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March 28, 2006

Spin, Accelerando and Old Man's War: The 2006 Hugo/Campbell Voters Electronic Editions

8/1/06: Hugo voting for 2006 is now closed. I regret we may no longer offer electronic versions of Spin and Old Man's War.

For the duration of the 2006 Hugo and Campbell campaign, Tor Books has graciously reverted certain electronic rights to John Scalzi and Robert Charles Wilson concerning their Hugo-nominated novels Old Man's War and Spin. This allows the two of them to make special electronic editions available at request to 2006 Hugo and Campbell voters. The authors have put together a package of both books for the voters' convenience. Where can they get these special editions? Well, right here, of course!

(Update, 3/29/06 2:30pm -- Charlie Stross has given a thumbs up to adding his 2006 Hugo-nominated novel Accelerando to the package as well! That's three out of the five Hugo nominees, all in one place for Hugo/Campbell voters.)

And now, the questions:

Who is eligible to receive this collection?

2006 Hugo/Campbell voters are eligible. To be a Hugo/Campbell voter, you must be a member of LAcon IV, this year's Worldcon. If you are not yet a member, you can become one here.

Is there a cost to these electronic editions?

No. The authors do hope if the 2006 Hugo/Campbell voters enjoy the books, they might consider picking up physical copies of Spin, Accelerando and Old Man's War; their mortgages will thank you. However, these electronic editions are provided without cost to eligible voters.

I'm a member of LAcon IV, and I'm going to vote for the Hugo and Campbell! How do I get these electronic editions?

Send an e-mail to hugo@scalzi.com requesting the editions.

IMPORTANT: Your e-mail MUST include the following information: The name under which you are registered for LAcon IV, your membership number, and your home state/province/country (if not US or Canada). This is so we may confirm you are, indeed, an LAcon IV member and are thus eligible to vote for the 2006 Hugo/Campbell Awards. DO NOT PROVIDE YOUR PIN NUMBER. We don't need that, and as per your bank card, that's not a number you need to share with anyone else.

Information sent to the "hugo@scalzi.com" address will be stored by John Scalzi for the duration of the nomination process. After the final day for voting is over, it will deleted. None of this information will be seen or used by anyone other than John Scalzi, nor used for any purpose other than verifying LAcon IV membership and providing 2006 Hugo/Campbell voters with the eligible texts.

(Update, 5:51pm -- we've already had more than one person ask if they really have to provide that information. Yes, you really do.)

Why are you not making these editions available to anyone but 2006 Hugo/Campbell voters?

Tor reverted these electronic rights back to the authors under these specific conditions; they are legally obliged to honor them. Tor is currently working industriously toward making commercial electronic editions of these and other fine Tor books available to the general public, hopefully sooner than later.

What format are these editions of the novels?

All texts are in rich text format (.rtf) in order to be opened on the widest number of computers and electronic readers. 2006 Hugo/Campbell voters may feel free to reformat the texts in whatever manner they choose. The texts are packaged in a .zip file which also includes a brief "read me" note from the authors.

Are these editions of the novels locked down with any form of Digital Rights Management (DRM)?

Robert Charles Wilson and John Scalzi are asking 2006 Hugo/Campbell voters who receive these editions of their books not to share them outside their households. Outside of this polite request, there is no DRM applied to any of the text files. Other forms of DRM implicitly suggest 2006 Hugo/Campbell voters cannot be trusted, and that quite obviously sends the wrong signal. The authors prefer to trust the voters.

I'm a 2006 Hugo/Campbell voter and I've sent in my information. What now?

John Scalzi, who is administering this program on behalf of himself, Charles Stross and Robert Charles Wilson, will verify your LAcon IV membership and then either e-mail you the .zip file containing the texts (~880kb), or provide you with a URL from which you may download the .zip file. Depending on the volume of requests, this may take a couple of days.

Your request may be denied if you have not provided adequate information to verify you are an LAcon IV member, so please remember to provide the information as specified above. If your request has been denied due to lack of information, you may resubmit with the additional information.

If more than 7 days has passed since you submitted your e-mail and you have not received either the file, information on how to download the file, or a denial, please first check your spam filters (your e-mail client or ISP may decide that someone sending you a 880kb .zip file is up to no good); if there's nothing there please feel free to resubmit your request. E-mail does sometimes slip through the cracks.

While the authors do intend to fulfill every legitimate request for these electronic editions, they do reserve the right to refuse to send the texts to anyone, for any reason.

I asked for a copy of the package before Accelerando was added in! How can I get Accelerando too?

Write in again and ask for it -- or, alternately, go to Charlie's Accelerando site, and download a free copy there. Accelerando is also available for download by non-2006 Hugo/Campbell voters.

Any additional comments or questions? Feel free to drop them into the comment thread.

Posted by john at March 28, 2006 08:31 AM

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