We’re pleased to announce the addition of First Star to our Gifting for a Cause program. First Star was founded in 1999 as a public charity dedicated to improving life for child victims of abuse and neglect. When you send a personalized gift eBook, you can also choose to give the gift special meaning by supporting a worthy cause. 100% of your donation goes to the organization.
Learn more about First Star and the Gifting for a Cause program…
Perks.com, an industry-leading provider of corporate incentive and motivation programs, has added WOWIO to its list of premier product suppliers, joining world-class companies including Apple, Canon, Carnival Cruises, Coach, Dell, FootLocker and many others. Perks solutions enable organizations to maximize the value of the audiences vital to their success, providing motivational Sales Incentive, Corporate Incentives and Promotions, Employee Performance and Customer Loyalty programs.
In the initial release, starting August 3, WOWIO will provide nearly $1000 in promotional cards in $5, $10 and $15 increments. Perks program members will be able to redeem incentive/loyalty points for promo cards, which will then be used to pay for downloads of eBooks at WOWIO. Publishing partners will benefit by the exposure to, and purchases from a new audience of eBook buyers. Both companies anticipate an increase in revenues for WOWIO through this program.
Many of you have already discovered digital gift-giving with WOWIO books. Now, when you send a personalized gift ebook, you can also choose to give the gift special meaning by supporting a worthy cause.
Start by adding a $1 (USD) donation to a participating non-profit organization. 100% of your donation goes to the organization. You can also choose a specially-designed digital dust jacket for your gift that shows your support for the cause.
They are playing a key role in bringing events in Iran to the outside world. Meet the people behind the blogs, tweets and YouTube videos, those who are recording — and making — history...
(from the description) In September 2001, a young Iranian journalist named Hossein Derakhshan, created one of the very first weblogs in his native language of Farsi. In response to a request from a reader, he created a simple how-to-blog guide in Farsi. With the modest aim of giving other Iranians a voice, he wound up unleashing a torrent of opinion, the likes of which had never before been seen in the Islamic world. [Derakhshan has since been arrested by the Iranian government, in November 2008]
There are now 64,000 blogs in Farsi, and Nasrin Alavi has been painstakingly reviewing them all. In so doing she has created a remarkable document of the efflorescence of dissent in Iran, a book that not only functions as an archive of what Iranians think of their country, their religion, their culture and the world around them, but also as an alternative recent history of Iran.
Theirs is not the Iran of bearded ayatollahs and thuggish militias, but a country that has educated itself to the point where it finds the Islamist fundamentalists antiquated and laughable, where adult literacy (and computer literacy) is higher than in many European states, and where 70% of the population is under 30 and keen to usher in a new Iran. …
For a limited time, iTaggit is sponsoring a set of 30 WOWIO remastered classics as free downloads. These selected titles — ranging from The War of the Worlds to The Wind in the Willows — are all exclusive, remastered WOWIO editions, some with all-new commissioned art, editor’s notes and other special features.
View all 30 books sponsored by iTaggit, and add them to your collection of classics — free!
WOWIO’s January Book of the Month is Vampyre, a newly-remastered edition of John Polidori's story of bloodthirsty nocturnals. This was the first English-language take on the original Romanian nosferatu to feature an aristocratic male vampire — the premise of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight and countless later incarnations.
Have you already seen the December WOWIO email update? From ebook gifting to Celine, spies to holiday simplicity — check the latest WOWIO new & featured books update... Take a look…
This month’s free download is William Locke’s familiar-yet-different holiday tale of three successful but curmudgeonly men who find themselves traveling to the same destination for Christmas.
Are you using a recent-model Blackberry (like the Bold or the Storm) running OS 4.6 or higher? If so, you can now access the beta version of WOWIO Mobile for Blackberry. With an interface specially-designed for smart mobile devices, you can read your favorite WOWIO books and comics wherever you are.
Go to WOWIO from your Blackberry and give it a try. Then let us know what you think!
Dark and rich, this work — part visual poem, part mystery — is available for online reading, as always. The complete book is also available to download in PDF format for free!
WOWIO hits the Top 10 Most-Popular list on Apple's iPhone web app directory!
11.03.08
WOWIO Email Update We sent out our first email update over the weekend, highlighting some of the new titles we've been enjoying recently. In case you missed it, you can view it online.
As this year’s US national elections approach and voters make their mark on history, we can also take a look back at the journeys of previous generations of Americans who helped pave the way for the experience.
November’s free Book of the Month download is The Woman with Empty Hands, one person’s story in the struggle to gain the vote for women — and the profound effect that engaging in that process had on her view of the world and herself.
If you own an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you can now have the entire WOWIO library anywhere you go. With its specially-designed iPhone-style interface and an Internet connection, you can easily access any book in the WOWIO collection.
You can even access your personal library for easy access to your current reads or favorite titles.
Read more about it or visit WOWIO from your iPhone or Touch now!
Just in time for the US elections in November, October’s Book of the Month presents the speeches of key speakers in the two major parties’ national conventions.
From the Democratic Convention, the speakers include Ted Kennedy, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
The Republican Convention’s speakers include Cindy McCain, George W. Bush, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin and John McCain.
We want to introduce you to a new feature on WOWIO — Collections! These related groups of books or comics are available as special download-only values exclusively from WOWIO. Some may also come with extra features that can be found only in these Collections.
Platinum Studios invites you to check out the three finalists in the biggest comic book contest of the year. The Comic Book Challenge features some of the industry’s hottest up-and-coming creators. Browse through their work, watch their video pitches and see the judges’ reactions in this month’s Book of the Month.
August’s Book of the Month — Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw — reads like a fine ghost story, but it transcends the ordinary with its exploration of the boundary between the supernatural and the slippery edge of insanity.
Download this WOWIO remastered special edition now — it’s free!
As promised, we’ve thrown open WOWIO’s doors to the whole world, and now everyone can read every title online — for free.
We’ve made joining WOWIO easy, too — all you need is an email address. With a (free, as always) membership, you will be eligible for free sponsored downloads, automatic online bookmarking and other members-only features.
While you’re checking out the new features, keep an eye out for all of the new content, including fiction by Margaret Atwood and Pat Conroy, classic SF by Harry Harrison and Robert Silverberg, a cartload of new children’s titles, new poetry and lots of fresh comics, too.
We are retooling the site and content agreements to achieve WOWIO's founding mission: to increase free access to books worldwide! The changes and updates will take a few weeks, but we will be back online in mid-July.
Existing account holders will be notified automatically when the global WOWIO site goes live. If you are not a WOWIO account holder but would still like to be notified, go to wowio.com to sign up.
WOWIO has released two more titles in its continuing series of remastered classics. More accurately, they are two different takes on a single work — Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. Both versions tell the same tale (also known as Alice in Wonderland in its later incarnations) of the title character tumbling into the fantastic world beyond the rabbit-hole.
The standard edition is a typeset version of Carroll’s 1886 manuscript, complete with its illustrations.
The second take presents the story in a uniquely personal form — it is a high-resolution reproduction of Carroll’s actual handwritten and illustrated manuscript. Its whimsical, eclectic format and Carroll’s own script allows for a wholly different view into the author’s storytelling.
June’s book of the month is Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale of one man’s descent into the tangles of good and evil that inhabit the hidden recesses of human nature.
Set in an early American Puritan community, title character Goodman Brown meets a mysterious, dark figure who confronts him with a grim challenge to his faith in the basic goodness of his neighbors and his own wife.
It may go without saying, but we here at WOWIO love books. Because of this, one of our greatest pleasures is in taking one of our favorite titles and applying some tender loving book-design care, with a goal of producing the most beautiful edition available in any form, whether in print or ebook format.
May’s Book of the Month is Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. It set the tone for her later, wildly successful detective fiction novels, and it introduced her signature characters Hercule Poirot, Chief Inspector Japp and Captain Arthur Hastings.
This special “remastered” volume includes the original illustrations from the 1920 edition that create a proper whodunit air, so you can play along at home — download it now!
As another Earth Day approaches, we’d like to pause for a moment to consider our daily work here at WOWIO and how it affects the planet’s health.
Ebooks are the core of our business. These digital alternatives and adjuncts to printed books are one part of the publishing industry’s move to reduce the environmental impacts associated with reading. Ebooks are an enormous step forward compared to the impacts of traditional printed books, such as the consumption of some 30 million trees for titles sold in the US alone, along with the energy use, carbon release and waste by-products associated with their printing, distribution and disposal.
Other aspects of our daily work include energy-saving telecommuting, partnership with environment-minded organizations like Celsias and, perhaps most significantly, our underlying belief that education and expanded access to the written word will ultimately help all of us make informed choices in our stewardship of the Earth.
We also acknowledge that our business has its impacts, from the not-insignificant environmental cost of running the Internet and WOWIO’s piece of that infrastructure to the life-cycle costs of the devices needed to read our content. While we believe our efforts result in a substantial net benefit, we are continuing to work on a number of initiatives to further mitigate our impacts and we’ll continue to report here on our efforts.
In the meantime, take a look at a few thought-provoking titles (above right) to consider this Earth Day…
“No sea horses or tridents here,” said producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (writers and producers of the upcoming film Star Trek and the hit TV series Alias). “The comic brings a fresh, techno-thriller approach to a story that holds all the tenets of a classic us-versus-them alien invasion movie.”
To celebrate the start of baseball season, we’re declaring April’s Book of the Month — Zane Grey’s The Red-Headed Outfield and Other Baseball Stories.
Grey is best remembered for his American “wild west” tales published as periodical series and books. But the young Grey was also a talented ball player, including a stint in the minor leagues.
With work described as “delicate and grotesque, tragic and hilarious, precarious but perfectly balanced” and metaphorically equated to getting one’s head lopped off (in a good way), David Ohle is poised to release a new novel with his uniquely disturbing and insightful blend of dystopia, allegory and humor.
The Pisstown Chaos, from Soft Skull Press, is due to hit the bookstores in July. But you can download the complete book — for free, as always — from WOWIO today.
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, the March book of the month is a collection of classic toasts reflecting universal themes of patriotism, friendship, love and loss, as well as convivial, humorous and sundry sentiments expressed with the raise of a glass — all filtered through an Irish perspective.
We've gathered together all of the WOWIO RSS news feeds in one place. Now you can easily stay up to date on the latest releases in your favorite categories -- books, comics, fiction, nonfiction, literature and more -- never miss a great new title again.
As the PBS series on the works of Jane Austen draws to a close, we have chosen her third published novel, Mansfield Park, as our February Book of the Month.
It chronicles the life of the main character, Fanny Price, a poor relation sent to live with her wealthy aunt and uncle, Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram. A tale of character and sensibility, Fanny, sensitive and shy, is torn between her duty to her family at Mansfield Park and her duty to her own conscience. In this work, Austen continues her exploration of the themes of money and marriage, of choices and consequences, of appearance and reality.
We're pleased to introduce a new feature that enables registered users to quickly and easily personalize ebooks and then send them to friends and family as gifts. Whether for birthdays, holidays, or just because, a WOWIO ebook is a personalized gift your friends and family can appreciate and really use... and they can receive it instantly!
Click on the "Gift an Ebook" link at the bottom of any page for more information, or go to any book that you want to give and click on the "Gift This Ebook" button.
January's title is Mark Twain's classic cross-century mashup pitting a modern, nineteenth century Yankee's pluck and ingenuity against the oppressive institutions and medieval mores of Arthurian England. Twain mercilessly strips away any romantic notions of Camelot with barbed wit even as he casts his own storytelling spell.
Book of the Month: A Christmas Collection On the heels of last month's holiday title, the latest Book of the Month serves up a collection of Christmas-themed prose and poetry to go with December's festivities.
11.30.07
Arthritis: A Cleveland Clinic Guide The Cleveland Clinic has posted an information-packed but very user-friendly guide which tells the stories of ten people living with the affliction's most common forms. Essential reading for those touched directly or indirectly by arthritis...
Experience comics in a whole new way, with frames that come to life in 3D! Scott Christian Sava and Blue Dream Studios are creating special animated editions of the all-ages fan favorite, The Dreamland Chronicles... available only on WOWIO.
Recommend a Book Find a great book that you want to share with a friend? You'll now find links at the bottom of each book page which will let you email a book suggestion or share a recommendation in Facebook.
Several new titles from RotoVision SA explore the art, science and magic of photography.
Capturing reality is the theme of Black & White Photography: Photojournalism. It gets you inside the heads of leading photographers, examining both technique and philosophy as they capture the shots that tell whole stories without a word. Capturing a very different kind of reality is what Extreme Photography is all about. It presents "the hottest, coldest, fastest, slowest, nearest, farthest, brightest, darkest, largest, smallest, weirdest images in the universe..."
Whether you're a photographer looking to extend your skills or simply a consumer of stunning imagery, be sure to take a look!
11.01.07
Book of the Month: A Thanksgiving Collection This month's title sheds some light -- sometimes playful, often reflective -- on the origins and celebration of the American holiday. Have a big helping of tradition to go with that Thanksgiving feast!
PowerMark Comics Uploaded a great Christian-hero comic series from PowerMark comics. Twelve issues in all, starting with The Mission and ending with Redemption ... as it should be.
09.18.07
Star Trek For all the Trekkers/Trekkies, Checker BPG has posted a number of comics based on the original Star Trek series (Kirk, Spock, et al.). Classic, thoughtful sci-fi at its best.
09.10.07
New Web Comics Uploaded a number of excellent new Web comic collections worth checking out: Fantasy Realms, Fractured Kisses, Sebo, Out There, and Inverloch, to name a few. Check them out!
09.01.07
Book of the Month: The Red-Headed League Book of the month is the classic Sherlock Holmes tale, The Red-Headed League, in honor of all of our red-headed friends out there.
Steve Canyon If you are a fan of the legendary cartoonists Milton Caniff, you need look no further than WOWIO: Caniff's Steve Canyon flies again in fully digital format only on WOWIO!
08.06.07
How Did It Happen? Uploaded a great new series from Arcturus, the "How Did It Happen?" series, addressing key historical events such as The Great Depression, The Cold War, and others. The books are a tidy 50 pages each, offering concise answers to the difficult title questions.
08.04.07
Allen & Unwin Uploaded a great set from Allen & Unwin. In particular, check out the 101 Ways series and their self-help books. For readers who enjoy travel adventures, Brian Thacker's Where's Wallis? and Planes, Trains & Elephants are must haves.
08.01.07
Book of the Month: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Book of the month is A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, the classic treatise of women's rights by Mary Wollstonecraft. The book has been updated and designed with a pop-art/modern look and includes a timeline of women's rights.
07.31.07
Breakneck Books Uploaded a wonderfully produced mix of action-adventure and science fiction titles -- some old, some new, all excellent. Titles include new works such as Raising the Past and Forge of the Gods - The Last Knight, and some remastered classics such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Special Edition and The Land That Time Forgot - Three Book Special Edition.
07.23.07
ECW Press Uploaded an eclectic mix of titles from ECW press. Titles range from the somber and absorbing How Linda Dies to the trials, tribulations, and parties of the pro tennis circuit in Break Point to a Michael Moore biography. And there's something in their collection for all the pro wrestling fans as well.
07.17.07
Storyline Studios Uploaded two very graphical and compelling works of visual storytelling, Frameworks 01 and 02, as well as the historically inspired and critically acclaimed Pistolfist series, both from Storyline Studios.
07.15.07
Insomniac Press Uploaded over 100 excellent titles from Insomniac Press. Titles include fiction, non-fiction, investment, graphic novels, poetry and more.
07.01.07
Book of the Month: The Elements of Freedom In celebration of the 4th of July, the book of the month is The Elements of Freedom: a remastered collection of the documents that made the United States of America posible.
06.25.07
William Shakespeare Uploaded a number of remastered Shakespeare plays, including Pericles, Prince of Tyre, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Cymbeline, Measure for Measure, The Comedy of Errors, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra. Our goal is to have the collected works of Shakespeare available for the Fall semester.
06.22.07
Link to WOWIO Books To help you tell your friends about your favorite WOWIO books, you can now easily link to any individual WOWIO book from your site or blog. Find the "LINK FROM YOUR SITE" section below the book descriptions of your favorite books, click on the links, and copy and paste the link code to your site/blog -- that's all there is to it.
06.15.07
Heroic Publishing Uploaded several new series from Heroic Publishing, including WitchGirls Inc, Alter Ego, Black Enchantress, Anthem, and more.
06.08.07
Imaginator Press Uploaded two fun new titles from Imaginator Press in the style of Harry Potter: The Dark Dreamweaver (The Remin Chronicles: Book 1), and The Breezes of Inspire (The Remin Chronicles: Book 2). If you are a Harry Potter fan they are definitely worth a look.
06.01.07
WOWIO at BEA WOWIO will be at BEA in New York. Visit us at Booth #454, or send us an email to set up a meeting with our Editorial Group. Make sure you chase down one of our reps riding Segways out front to get a free WOWIO t-shirt!
More Arcturus Books Uploaded a number of great new titles from Arcturus, including three great art books--The Fundamentals of Drawing Landscapes, The Fundamentals of Drawing Still Life, and The Fundamentals of Drawing Portraits--as well as several history titles like Vietnam: A War Lost and Won, Victory in the Pacific, and History's Greatest Battles: Masterstrokes of War.
05.10.07
Smashout Comics Uploaded a nice mix of comics from Smashout including UNA Frontiers, Ripperman, ELLIUM, and SELIG.
05.05.07
LEXUS Ltd Uploaded a great set of travel companion books from LEXUS, including The Spanish Travelmate, The Italian Travelmate, The Greek Travelmate, among others.
05.01.07
Book of the Month: The Velveteen Rabbit In celebration of Mother's Day, the book of the month is The Velveteen Rabbit, gorgeously remastered by our design team.
04.16.07
London Book Fair Our Editorial Director, Kristin Ellison, will be at the London Book Fair from April 16th - 18th looking for great content. If you are a publisher interested in exploring WOWIO as a new means of distribution, she'll be making the rounds. If you miss her in London, we will also be at the BookExpo America in June.
04.04.07
Nomad Press Uploaded a number of great DIY titles from Nomad Press: Amazing Leonardo da Vinci Inventions You Can Build Yourself, Great Ancient Egypt Projects You Can Build Yourself, and Tools of Timekeeping: A Kid's Guide to the History and Science of Telling Time, among others. Supposed to be for kids, but we love them as adults.
Sponsorship Recognition We are beginning to identify the sponsor of each book in the order emails, giving sponsors the recognition and exposure they deserve for helping make these books available for free.
03.31.07
Category Update Added subcategory page for Literature & Poetry.
BOA Editions We are very proud to make the poetry books from BOA Editions available to our readers. Poetry books are difficult to sell through traditional channels, and we hope that WOWIO will help give these great authors and works the exposure and success they deserve.
03.21.07
Avant-Guide Travel Books Uploaded a batch of Avant-Guide Travel books. These books are beautiful to the point that we are tempted to also place them in the Architecture & Design category. No doubt the future of travel guides.
03.13.07
Edgar Allan Poe Collection Remastered and uploaded the complete Edgar Allan Poe collection. We are very proud of the editorial and design treatment of these books. If you are a fan of Poe, or better yet if you are unfamiliar with his work, check them out. You will not be disappointed.
03.07.07
New Authentication Method Implemented a new means of authentication to lower the barrier of entry for readers: we now accept non-anonymous email addresses. Not as reliable as our other methods, but hopefully it will strike a better balance between giving people access and protecting the intellectual property of our content partners.
03.04.07
Beatrix Potter Collection Remastered and uploaded a collection of Beatrix Potter books. Working on these classics has renewed our appreciation for just how amazingly talented Potter was as both an artist and author.
03.01.07
New Sponsorship Model Changed the sponsorship model to dramatically increase value for sponsors while also reducing the impact on the reader experience. The new model is akin to the sponsorship model you see for PBS series like Nova and Frontline. So far, publishers, readers, and sponsors all like it.
Engines of Creation 2.0 Remastered and uploaded Engines of Creation 2.0 as a WOWIO exclusive. This is the seminal work of nanotechnology and we are proud to have worked on it. EOC 2.0 includes many extras like the original lecture on nanotech by Feynman and the open letter debate between Drexler and Smalley, as well as other original elements. This is the first of many great contemporary works that WOWIO will be remastering and republishing as free ebooks. Special thanks to K. Eric Drexler for his vision and support of this project.
02.09.07
iPod Shuffle Promotion Launched the iPod Shuffle promotion: sign up 10 friends and get a free iPod Shuffle. Rather than spend money on banner ads or Super Bowl commercials, we decided we wanted to spend the money in a way that would directly benefit our readers.
02.01.07
Book of the Month: Venus and Adonis Book of the month is Venus and Adonis, a classic Shakespearian poem that receives far less attention than it deserves.
01.16.07
Arcturus Publishing Uploaded an eclectic mix from Arcturus Publishing--titles range from A History of Cannibalism to The Fundamentals of Drawing. Very nicely designed and produced.
01.05.07
Antarctic Press Uploaded a collection of comics from Antarctic Press out of San Antonio, Texas. These folks are going to be famous--the comics are awesome! We particularly like the Sci-Fi version of Beowulf and the art in the Twilight X series.
01.01.07
Book of the Month: The Road to Serfdom Book of the month is Road to Serfdom: Cartoon Version. We remastered this classic work of visual communication and libertarian economics.
Corporate Gifting