As announced in an essay in the Globe and Mail Book section, and Straight Goods online magazine, I am hereby offering my novel The Uninvited Guest (published by Nightwood Editions) as a free downloadable PDF file. The book, short-listed for Canada's prestigious First Novel Award, is about totalitarianism, freedom and the many games in between.
Please just click on the cover image or link below to begin the download (free downloads thanks to freepdfhosting.com).
The Uninvited Guest (double page spread)
The Uninvited Guest (single page layout)
This download is FREE -- but it cost me time and money to write the novel, and the same goes for all my books, past and future. If you appreciate The Uninvited Guest, and would like to support my writing, become an arts patron by sending a donation in the amount of your choosing. To donate online, simply click the secure button below, or in the right hand menu on my homepage, and PayPal will guide you through the process.
You can also be supportive by going to your local excellent bookstore (in Canada) and buying the physical book, or any other Nightwood Editions book. There are also traditional links to my books in online stores in the homepage menu.
The Uninvited Guest -- shortlisted for the 2007 Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award
"Satisfying and resonant... John Degen has written a very fine book -- rarely is an uninvited guest so enjoyable."
- Steven Galloway, author of The Cellist of Sarajevo, in The Globe and Mail
"Degen finds us when we are mortal, when we are brave, when we are victorious..."
- Claudia Dey, author of Stunt
"I enjoyed this book because I've lived the inside story. The Uninvited Guest offers a fictional and philosophical lens on a wide range of subjects from the lives of professional hockey players to the keepers of the Cup to Eastern European history to storytelling, and blurs the whole spectrum together in a finale full of love, community and companionship."
- Igor Larionov, three-time winner of the Stanley Cup
I want to thank Silas White, my publisher, and the team over at Nightwood Editions for agreeing to this download, and for producing a very attractive PDF. And thanks to all the wonderful booksellers across Canada who are still stocking the physical book.
And, please note, the text in this PDF file is:
Copyright John Degen 2006. You are permitted to read this book on-line and download a copy for your personal use and enjoyment. If you think this is a book you would like to share with friends, please send them the link to this blog. Their eyeballs help my career. If you would like to use it for another purpose, even a non-commercial purpose, please get a licence. You can get a licence by contacting Access Copyright at http://www.accesscopyright.ca/. You may also contact me directly at the link in the right hand menu.
Thanks to Flickr for hosting the cover image.
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.gif){kind=small}
Copyright 2008, John Degen. To reproduce or distribute, visit: johndegen.icopyright.com
17 comments:
Is there a link to the essay?
Hmmm, looks like the essay is "coming soon." But feel free to start reading the book anytime.
Hey John, I notice that Cory Doctorow has also put his book online for free.
His idea is interesting in that he is not asking for money directly, but is instead asking for donations to help libraries and teachers get free hard copies.
I haven't read either book, (though I have downloaded both, Thanks John, I hope I can find the time to read it. Hopefully not being a hockey fan wont be a put off for me) but I presume Cory's book may be more applicable to an educational environment.
Still it is interesting to see how you, Cory, and others try to find ways to take advantage of these new technologies. I expect it will be a great learning experience for everyone.
Best of luck to all of you.
Thank you John.
I believe this is the way of the future where "you" will build loyal followers who can't wait for next work. The Paypal way is the way of "patron's" which brings us back a bit in time to say the era of the 1500's where the nobility and uppity ups sponsors great artists in their works.
PS I like time travel ... maybe you spin that into a future work ... sometimes I feel about 8 lightyears ahead of everyone. Sometimes farther and of course backwards is just a similar bend in gravity and space ;-) Always loved "new physics."
All the best,
Lawrence
Thanks Lawrence,
There's lots of time travel in this novel... it's just all in the form of flashbacks.
There is supposed to be an essay in this weekend's Globe and Mail Books section explaining my own reasons for this offer. I'll post a link when I get one.
Discussions about patronage, tipping the artist and any other new/old model of showing respect for the work while keeping the artist in food are more than welcome.
Last week I saw some live music at the Cameron House here in TO, and the band leader did the old "pass the hat" system. People were quite generous. That said, it's probably hard to plan a realistic budget on "hat potential."
John: Good luck with this. Obviously, filling the hat is the writer's ideal; but seeing how much the hat is passed around will also be interesting.
John: I enjoyed your piece in this weekend's GLOBE & MAIL. My blog has become the exclusive venue for my work; I no longer have to endure the humiliating submission process and have quite publicly told the publishing world to go f--- themselves. The new technologies have wrested control away from traditional publishers and put more power into the hands of writers. Terry Fallis' selection as winner of this year's Leacock Medal is an indication of a dramatic sea change--an indie (i.e. self-published) author winning a prestigious literary prize shows that the trads have lost their monopoly and will soon go the way of dodos (or print newspapers). The music industry ignored the internet and new technologies and lost their shirts as a result--sadly, publishers didn't learn from that development and will shortly pay a price for their hubris and stupidity. Good luck with offering your novel for free--I've done something similar with SO DARK THE NIGHT and have been delighted with the reaction. Hundreds of people around the world downloading the book, giving me access to a readership I could only dream of a few short months ago. Hang in there, muchachos...
Congrats! Looks great. Keep us updated on the project. :-)
Phillip.
it's nice to see that sharing isn't lost on everyone... to many artists don't seem to want to share any of their work (whereas me as an apprentice share everything just to try and get noticed)... personally, I think that blogging and public posting of artistic endeavors is the way of the future... perhaps readers will have to subscribe to writers sites or something... know what i\ mean???
I'm gonna rip this text off your site and have a look through your work... i only stumbled through here checking out some of the links on rob mclennan's page...
again... i commend you on presenting your work in an open fashion like this... inspires me to stay the course...
Bonjour Monsieur Degen,
Before this morning, I've never heard of you...
reading
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/4661
then
"Who needs copyright, anyway?"
then
"take my book, please"
resulted in 5 CAD donated via Paypal
Sorry, I won't read your novel... 8-) not
enough time..
Thanks for the donation Raymond. You are the first.
Bienvenue!
and it just costs me another five piastres to access your Globe And Mail article... I hope you made a few cents there too!
8-)
Hello. I came across your Globe and Mail essay reading the Stanford Center for Internet and Society homepage. Unfortunately, Globe and Mail has decided to stop offering your essay for free, and wanted $5 to view it. Of course, I read the Google cache :) Maybe you should update the link in your post?
Well, the Globe chooses to try a subscription model for the content it has purchased. Good luck to them.
On the other hand, using my rights under copyright, I resold the article to the Straight Goods online journal for secondary publication. It is offering the article for free at this link.
Well John, regarding your article in the globe, I think we are about to see just how 'over' the war is. There is a lot of buzz about now regarding the tabling of new copyright legislation. If the blog-sphere is right and the legislation proves to be as unbalanced as is being made out, we may in fact, have only witnessed the very beginning of the war.
I just ordered your book through Amazon.ca. I downloaded TUG a month ago and I read a few chapters, and liked it enough to make an investment. I was going to donate instead, but I'd prefer a paper copy -- reading fiction on a computer screen is a pain in the ass.
Also, I don't know if this was an error in Firefox, but I had problems using your donation form. It kept refreshing after I added new information, and I never got more than half-way down the form before I gave up. This was another reason I finally went with the paper copy, so that you'd get paid for your work.
/my two cents FWIW
Thanks, DMG. Hope you enjoy it.
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