Slashdot Mirror
Tor Books Is Giving Away E-Books
stoolpigeon writes "Tor Books is launching a new site and running a campaign in which they are giving away e-books (free as in beer) until the site goes live. To get in on the deal, fill out the form at their site, and each week you will receive a newsletter containing links to download a new book. The first two books are Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson followed by Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Scalzi's site says: 'My understanding is that they don't have DRM on them. Or at least, mine isn't supposed to have, and I don't think they're planning mine to be special in that regard.'"
Will Tor be releasing as e-books those works where science fiction and fantasy reaches the best of world literature (for example, Tor holds the U.S. rights to Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun), or will they only be releasing their ephemeral "airport novels" that are only released in paperback and left to go quickly out of print? It's a pity that so far the only science fiction published to embrace e-books has been Baen, whose publications generally fall into the mindless entertainment sphere of science fiction.
As long as they are DRM free I can buy them! It's such a bitch to use clit everytime I buy and ebook. Do you guys know if there is a cracker for Mobipocket and PDF as well? The problem with Lit is that you have to have Windows to download books, which I don't have.. :-)
Also see Baen's free library at http://www.baen.com/library/
Baen will also sometimes include a CD containing many E-books with certain hardbacks. It's made them some money from me, since I was introduced to certain series (1632, March Upcountry, Honor Harrington) via this.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I own the book and it's a great read. Nice of Tor and Scalzi to give it away.
Tor has had quite a few titles on WebScription for some time now. Since those are all DRMless, it's not unreasonable to expect that they're over the wibbles.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Am I the only one that wondered why Tor (the anonymity network) was giving away free ebooks?
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
Get back to me when they have that is 1) shockproof and break proof 2) moisture proof 3) sub $100 (not $199, not $150, sub $100)
When I get back to my dorm, I throw my bag down. When I go to class, I toss my bag. If they aren't as durable as dead-trees, they aren't worth a penny.
Durability is an important as readability.
I get this error:
"We cannot register you at this time, but please check back in a few weeks for some great science fiction. Thanks!"
I have hard copies of the Mistborn books already, but e-book versions would have been nice...
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
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I'm going to have to buy a few of their books this week instead of using the library, just to show my thanks!
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
What does Tor get out of giving away free books? Are they planning to introduce a pay subscription or a store of some sort?
I'm encouraged to see e-books taking a stronger position in the market, but I'm saddened that so much attention is being paid to products that are tied to DRM. When I buy a book, I tend to look at it as a long term investment in my personal library. That is, I'm buying a copy to own forever. This early in the industry, I have no confidence that any DRM scheme implemented now will last any significant length of time. Will I still be able to read the book 20 or (hopefully) 40 years from now?
It's a bit sad how so much effort is being made to obfuscate what is essentially the simplest of all computer formats: a text file. As others have repeatedly pointed out, there are some killer markets for these things in education. Saying goodbye to all those textbooks would be an unbelievable win for schools AND students.
I think three things need to happen before these things take off (and they eventually will):
1) The price needs to come down. A lot. $400 is just waaaay to much to make these things ubiquitous. Think about attractive one of these might be at $50. It would be hard to resist.
2) Lose the DRM / stop with the proprietary formats. Books, even more so than software, yearn to be free.
3) Major publishers and popular authors need to get on board. Unless the authors who people really want to read are available, the whole exercise is sort of pointless.
I can certainly afford a current-generation e-book reader, but until I can actually read the stuff I want to read, it's somewhat pointless. Here's hoping...
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Yes I feel stupid when I use Windows, yes I'm a "fag", but gay sounds so much better doesn't it.. :-)
Macmillan is a privately-owned company, owned by Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH, a large German-based company. The company acquired a 70.81 per cent stake in Macmillan in April 1995, and purchased the remaining stake in 1999, at which point the Macmillan family formally ended its 156-year-ownership of the publishing house. Holtzbrinck owns around forty companies as well as Macmillan and is headquartered in Stuttgart. Its interests include book, magazine and newspaper publishers, television and radio companies and new media firms.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
...You're talking about (possible) DRM on a product given freely. This is about the only time I can accept DRM.
The books are part of an add campaign, and don't cost me a dime! I would be greedy to expect them to last beyond the the initial advertising push.
Sure, if I buy something I want complete control, but this seems more like borrowing.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
All you e-books are belong to us!
Im not sure why people look at it as being a $400 device. I've been reading ebooks on my palm (now a treo) since 2002. The first device I bought was $200, but you can get a cheap palm for as low as $99. I think that as the tech takes off, we'll see cheaper dedicated readers. Like you said, it is especially helpful in schools. I'd imagine that even now it would be cheaper to by a kindle or something for each student (for like 4 years or so) then a text book for each different subject. And last, I totally agree. As much as I hate DRM in all of its forms, putting it on ebooks just seems really stupid and shortsighted. I've got books that I've read dozens of times in the last 10 years, and I know that I haven't had the same computer, reader, phone, etc in that time. I don't really buy a lot of ebooks now because I want to be able to have them for a while.
The Baen CDs (which include some novels not in the Free library) are also legally available online at sites like http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/
Since the form requires a ZIP code, is this offer limited to the USA ?
Mada mada dane.
Usually when you give away something you no longer have that thing. Tor isn't "giving away" anything. It is giving copies of its ebooks.
Well aware of this, I simnply submitted my net handle.
I'm hoping they have some other business plan than "bait & switch spam", which a smart marketing director should know is not so good for long term public relations when the word gets out.
I am starting to believe that the way to do this kind of thing properly is that the newsletters may indeed have a link to A book, such as the first couple in a series. Then since the source "dries up", the reader might be tempted into buying books 3-4.
Or, just "exposure" to other titles along with the goodwill they're already showing.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I most be a silent majority, but I hate reading on the computer and screens. I much prefer the paper formats, and I will continue to do so. Not to mention they're much harder to lose due to catastrophic computer failure.
21st Century Renaissance Man
I read this recently and it was one of the best fantasy novels I've read in years. The premise behind the world is "what if the prophecied hero failed?" It has a very creative and richly described magic system, likable and well fleshed-out characters, and the ending is superb.
Oh, and Brandon Sanderson is also the author who is going to write the final book to finish off the Wheel of Time series. Harriet (Robert Jordon's widow) picked him to finish the series after reading this book.
So like, yeah, you should totally spend your $0 to download it. And if you like it, maybe even buy the book! I mean, we all register our shareware, right?
I'm surprised that nobody brought up http://e-novel.org/ yet. The books there are my favorite. Whoever this Jonathan Dunn is... Sci-fi/philosophy fans, try the revolutions of time. Fantasy fans, try The Forgotten King... and The Hedonist is for everyone, i guess. check it out, http://e-novel.org/
I have bad karma. What do I care what you think?
Actually, Von Holtzbrinck Publishers US changed their name to Macmillan US sometime last year, and moved the head of Macmillan UK onto the Holtzbrinck board. But, yes, they are privately-held.
The Holtzbrinck family is unique in giving its subsidiaries a lot of freedom. The thinking is: if they make a lot of money, they're doing something right. Of course, the onus is on that subsidiary to keep performing. IIRC, Tor made some changes in their business model last year that started bringing in a lot more profit; this has given them the freedom to try some new things. Anyway, everybody is all worked up about "going digital", so I'm not surprised to see that Tor is pursuing that option, although I have to say I am a little surprised to see them offering DRM-free downloads. But it scores big points with their audience, and maybe they know that.
Disclaimer: I work for a Macmillan imprint.
Baen On-Line Library has been doing this for a few years with no registration, DRM, or email addresses needed.
http://www.baen.com/library/
Hmmm, sounds like the same arguments that people made about $400 iPods. Those things will never take off....
iPods are a good analogy. The price of the player doesn't have to come down. The DRM doesn't have to go away. But, the cost of the e-books has to be competitive (cheaper) than regular books), the major publishers have to be onboard in a big way, and the e-books have to be easy to get.
It is hard to read by candlelight when the power goes out and you are waiting for your computer and the Internet to come back up.
I quite often read e-books on my smartphone (symbian s60) and I find it very handy... I always have a few books available to read, without having to lug the damn things around. I use Mobipocket reader, mainly with a 1gb archive of sci-fi books I found a torrent of once. The Mobipocket app is completely free, and supports unprotected text, html and pdf files. No *requirement* to use DRM with content you add yourself.
However, they do use their own flavour of DRM on books downloaded from their store. I'm no fan of DRM, but I think their system is pretty painless. When Pandora's Star (Peter F Hamilton) came out 2-3 years ago it was available as an e-book in mobipocket's store before my local bookstore had it in stock, so I brought it. I downloaded it from their website via the webbrowser on my phone after giving them my email address and my credit card number, no tedious account opening procedure was required.
Recently I upgraded my phone, and transferred over my data, including the e-book. No surprises, it wouldn't open. Damn DRM!
Curious to see if there was a way around this, I went to their website, entered my email address and got them to send me a new password. I logged on and pandora's star was listed under my books. I had to go through some process to register a new device (it was so simple I can't remember exactly what was required) and I was able to re-download the e-book.
Now of course if the company had changed their DRM system and didn't support their old system, or had gone under completely then I would be screwed. But with something that would be as simple to copy as a text file I can understand authors and publishers wanting some protection. Ideally the authors wouldn't need publishers and they could sell direct to their readers for such a low price that DRM wouldn't be required but we aren't there yet.
In the meantime I found their DRM very unobtrusive and I trouble free. I'll happily buy stuff from their store again.
I fully agree with your points about DRM, but I respectfully disagree with your criticism of the price of e-Book readers and your requests for 'free' books for a number of different reasons.
You criticize the $400 pricetag without understanding how many companies failed before e-Ink became a reality. Please understand that it is an industry changing technology and the pioneering companies who developed it need to make money for the Venture Capitalists who invested in their ideas during the formative stages of the technology. Also, the components used in e-Ink are arguably in a stage of production that they don't enjoy the benefits of scale of mass-production that tends to lower prices.
On the other side of the coin, you don't seem to grasp the enormous effort that goes into writing a story or packaging a student textbook. The statement "Books yearn to be free" is a bit troubling. I suppose you might be reflecting purely on the "DRM-free" implication, but when you use the word 'free' it implies 'free to re-distribute'. From a very practical standpoint, I agree with you. I favor distributing my own novel for "free" (though what is currently posted is what I will call a "polished draft copy"). However, what I DON'T agree with is the economical aspects of "freeness". It realistically takes anywhere from 1e3 to 1e4 hours to write and edit a manuscript worth reading... so when readers suggest that they should get a 'free' copy of the book, I respectfully disagree.
That being said, I hope that someday a compromise of a business model is realized to transform the "pay, then enjoy" model into an "enjoy, then pay" system. And I think you would probably agree with me (based on "I can certainly afford a current-generation e-book reader"), but I just wanted to make a point:
Literature, software, music and movies are exist digitally and can theoretically be copied for $0, but the artists behind these formats still desire a business model so that they can potentially support themselves, and the nature of each of the different formats demands a different business model. For software, it is through support. For music, through performances. For movies, through rentals, disc DVD sales, and theatrical performances. For books, if you would accept the "enjoy, then pay" model it would make me (as an author) very happy.
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
I no longer toss my backpack so haphazardly, as I often have a laptop in there.
Durability is a good thing, but I suppose it's not as important to me as utility and price (so long as it's not actually fragile).
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
2) Lose the DRM / stop with the proprietary formats. Books, even more so than software, yearn to be free.
I'm sure this will be modded as troll but so be it since this needs to be said. Quit anthropomorphising books and software. Neither 'yearns' to do anything. They're both man made object that have no feelings whatsoever. PEOPLE yearn to free them just as PEOPLE yearn to lock and exploit them. Saying that an inanimate object yearns to be free pretty much guarantees that sane rational people will ignore and ridicule you.
Now does SOCIETY benefit from books that aren't locked in with DRM? I can make lots of good arguments that it does. Argue that instead of attributing stupid "feelings" to books and software that make you sound like you still belong in a nursery.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The major issue with "free" is often the quality -- but I suspect Tor is mostly doing this for the publicity, which, judging from a front page post on /., is already working.
There's also one fundamental aspect - convenience of replacement.
Take the cliched "want to curl up with a book" scenario. Most people do so with a snack of something - a bag of chips/cheese-balls/cookies/etc. With a regular book, these crumbs fall in and accumulate. If it gets too disgusting, you discard the book (recycle), and buy a new copy. With a laptop/pda/e-reader, it just gets disgusting. Think keyb0ard-disgusting. And unfortunately, discarding one of these things is a lot harder than your $5 book, even ignoring the DRM hassles.
The same goes for the longevity of the newspaper - given that everyone can get their news off the web, why do newspapers still exist? Why doesn't everyone just read the same news via a laptop at the table? Because people also realize that getting a 50-cent newspaper icky is no big deal - it goes into the recycle bin and you get a fresh copy the next day. I dare anyone to do this for any length of time with even an EeePC. All those crumbs from toast, oil from bacon etc., will make any laptop disgustingly unusable.
Sure people can clean their equipment after using it, but that's a chore that's harder than simply discarding (recycling) it for a fresh copy.
That's really what's keeping this from mass acceptance - the mass ability to throw away without it hurting in the wallet. Once they become literally disposable pieces of equipment would ebooks and e-newspapers really take off.
Convenience to curl up with a disposal, replaceable relic of intellectual stimulation, you say?
You might want to consider trying something...# 8x11" two-page format for book capable printing [Download]
Find a good quality printer the fits 200+ sheets of paper and will reliably NOT insert the occasional blank sheet of paper during printing (I have used laser printers at my office to do this in the past, and it has worked like a charm).
(a) Print (I think you need to select Landscape format).
(b) Flip the pages over and put them back into the printed so that you'll print to the reverse side (paying carefully attention to put it in the correct orientation) and print again (so that even-numbered pages print on the back of odd numbered pages, and vice-versa).
(c) You can then cut the pages down the middle (I have a cheapo paper slicer for this, which makes it easy to line up 10-12 pages and then make a clean cut down the middle - though an office supply store might offer to do this for you).
(d) Sort the pages into two-copies of the story. Bring each stack down to the local office supply store to bind two-copies of the novel. Staples or Kinkos generally provides a service where they will "tape bind" a manuscript. You can add a cardboard front and back cover (have them cut it in half for you, so it fits) and it should cost between $3 and $4 per copy after all is said and done.
[and any feedback on these instructions is encouraged... because I would love for this procedure to be straightforward enough that people can easily print my book].
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Nah. The price of the readers isn't that much of a problem. Give one a try for a while, and if the stuff you like to read is available for it, you'll quickly decide that it's well worth $400. eBook devices are MUCH better for reading than paper book After doing most of my reading on an eBook for the last 4-5 years, I find I really, really dislike reading paper. It's so inconvenient.
Lose the DRM / stop with the proprietary formats.Yeah, except that according to the summary, it appears they are probably following Baen's example and publishing without DRM. Given that they used to publish through Baen's Webscriptions system, until their parent company complained about the lack of DRM, it's clear that they're aware of the approach. Interestingly, the Wikipedia page on Tor Books says that the parent company's concerns about lack of DRM "abated in 2007", but gives no citation to support that.
Major publishers and popular authors need to get on board.If you read fantasy and sci-fi, Tor IS a major publisher with lots of popular authors.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Sanderson's Mistborn is a great book (and the first part of a trilogy, which is, I guess, why they give it away for free - the book has a proper ending, though, so you don't need to read the other two books if you end up not liking it). I haven't read the other one, but it has 4 1/2 stars on amazon.com, so I imagine it's pretty good, too.
That he was having difficulty operating it.
There are over 20,000 free ebooks available at Project Gutenberg..
;)
http://www.gutenberg.org/
Also available in text, html and the handy plucker format which is what I use to read ebooks on my old zaurus.
Here's one just for slashdot crowd.. Beowulf
They have a quite extensive sci fi collection..
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Science_Fiction_(Bookshelf)
You wont get the latest books there but still lots of great stuff.
However, I have a collection of around 1500 books (fiction, non-fiction, science, references, etc.) which are not available in e-book format and more than likely never will be.
So what will I do with an ebook reader? Have ten books on that and put it in the bookcase along the paper versions?
The first company that offers me ALL books, including the old ones in my collection, in ebook format (at more or less any price) will get my business in a second. Until then, no thanks, it's not a solution for my problems.
Hi. You used to be able to unlock PDFs by uploading them to Scribd http://www.scribd.com/ and then downloading them again in text format. Don't know if they closed this loophole yet as I haven't tried in a while.
Interestingly enough, all the biggest book and magazine publishers in the West, when you trace back their ownership flow charts, have prominent Nazi family names sitting squarely in the commanding boxes at the top. Holtzbrinck is actually one of the smaller players.
And people wonder why I don't trust the media.
-FL
I was delighted to see Tor following the lead of Baen Books and tried to register, but received the error 'we cannot register you at this time, but check back in a few weeks'.
Either the deal is closed, or it's slashdotted, or it didn't like my attempt to fake a ZIP code (I'm in England, so didn't really know what to enter).
Is anyone else still able to sign up?
OK, it turns out there a bug in their HTML code that can prevent registration. If there's an error (in my case, it didn't like the '+' in the first email I used) it sets a cookie. This is then checked every submission and if present, registration is blocked by Javascript. It seems to be trying to catch people who give a young age, get rejected, then lie to get in.
The fix of course is to delete cookies and resubmit the form.
It should be pointed out that some excellent books published by Tor have been available as DRM and cost free downloads ( in a variety of formats) for some time.
Brandon Sanderson's "Mistborn" is a good read and might be of particular interest to Wheel of Time fans since he's the guy who's going to be finishing off that series. I really liked his magic and the action scenes involving it are fun.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
I'm hoping that more publishers will follow Baen's lead with online-HTML versions of books, both free and purchased - they eleminate the need for a special reader, as anything that can browse the web can be used as a reader. This includes all but the cheapest cellphones these days.
Personally, I've spent over $600 on ebooks at baen's webscriptions so far, and would spend even more for some other books / series from other publishers, so long as I'm not tied to a proprietary reader and there's no DRM. I did buy a few ebooks that were both, years ago, from Embid Publishing and decided "never again!"
--Robb Hammack
"Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our
The same goes for the longevity of the newspaper - given that everyone can get their news off the web, why do newspapers still exist? Why doesn't everyone just read the same news via a laptop at the table?
Because of old people, how many under 30's do you know that get a daily newspaper?
Cheap storage VM.
I've been reading on a Palm OS device for almost a decade now, and I can tell you that it isn't a whole lot of fun. Small type, frequent page changes, and LCD technology all add up to serious eyestrain.
I've also always wanted to read the unabridged "Arabian Knights," but the cheapest dead-tree edition runs about $1K US. An e-edition, however, can be purchased for as little as $25.
Therefore, a "$400 device" using eInk saves me $600 on the very first book I want to buy. The rest is just gravy. (Besides, I bought the $300 device from Sony rather than the $400 Kindle, saving even more).
If it turns out to have any form of DRM, I won't even download it for free. I bought some ebooks back in the 90s. They had DRM. One company folded before I got around to unlocking my books. I lost my keys from another company and was unable to get them replaced when I moved to a new computer. Another checked in with their server to validate my system every time I booted the computer. Guess what happened when they migrated to a new authentication system. Meanwhile, all of my paper books still work just fine.
The funny thing is that the more popular books will be available in non-DRM format very quickly. Fans type them up in well-formatted PDF and RTF versions within days of release. Sometimes they're available online before the paper hits the shelves. Adding DRM to ebooks isn't going to prevent the distribution of pirated copies. Once the words are published in a way that they can be seen, they can be copied. If they're worth the effort of copying, they will be copied.
... in dead tree format. Why couldn't they include crappy books I don't already own!
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
1) The price needs to come down. A lot. $400 is just waaaay to much to make these things ubiquitous. Think about attractive one of these might be at $50. It would be hard to resist.
If you look around, you can pickup something like the Sony PRS-505 for under $300. Which is a good bit less then $400 and was inexpensive enough for me to say "I'll try it".
2) Lose the DRM / stop with the proprietary formats. Books, even more so than software, yearn to be free.
Books don't yearn to be free. They're inanimate objects. YOU might wish that they were free. (Personally, my only objection with copyright is that it's been extended way too far and should be trimmed back to 20 years after first publish date.)
As for DRM-free content, there's a good bit of it out there (all of Baen's e-books are sold without DRM) plus all the stuff from Project Gutenberg.
3) Major publishers and popular authors need to get on board. Unless the authors who people really want to read are available, the whole exercise is sort of pointless.
Between Amazon's Kindle and Sony's reader, there's a lot of popular stuff for sale. Unfortunately, a lot of it is DRM'd.
(And while I may eventually buy some DRM content... I'll probably try to exhaust all of the non-DRM content first.)
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
1) You can store a huge volume of music on it. While this is an advantage for e-readers, books are read in a more linear fashion. Random access of a huge library typically isn't necessary.
2) Small size and light weight is a huge advantage in a music player, where all you care about is the music. Small size is, in fact, a detriment to readers. As such, the advances in miniaturization mean less. Most paperbacks are not too unreasonably heavy.
3) There isn't a really good alternative for portable music playback. A single CD or cassette only plays an hour of music, and so you'd need a fairly good stack of music to last a weekend. Not so with books.
I'm not trying to sound like a Luddite. These things will eventually catch on, but I think manufacturers will eventually catch on to the fact that a simple, cheap, and open reader will ultimately sell better than one that forces the user into expensive proprietary formats.
Oh, and btw, how successful do you think the iPod would be if it didn't play unprotected MP3 files?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
My problem with DRM is that you're at the mercy of the encrypted format and whatever scheme is in place to prevent it's copying. Who's to say that particular type of encryption will be long supported? Granted, for a technical book, this is less of an issue, as these tend to have rather short shelf lives anyhow, but why take the chance? These schemes tend to be cumbersome and error-prone (I've helped to support DRM-supported add-ons for a game I work on), and are generally a worse user-experience than a non-DRM format.
Believe me, I'm the last person you'll find that authors shouldn't be compensated for their work. I was, in fact, refering to "DRM-free". Call it a limitation of the English language. I believe the phrase is something like "free as in free speech, not as in free beer".
As a slightly off-topic question, how do you get HTML tags to show up without the [domain.com] tag?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
You know, I've never minded paying for books. I'm not sure why, because I often hate paying for TV or movies or music. Maybe it's because there's enough books that are "mainstream" such that I can find stuff much easier that isn't unmitigated crap. Maybe it's the fact that the price per hour of entertainment is incredibly low. Maybe it's the collectibility of the books. Or the ease of resale.
...
:( so I just give away the books when I'm done reading them. So if I could get the e-book version of Nonsense for $5 instead of paying $12 + shipping, that would be fine. It'd need to last the week or two it takes me to read it. What I won't do is pay $24 when the hardcover is $26. E-books are massivly over priced most places I've looked. It seems to me they ought to be able to realize real savings *to the consumer* by not paying the actual distribution and printing costs, and in my savings on shipping. Charging almost hardcover prices for an e-book is just greed IMO.
The reason I originally got my e-book reader (RCA REB1100) was because of all the really enjoyable free content on the net, and I mean freely given away fan fiction, slashdot discussions (I didn't used to post), etc. Now there is even more out there like your novel, some of the stuff from Baen/Tor, the Agent to the Stars novel
I wouldn't even mind paying for e-books as now adays I just don't have the space for a personal library
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
And a free edition is available, formatted for most any ebook reader you can think of (including Kindle and Sony reader.) Manybooks.net has all 16 volumes. Manybooks got them from Gutenberg.
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
I think you have some defaults turned on in your preferences.
When configuring your preferences, choose the discussion section and look for this:
[snip]
Display Link Domains? (shows the actual domain of any link in brackets)
Never show link domains
Show the links domain only in recommended situations
Always show link domains
[/snip]
(I always post in flat text, so the page snippet is a little munged, but the three options have radio buttons beside them.)
Choose whatever it is you want.
At least I didn't pay fictionwise, which is charging twice as much.
Ah, thanks very much.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.