Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Audrey Niffenegger finally gives go-ahead to Time Traveler's Wife ebook

After years holding out, the author has consented to an electronic version of her bestselling novel for a new e-book website – and announced an exclusive 30-page sequel

Audrey Niffenegger
Audrey Niffenegger plans to sell the ebook through through the new website Zola Books Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Audrey Niffenegger is to return to the world of The Time Traveler's Wife with a glimpse into the life of Alba, Henry and Claire's chrono-impaired daughter, as she prepares to make the original novel available digitally for the first time.
Despite urging from her publishers, Niffenegger has withheld ebook rights to the novel since its publication in 2003. But she is now throwing her weight behind a new independent ebook website, Zola Books, through which she is planning to sell the novel later this year.

The author is also writing a 30-page sequel to the seven-million-copy bestseller for the site. It will focus on the life of Alba, the time-travelling daughter Henry, who was conceived with Claire during one of his visits to her life.
"I can see from history that the ebook [as a medium], while currently a little clunky and weird, is inevitably going to be gorgeous, so I kept the ebook to myself," said Niffenegger, the keynote speaker at the TLC literary conference on Friday. "For a long time I was getting a reputation as this weird book luddite, but what I was doing was preserving my ebook virginity ... so the Time Traveler ebook sat around not being used for much of anything for what seemed like a long time, because everyone was pestering me for it. All my publishers were like: 'So, let's have it,' and I just did that thing where you don't answer your email."
Then Niffenegger's agent Joe Regal started Zola Books, named for the French author Émile Zola, which is, according to the author, "all about the idea that ebooks could and should be better", that they should be sold in partnership with independent booksellers "rather than trying to crush them, and that [the seller] should partner with authors so they can see the numbers and have total transparency
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't get excited yet; Zola Books website is in beta mode at present.
Bookbrainz