I’m on the Unglue.it mailing list. There was a message from founder Eric Hellman in my inbox today letting me know that the world’s first unglued eBook, Oral Literature in Africa, is available in the iBookstore.
I took a few minutes to check the Swiss store, and sure enough there it was:
Since it has been unglued, I was able to download it for free. Here is a snap of the copyright page from iBooks.
Despite this, it seems that Amazon isn’t offering the book for free. According to Eric,
It’s also available in the Kindle Store. But there’s a problem. Amazon doesn’t like free ebooks. The lowest they’ll price it (without charging the publisher a fee for the download) is $1.99. But Amazon will lower the price to zero if other retailers offer it for free. So go ahead and click the “tell us about a lower price” link. The publisher has done that, and we’ve done that. We want it to be free there too!
I checked the Kindle store online. The eBook is priced at $2.43.
Ironically, the preview displays the copyright page, and right there in the preview, the link to Open Book Publishers is live. When you click, it will take you to the Oral Literature in Africa page where you can download a free Kindle version directly from their site.
Further reading:
Unglue.it “Unglues” Its First Book
Open Thread: Amazon Forces Unglue.it To Suspend Crowdfunding For Creative Commons eBooks
Source:
http://wellpreparedmind.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/amazon-really-doesnt-like-free-ebooks/