Creative Commons licensed work from Small Beer Press
The books below are provided in these formats: low-res PDF, HTML, RTF, and text file. We encourage any and all conversions into other formats. We'll happily host, credit, and add your conversion to the file list below. Please abide by these few rules for file-conversions:
- If the book has been converted to your format of choice but the conversion doesn't suit you, go ahead and reconvert it for your own use and distribution. We will host the first (and only the first) version as the few formats we have provided are pretty much all we know anything about.
- Enjoy!
Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners
Benjamin Rosenbaum, The Ant King and Other Stories
Maureen F. McHugh, Mothers & Other Monsters
John Kessel, The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories
Kelly Link, Stranger Things Happen
Magic for Beginners
Kelly LinkBuy the paper edition | Reviews | Kelly Link's site | ebook
To celebrate the publication of Kelly's new collection Pretty Monsters—her first for young adults—and with many thanks to the wonderful and generous publishers (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the USA and HarperPerennial in the UK) willing to take this wild ride with us, we are very happy to announce that we have permission to post most (7 of 9 stories) from Kelly's previous collection, Magic for Beginners online for the period of one year under a Creative Commons license. Due to contractual obligations, "The Faery Handbag" and "Magic for Beginners" are not included in this download.
Magic for Beginners was selected as a Best Book of the Year by Time Magazine, Salon, BoldType, and PopMatters, among others. It was nominated for various awards, including the Young Lions and Bram Stoker, and won the Locus Award. It has been translated into eight languages and stories from it were finalists for the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, Sturgeon, World Fantasy awards and won the Nebula, Hugo, BSFA, and Locus awards.
As with Kelly's first collection, Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners is licensed under a Creative Commons (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0) license. We encourage readers to take creative license with all of the books on this page and look forward to hearing from readers and remixers. We also encourage readers to support the publishers who are taking part in this grand experiment and, if appropriate, buy the paper editions:
US hardcover: Signed | Powells | local bookshop
US paperback: Signed | Powells | Amazon | local bookshop
UK edition: Amazon | John Smith | Waterstones
More editions: Japan | Germany | Romania | Poland | . . .Downloads: To get your Free Download of Magic for Beginners click on the links below:
Printable PDF file, 1.5MB
HTML file, 452k
Plain text file, 376k
RTF file, 404k
-- Click to open in browser. Right click (or Control+click) to "Save link" to save the file to your computer.Bonus Conversions
Mobipocket, 215k (Thanks Arachne Jericho!)
PalmOS .pdb, 196k (Thanks Darren!)
Plucker, 150k (Thanks Alan!)
The Ant King and Other Stories
Benjamin RosenbaumBuy the paper edition | Benjamin Rosenbaum's site | ebook
The Ant King and Other Stories is licensed under a Creative Commons (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0) license allowing readers to share the stories with friends and generally have at them.
Ben is having a friendly contest for creators, remixers, and reusers.
Downloads: To get your Free Download of The Ant King and Other Stories click on the links below:
Printable PDF file, 716k
HTML file, 452k
Plain text file, 376k
RTF file, 404k
-- Click to open in browser. Right click (or Control+click) to "Save link" to save the file to your computer.Bonus Conversions
Mobipocket (Thanks Arachne Jericho!)
Mothers and Other Monsters
Maureen F. McHughBuy the paper edition | Reviews | Maureen F. McHugh's site
paperback | hardcover | limited edition | ebookStory Prize finalist | Book Sense Notable Book
Nancy Pearl selected Mothers & Other Monsters as a "Books for a Rainy Day" on Morning Edition on NPR.
Mothers & Other Monsters is licensed under a Creative Commons (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0) license allowing readers to share the stories with friends and generally have at them in any remixing/interpretation/Web 2.0 huddly-guddly noncommercial manner.
Downloads: To get your Free Download of Mothers & Other Monsters click on the links below:
Printable PDF file, 2MB
HTML file, 881k
Plain text file, 521k
RTF file, 788k
-- Click to open in browser. Right click (or Control+click) to "Save link" to save the file to your computer.Bonus Conversions
Mobipocket version (Thanks Gareth!)
Tarted-up HTML File (Thanks Gareth!)
The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories
John KesselBuy the paper edition | Reviews | John Kessel's site
Book Sense Pick
To celebrate the publication of his first new collection of short stories in ten years, The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories, John Kessel and Small Beer Press have made it available as a free download in various completely open formats with no Digital Rights Management (DRM) strings attached.
"A sustained exploration of the ways gender dynamics can both empower and enslave us. Kessel's wit sparkles throughout, peaking with the most uproariously weird phone-sex conversation you'll ever read ("The Red Phone")." A-
—Entertainment WeeklyThe Baum Plan is licensed under a Creative Commons (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0) license allowing readers to share the stories with friends and generally have at them in any remixing/interpretation/Web 2.0 huddly-guddly noncommercial manner.
Downloads: To get your Free Download of The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories click on the links below:
Printable PDF file, 1.2MB
HTML file, 954k
Plain text file, 732k
RTF file, 732k
-- Click to open in browser. Right click (or Control+click) to "Save link" to save the pdf file to your computer.Bonus Conversions
Mobipocket (Thanks Paul!) | Another Mobipocket version (Thanks Gareth!)
Palm Pilot (Thanks André!)
"j2me enabled phone" (Thanks Nicholas!)
Tarted-up HTML File (Thanks Gareth!)
Scribd
Sony Reader and more types (Thanks David!)
Kelly Link's debut collection Stranger Things Happen is now available for as a free download in various completely open formats with no Digital Rights Management (DRM) strings attached. It is licensed under a Creative Commons (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5) license allowing readers to share the stories with friends and generally have at them in any noncommercial manner. The book is provided below in these formats: Text file, HTML, rtf, and lo-res PDF.
Downloads: To get your Free Download of Stranger Things Happen click on the links below:
Plain text file, 462k
HTML file, 483k
RTF file, 790k
Printable PDF file, 2.5MB
-- Click to open in browser. Right click (or Control+click) to "Save link" to save the pdf file to your computer.Bonus conversions!
MobiPocket -- Conversion from the html version for MobiPocket reader with chapter information and a table of contents. 204k. (Thanks, Daniel Rodriguez)
EReader -- Conversion for Palm with chapter information and a table of contents. 204k. (Thanks, Jeff DeLeo)
HTML file, 483k -- Converted so that the table of contents is linked as is license info and about the author info. It is also html optimized for reading on a pocket pc. (Thanks Matt Katz!)
iSilo -- Converted for the e-book reader iSilo which is available for various mobile platforms. (Thanks: Colin Dunstan!)
Gnutella -- The PDF is now on the Gnutella and Gnutella2 peer-to-peer networks. (Thanks: Jules!)
Plucker -- Conversion of the HTML file on this site. Plucker is a reader for mobile devices running the Palm operating system. 198k. (Thanks: Mark Hainline!)
Plucker -- Second version that includes links for navigating from the table of contents to each story. 198k. (Thanks: Howard Bales!)
BitTorrent -- PDF via BitTorrent
PalmDoc -- For most ebook readers. 257k. (Thanks: Byron Collins!)
TomeRaider -- Ebook format for PDA's: 241k. (Thanks: Byron Collins!)
Audio
"Most of My Friends are Two-Thirds Water" read by Alex Wilson (and released under CC, of course).
-- MP3; 64kbps; 12.5MB)
-- Ogg Vorbis (.ogg); Q2; 14MB
-- AAC (.m4a); 64kbps; 12.8MB"The Specialist's Hat" read by Jason Lundberg (40 minute MP3).
1. Why?
We love books. We want to keep on publishing good books. Weird books. Interesting books. We are curious about the future. If everyone downloads books straight to the Kindlenub in their head, we might be in trouble. But if there are still people who like to read books on paper, maybe some of them will read some of these downloads and then decide they would like the actual books. Therefore we're releasing some of our books
also releasing it as a free download in various completely open formats with no Digital Rights Management (DRM).
2. Creative What?
We're interested in spreading the word about Creative Commons. Copyright is a good thing and artists deserve to be paid whatever society is willing to pay for their work. But, do artists need to retain the rights to their work for 70 years after their death? Uh, no.
3. Can't I buy the book?
Yes, we certainly encourage readers to buy the book -- we're a tiny independent press. We receive no grants, we're not a nonprofit: sales are good!
4. Will giving this book away kill sales?
We don't think so.
60,000+ people have downloaded Kelly Link's Stranger Things Happen since we made it available under Creative Commons. In the meantime the book has gone into its sixth printing, has been translated into more than half-a-dozen langauges, is being taught in many schools, and is still being passed hand to hand to new readers.
Our books are available in hundreds of libraries, on books.google.com and Amazon.com's Search Inside program, in a few used bookshops, on BookCrossing, Scribd, Teleread, and, again, in hundreds of libraries.
In other words: as with any book, if you want to read it for free, you can. We've just made it easier for this book to reach the 6 billion readers out there!
4. Questions
Got a question? Email us and hopefully we'll post an answer. We are a tiny press, though, so please don't get jumpy if we don't answer immediately. We're busy working on our next books, freelancing, or performing quality control on chocolate.
More thanks:
Donate?
A number of readers pointed us toward Jim Kelly's great page of Free Audiobooks and suggested we add a donation button.
Please note: this is not something you have to do (especially if you own the book!). The electronic editions above are Free -- and one of hopefully many Creative Commons-Licensed Free Downloads we'll release (check for updates).
You can buy the book at the following spots: Paypal | mail order | Our local bookshop | Powells | Direct: 800-729-6423. If you donate below, we'll send you a thank you email but nothing else (well, unless you go wild!). We're an indie press, hoping to survive, bent on publishing the best books we can find and in no way a 501(c)3 or whatever kind of non profit. We want to make a living publishing good books and pay authors and artists decent money along the way. We are 'for profit' even if that's more of a conceptual aim than an actuality as yet.
So thanks for reading. It's a noisy world and we appreciate the time you took getting here. Enjoy the book, spread it far and wide, come back sometime, and if you really want to, go ahead and donate: