Roo'd
A novel about the future that's closer than we think

"Roo'd is geek-addled cyberpunk fiction at its finest, about a teenage boy with two prosthetic legs and a band of misfit body-modders, shamanistic computer hackers, and pharmaceutically psychotic bioscientists. But it's also an exploration of someone coming to grips with what they truly love to do - and what it means to do it in a confusing world of shades of gray."

Neal Stephenson gave me some advice about a year after I wrote this, which was more or less that if I'd already edited my book a couple of times and still didn't feel it was ready then I should get on with things and write another one.

I ignored his advice until now, when its good sense finally sunk in. So here's my first novel - a cyberpunk exploration of one geek's search for meaning. If you like it, please let me know, and if you think you can rewrite it better, give it a shot - It's released under a Creative Commons license for exactly that purpose. Big thanks to Cory Doctorow for encouraging aspiring authors like myself to give their work to the world this way!

- Josh Klein

Download it

Roo'd is available in a variety of formats:

.PDF format
.RTF (Word) format
.TXT format
.HTML format
.TAR'd eBook format
(also know as the Gutenberg project's format)
Plucker format (for PDA's - thanks Guillermo!)

Alternately, get it directly from the Internet Archive.

Or, subscribe to installments via Email or RSS through DailyLit.com.

Donate

If you like the book and want to help me afford to take time off to write another one, feel free to make a donation.

Or Buy it!

I was getting requests for paper copies of Roo'd, so I shopped around and settled on Amazon's CreateSpace.com for printing. Their setup was quick and easy, and I got an ISBN and listing on Amazon.com for free. But most importantly, Roo'd is now being published Print-On-Demand (POD), which is a Big Deal.

While a POD book is usually slightly more expensive than one produced as part of "traditional" publishing, it creates little or no waste from unsold products. It also reduces the risks associated with publishing books which leads to increased choice for consumers. There are numerous other advantages:

Eco-Friendliness

Traditional lithographic printing uses vast amounts of not just paper, but also ink and chemicals. Each year thousands of unsold books and magazines are pulped as simply too many were printed. Print on demand eliminates this problem, since books are only printed when a definite order is placed. Books that are printed have therefore already been sold.

Availability of niche publications

POD is also used to print and reprint "niche" books that may have limited sales opportunities, such as specialist academic works that serve such a small market that large print runs would be unprofitable. Print on demand can also be used to reduce risk when dealing with "surge" titles that are expected to have large sales but a short sales life, or if it's unclear if there will be a big market for them.

Opportunity for new authors

Print-on-demand titles are often debut works, making it harder for them to attract large-scale publisher's attention. Wholesalers keep a careful eye on what titles they are selling, however, and if an author achieves a reasonable number of orders from book stores or online retailers, then there is a reasonable chance of their work being picked up and marketed.

Creative-Commons friendly

I released my novel under a Creative Commons license, which means that anyone can download it, distribute it, or modify it in any way as long as they give me attribution and don't use it for commercial purposes. That meant I was free to get written up on sites like BoingBoing.com, which caused a torrent of publicity I couldn't have bought for anything. That translated into a lot more interest in buying copies of my book than I could have generated by publishing through a standard publishing house who would have restricted my distribution!

Keeping old titles available

POD can help maintain the availability of older titles whose future sales may not be great enough to justify a further conventional print run. This can be useful for publishers with large back catalogs of older works where sales for individual titles may be low.

Buy it here!

NEWS!

Shaun, who provides the fabulous eBook reader for the iPhone, was kind enough to host Roo'd in the eBook repositories. This makes Roo'd the first modern novel on the iPhone, and the second novel available after Tarzan. This is a fantastic chance to get the novel out there - thanks, Shaun!

Looks like Roo'd got Boing Boing'd, and in its first month it's already been downloaded ~10,500 times. If you've ever poured your heart and soul into writing a novel this is pretty much what your dream should be, and is a better endorsement for Creative Commons than anything I could have come up with.

Roo'd was recently reviewed by Jon McDougal on Tales From The Eye. If you're not sure what you're doing here, try this link to see what Jon thought.

CreateSpace.com, an Amazon subsidiary, is now publishing paper copies of my book. It's Print on Demand (POD - see "Buy It!" above) which is super eco-friendly and gives me a nice chunk of the royalties. I was lucky enough to have Diana Yee do the cover design and it's just gorgious. If you're looking for an artifact, pick it up!

Roo'd by Joshua Klein is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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