Best Sellers? My 3 Free Edgar Allan Poe eBooks
filed in Book Artist and Illustrator on May.30, 2012
I just happened to discover that the three Edgar Allan Poe “free ebooks” I created a few years back (as Christmas and Halloween presents for friends and clients) have made their way to the Internet in some unexpected places — with one site classifying them as “science fiction” books.
Science fiction?
Well, maybe Poe has some soon-to-be-discovered “lost stories.” Or perhaps there’s some alternate universe where Poe wrote science fiction and Jules Verne, horror stories (surely you’ve heard of Jules Verne, Vampire Killer). In Poe’s lost stories, I’m most certain the author waxed eloquent about earth satellites, laser guns, and nuclear weapons.
And while he was at it, Poe most likely he went ahead and invented the Internet (which ran on steam back when).
Anyway… As I dug into the site advertising the three Poe science fiction tales, I discovered the numbers of downloads each of these three ebooks had enjoyed.
All three eBooks combined have garnered over 20 thousand downloads!
The twist here is that the total reads/downloads from Scribd.com (where I uploaded the original copies of the eBooks) are under three thousand for all three titles. Go figure. Perhaps the “science fiction” classification sells eBooks.
Equally intriguing, these numbers not all that long ago would have comprised a very successful mid-list book with a major publishing house. Of course back then a press would have charged money while these are being given away for free, so it is an apples and hedgehog comparison (and free is a price that’s hard to beat).
Yet the numbers do translate into a lot of free publicity for me (especially ideal since they display my skills as a book designer/graphic artist/illustrator), and hopefully the three titles also give a lot of reading enjoyment with added eye candy for many readers.
Interesting times.
In the meantime, you can visit the page and download your own copies of these “science fiction” tomes at:: Three Free Edgar Allan Poe eBooks.
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Artist / illustrator Duncan Long has created book illustrations for large presses, indie publishers, many self-publishing authors — and Edgar Allan Poe.
May 30th, 2012 on 11:31 am
Perhaps you should consider publishing another Duncan. How about Edgar visits Mars? Or how about Planet Poe lol :)
May 30th, 2012 on 11:42 am
Good book ideas, Jack. Perhaps “Edgar Allen Poe, Vampire Killer, On Mars.” And somehow we must weave in a storyline involving cheerleaders and flying monkeys, of course.
May 31st, 2012 on 2:15 am
I just laughed my head off when I read this article. What moron decided that Edgar Allen Poe wrote science fiction I wonder? Maybe Henry Rider Haggard wrote fantasy, while J. M Barry wrote pot boilers perhaps?
May 31st, 2012 on 8:39 am
Yes, the possibilities are endless: “Passion of the Invisible Man” by Romance writer H. G. Wells… or perhaps “Shades of Gray: A Beginner’s Book for Young Readers.”
June 2nd, 2012 on 6:02 pm
great job illustrating and laying out these three books. free is a fantastic price, too :o) you just received a new fan. keep up the good works.