OK, folks, here it is: version 1.0 of my e-book, Video Game Hints, Tricks, And Cheats: Essays, Exercises, Riffs, Gags, And Other Incidental Writings. You can download it at my website in either EPUB or pdf formats. I suspect the EPUB is only really suitable for iPad at the moment; I tried it on a couple of computer-based readers (Adobe Digital Editions and some Linux thing) and the formatting ranged from Almost Right to Not Right At All. But it looks good on the iPad for sure. To install it on iPad, download into your computer's e-books folder, drag into iTunes, and sync. The book will appear on your iBooks shelf. (You can't download EPUB directly from Safari to iBooks yet.)The pdf, on the other hand, will look good on whatever will display a pdf, but you won't get to do the neat little webby shenanigans you can with EPUB, like changing the font and text size. Eventually I will buy InDesign CS5 and make the EPUB universally readable, but that's the future.
The book itself is a collection of random, mostly comic writing from the past dozen years, including pieces published in Harper's, Granta, The Los Angeles Times, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. Most of the pieces here are available on the "Read Online" section of my website, but quite a few have never been seen before.
Enjoy!
16 comments:
Yay! Now only if I could pry that iPad out my mother's grasp... Maybe I'll swap it out for a Kindle & see if she notices.
When she tries to look at pornography while streaming Insane Clown Posse Radio, she'll realize that something is amiss.
Damn her & her psychopathic need for fierce beats! Ah well, pdf it is.
Thanks for this. Who knew I'd be all Old School with my ancient pdf file readings? Damn whippersnappers and your Devil Pads...
I dig the cover, man! Very classic. I was just talking to a friend about the video games of yesteryear, which were short, simple, and brilliant, like much of the stuff in your ebook. Nice job!
I'm excited to read these, John, esp in the new format. We're enjoying our IPad--the Alice in Wonderland book/app is wild. Jill's reading some Tarzan thing. I am checking out how poetry looks on the device through a pdf of the Bly/Wright translations of Trakl. Not sure how well that works--still at the medium is the message phase, and poetry demands something that maybe the IPad/Kindle/Sony Reader can't give. But prose works fine, I think. It glows.
Oh, and a big howdy, Sung! I'm halfway through Everything Asian. It's delightful.
We'll just have to write some shiny iPad-only poems. And by we, I clearly mean the one with the talent-- Sir Skoog.
My favorite book when I was my older son's age was Secrets Of The Videogame Superstars...I still have it and still play some of those old games via MAME. That cover is from the Ms. Pac-Man hack known as Ms. Pac Attack...
Ed -- hello back to you! The thing I love most about hearing writers read their work out loud is that I can hear their voices so much clearer later on, when I read it off the page. This especially applies to poets, so it's great to hear Mister Skylight in my head.
John -- I actually have a Pac-Man scene in my novel, if you can believe it. And the trade paperback cover has a slight nod to the old game, too!
I have to ask:
Did you really have a metal bridge removed from your teeth recently?
Yes I did. Well, it was a few years back at this point. And Mel, I am sure you know the whole murderin' dentist saga.
Very cool PDF. Read an ARC of Castle that was part of a Graywolf Press promotion. Thought it was excellent as well.
Thank you!
Hey, John (Sarah here). I can't wait to read the eBook. I'm sure you've seen this, but I came across it while doing some job-hunting on MediaBistro this morning:
http://www.mediabistro.com/ebooknewser/free_ebook_of_the_day/free_ebook_of_the_day_video_game_hints_tricks_and_cheats_essays_by_j_robert_lennon_161005.asp
Thanks, Sarah, that's great!
Post a Comment