years 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."

You can pay as much or as little as you wish. They are not gouging you, how could it possibly be objectionable that they are not forcing you to spend more money?

xemoka• 14 years ago

The "Lang Law" [0][1] (Lang is in reference to Jack Lang who proposed it, as opposed to language) isn't meant to stop price gouging. It's to stop larger book sellers from being able to make special deals with publishers for bulk purchase discounts.

It stipulates that the publisher's book price on the back may only be discounted up to a further 5% by the retail store.

There are also other fixed book price laws [2] around the world.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lang_Law - English version [1] http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_Lang - French and more information [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_Book_Price_Law

masterzora2• 14 years ago

Your first point is confusing to me. How are games, movies, tv shows, music, etc any less culture than books?

onli2• 14 years ago

First: He didn't say that.

But it's a typical european intellectual view, especially in Germany and probably it's the same in France. Here we have the state support for the higher arts, like subventions for museums, to have them let a positive effect on the population. That is to counteract the evil influence of the pop-culture, especially of american movies and music. And all pc-games are garbage, responsible for kids killing people and the brutalization of the youth.

That view is deeply routed here and equally present in right-conservative circles as in left anti-imperialistic circles, who even in the 80s and 90s commonly didn't had a tv (or at least claimed to not watch it, if they had one, apart from watching the news and arte).

I hope that the following generations will change that, but just talk to a non-gamer about his view of pc-games. It will take years for a normal development here, though movies are much more accepted now (still censored, of course, and only the removal of the censorship will show me that this society here has accepted them fully)

Of course there are already intellectuals not fitting into that scheme, an example is Wolfram Knorr who wrote the book "Weil sie wissen, was sie tun" ("Because they know what they do") about the quality of the american influence on the german culture, showing the beginning of intellectual german anti-americanism in the 20s and more so in the 50s and the following development.

Anyway, that thought of a good german/european high-culture being in a fight with the american low-culture leads to a lot of state-intervention here, a process in which not only museums and theatres are given money so they can focus on not popular higher arts, but also books are bound to have the same high price so they aren't devalued as mere products.

Something like that bundle couldn't exist here, which is a shame (and which maybe explains the high average price).

ekianjo• 14 years ago

I am french too, and books are not special kind of things different from games or me writing a report at work. They are all intellectual creations and this idea that somehow they should have a different status is an aberration. The Law should not be made for securing the rights of the merchants (in your case the bookshops) but for benefiting the greater good, i.e. widespread access to books for everyone. Having a fixed price goes against that, just like blocking the price of apartment rents, blocking the price of anything: it results in killing free markets and make things more expensive for everyone in the end.

The idea that culture is a different kind of business is born from Ancient Regime roots and it's about time these ideas die for good.

buster4• 14 years ago

Wow.. 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• 14 years ago

Why 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.

buster4• 14 years ago

Oh ok, sounds better, so i can use the links on the ipad and skip itunes? Then ignore my comment, i'm happy again ;)

freehunter2• 14 years ago

Can you just email yourself the ebook and open it that way?

Cushman• 14 years ago

You shouldn't need to-- you can load a PDF or ePub into iBooks straight from Safari or email.

buster4• 14 years ago

They should mention that on the instructions page, thanks

jeff18• 14 years ago

We 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

buster4• 14 years ago

Awesome, 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!

nathos2• 14 years ago

You might want to consider adding "Add to Readmill" buttons to the post-checkout page: https://readmill.com/developers/send-to-readmill

(and no, I'm not affiliated with them, I just think they've built a great platform)

intellegacy• 14 years ago

Jeff, 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.

nathos2• 14 years ago

you should check out Readmill: 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• 14 years ago

I saved it to my Dropbox, then I can open it on my iPad directly.

kqr23• 14 years ago

It would be cool if they could offer "kindle keys" just like they do with steam keys.

lazerwalker2• 14 years ago

That 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.

kqr23• 14 years ago

I 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.

Tichy2• 14 years ago

Would be cool if there was a kind of wholesale organization for books and music, so that third parties could create cool music and book stores.

johnrgrace• 14 years ago

This is my area of Domain knowledge, there will be one that should be up and running sometime q2 2013.

rtkwe• 14 years ago

They're DRM free ebooks so you can just load them. shrug

skeletonjelly• 14 years ago

One of the big drawcards of buying a book on Amazon et al is that it's delivered automatically. I suppose these few clicks make it a hindrance for the lazy and having an automated process might make a few more sales.

noirman• 14 years ago

Oh, they made an illustration for "hungry author" too: http://cdn.humblebundle.com/1/hbb1/sad_author.jpg

kqr23• 14 years ago

Links to Amazon reviews for all the books:

http://www.amazon.com/Pirate-Cinema-Cory-Doctorow/dp/0765329...

http://www.amazon.com/Pump-Other-Stories-Paolo-Bacigalupi/dp...

http://www.amazon.com/Zoo-City-Lauren-Beukes/dp/0857662163/

http://www.amazon.com/Invasion-Secret-World-Chronicle-Chroni...

http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Things-Happen-Kelly-Link/dp/1...

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/15...

http://www.amazon.com/Old-Mans-War-John-Scalzi/dp/0765348276...

roryokane• 14 years ago

Also, links to reviews on Goodreads:

Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow – 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-othe... (rating: 4.11)

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes – 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 (rating: 3.73)

Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link – 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 (rating: 4.01)

bonus books:

Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean – 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 (rating: 4.18)

a_bonobo4• 14 years ago

You know what would be great if adapted by Goodreads?

Standard Deviation for ratings. I have a hunch that with the standard-deviation, all ratings for all books even out at 4/5. Not sure why, but I think that goodreads-users are too nice due to using real names.

Edit: Just played around with the "rating details" tab and numpy:

Magic for Beginners has a mean rating of 4.01 and a stddev of 0.99, Pirate Cinema has a mean rating of 3.85 and a stddev of 0.89, Pump Six has a mean rating of 4.11 and a stddev of 0.81, so looking at only the standard deviations, all books have a very similar rating. Interesting, but that doesn't tell me much, except that the standard-deviation is massive in this context.

Semaphor2• 14 years ago

edit: 2 minutes too slow. Going to just leave this up as it has the ratings;)

And because I think goodreads review are way above amazon in quality (usually, not always) here are the links for GoodReads (ratings in brackets):

Pump Six and Other Stories http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2819368-pump-six-and-othe... (4.11)

Zoo City http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7163862-zoo-city (3.68)

Invasion: The Secret World Chronicle http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1986356.Invasion (3.73)

Stranger Things Happen http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66659.Stranger_Things_Hap... (4.00)

Magic for Beginners. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66657.Magic_for_Beginners (4.01)

Pirate Cinema http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13539171-pirate-cinema (3.82)

extras

Old Man's War http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51964.Old_Man_s_War (4.18)

Signal to Noise! http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/166570.Signal_to_Noise (3.88)

steevdave• 14 years ago

As someone who has never visited good reads, you have the ratings in parenthesis, but, what are they out of?

(4.11) doesn't really tell me much, is that 4.11 out of 5, or 4.11 out of 10? (To pick a random rating).

Yes, I can not be lazy and visit the site to find out, but if you are leaving the comment up to be helpful, it would be appreciated to clarify their rating scheme for those of us who aren't familiar.

cicloid• 14 years ago

Is 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• 14 years ago

Here'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-th...

artursapek• 14 years ago

Humble Bundle has such a great website design.

bravoyankee• 14 years ago

Why 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• 14 years ago

Could 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• 14 years ago

Neil 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_bonobo4• 14 years ago

Gaiman'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• 14 years ago

Try donating $0.01 and see what happens ;)

graham_king_3• 14 years ago

On an unrelated note, that site uses SPDY (looks like it's on app engine or apps for your domain).

squidsoup• 14 years ago

Might be worth mentioning that the two Kelly Link collections are licensed Creative Commons and available here free: http://smallbeerpress.com/creative-commons/ Well worth checking out if you enjoy contemporary 'weird' fiction.

bryanlarsen2• 14 years ago

The 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• 14 years ago

FWIW, Cory Doctorow's Pirate Cinema is CC licensed and is [legally] available for free from his personal website: http://craphound.com/pc/download/

darklajid• 14 years ago

If 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.

Humble eBook Bundle

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