Back in June, Tor approached us and asked if we’d be willing to let Apple give away The Way of Kings for free as part of a promotion to encourage people to update their Apple devices to iOS 8.

I was enthusiastic about the opportunity. I believe that people’s investment of time in a book like The Way of Kings is worth more than their investment of money, and so I’m perfectly happy to give away the book for free as a way of acknowledging this. I responded the same way when Tor wanted to give Mistborn away for free when people signed up for Tor.com during its initial months. I feel that if people read the first book, they will get a good feel for my style. Those who love it will likely want to go pick up the second book. Those who don’t didn’t have to spend money on something to try it out. Everyone wins.

Well, the iOS update is here, and the promotion is more extensive than I thought. The bad news is that it’s only in the US. (Or, at least, you have to have a US-linked iTunes account.) You should have access to some other awesome books in your country, however, free like mine. In the UK, for example, Robin Hobb’s excellent Assassin’s Apprentice is one of the free books. (It is one of my favorite fantasy novels, so you should definitely check it out.)

The good news is that this works on any iOS device, even if you haven’t updated. In fact, you can get it and read it in iBooks on your Mac as well! (Technically you don’t even need an iOS device. I was able to download it on my PC’s iTunes account using this link. Since my Firefox has an epub reader extension—and since Tor books are DRM-free—I was able to open the book in my browser.)

I do want to give a big thank you to the iBooks team for giving us this promotional opportunity. I’ve been a longstanding supporter of iBooks and their reading platform, as I think having them in the market fosters healthy competition. So if you do have an iOS device (or an iTunes account), please go pick up a free book! And please spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, and to your friends, encouraging them to grab some free books too!

Brandon

P.S. Now Amazon has decided to make it free as well. I don’t know how long that will last, but you can find it free at this link.