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Comment by softinio | Hacker News Reader

Is there a kindle/digital/ebook version of this book? I can't seem to find it.

This is very frustrating. From what I understand of the publishing industry, the Kindle sales are not counted towards the main NYT best-seller list, so all the focus on the initial launch is around selling the physical copy. This is said to be done to prevent gamification and manipulation, but this still goes on with the hard copies also, where would-be best-selling authors often pay third-party companies to buy a lot of copies of their books from certain bookstores.

Source: A friend of mine who has been trying to get onto the NYT best seller list.

Ebook sales are counted as part of the NYT bestsellers list. In 2010, they initially did separate ebook listings, but it’s all combined into the general categories: https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/13/16257084/bestseller-li...

I can’t remember a single mainstream title that hasn’t had an ebook version for preorder and first day sales. This includes “Bad Blood”, “Super Pumped”, and “Catch and Kill”.

Not downplaying your valid point, but I doubt a guy like bwk cares about NYT best selling list at all. It’s the history of Unix, which to us folks are basically the Old Testament, props to him for writing it. I look forward to having a physical copy of it and praying to it occasionally

I don’t see one either, which puzzles me. I only read on paper if there is no other alternative. This seems like exactly the kind of book I would hope to read in digital form, but I'm not finding it.

The irony of using Kindle Direct publishing but not putting out a Kindle version is palpable :-)

I have stopped buying paper books over past several years as they simply accumulate moisture and mould in the climate I live in and make rooms smell musty. It is incomprehensible to me why primarily textual books would be published without and ebook version these days.

Oh it's vanity press? That explains the...cover. You'd think Kernighan would have no shortage of technical presses willing to put something out on whatever terms he dictated.

The joy of Kindle publishing is that you keep all the money ;-)

This is already #243 out of all Amazon, so I'd say he was correct in this ...

nice! but what's holding me back also is the lack of a digital version, otherwise i'd already have bought it.

edit: he replied to me to say he's uploaded a version today that has to be approved.

It's better to call it self-publishing, not vanity press (a gatekeeping term).

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