This isn’t quite the blue cat of Shinjuku, which if you find, will make all your dreams come true
but this afternoon it will do.
Find the cat in Slum Online.
viz.com
SLUM ONLINE [Archive]
Ebooks are HERE!
Popping in from my vacation to share this picture with you!
See that on the lower righthand side? That the iPad link to Harmony. That wonderful book, and The Next Continent and Slum Online are now available for your reading pleasure (and my selling pleasure!) for the various Apple devices.
We should have news for the Kindle and other devices in a couple of months. What are you waiting for Apple fans? CONSUME!
Ebooks are coming!
One of the most frequently asked questions we receive here at Haikasoru HQ (hidden high atop Mount Pikachu!) is “Are you going to do ebooks?” And now we can say, “Yes, and soon!” Behold, the first three books in our model Apple bookstore:
We’re still working out the actual release date, but it should be within weeks. We’re starting with Harmomy, The Next Continent, and Slum Online for iPads, the more recent iPhones, and whatever other readers or systems Apple uses. Kids, I edit science fiction for a living. I can’t afford these gadgets. My boss showed me her iPad the other day, but I wasn’t allowed to touch it. 
We’ll also soon have news about other formats and other titles as we bring out ebooks. Mostly, it’s just a matter of contracts, but there are some amusing technical challenges. Check out the first page of Harmony:
When the tech person saw this, we got an email asking “On content page – codes appearing in PDF (see attached PDF for ready reference). Please provide the revised PDF for this page or advise.” He thought they were live links, and not just part of the story! When you do get the ebooks though, you can go to our backpage where we advertise our titles and this website, and click directly back to here by tapping your screen.
Anyway, the books look pretty neat, as you can see above. Also, check out the first page for Slum Online:
When we get the exact launch date, I’ll be sure to let you know!
Happy anniversary (again)!
Wait, wait, wasn’t my last post about a happy anniversary? Well, yes. Sorry for the lack of posts—we were moving office, but now I am back and able to blog. And the anniversary is…my own! Two years ago I started at VIZ to help launch Haikasoru. Of course, Haikasoru’s only been around for a year, but it’s not like I can publish books the way a chicken lays eggs. It took eleven months to get those first titles out, and even now we’re making decisions about what to publish in the summer of 2011 and even the early days of 2012.
I also spotted a good anniversary treat—an excellent review of Slum Online over at Strange Horizons, a magazine about to celebrate its own tenth anniversary. Who would have thought that an online science fiction magazine specializing in short stories and quality reviews could have lasted a decade, and as a non-profit organization? The review reads, in part:
Perhaps a truly advanced tech will make the world simpler to negotiate, not more complicated. But what Slum Online sets out to show, I think, is that whether human worlds are simple or complicated, what makes them work are the usual invariants: friendships, compassion, and perseverance in the face of odds. The sound FX of applause.
See? It ain’t just kid’s stuff.
