Tor.com: a blog, a social network, a zine -- totally clueful big publishing website

Hurrah! Tor, my US novel publisher, has launched Tor.com, its major, fantastically awesome website, which is part sf zine, part group-blog, part social network. They're publishing great original fiction -- they've got stories by John Scalzi and Charlie Stross up now, and I've got one coming soon, called THE THINGS THAT MAKE ME WEAK AND STRANGE GET ENGINEERED AWAY -- with original illustration by the talented Tor art team. They're running fascinating blog-posts on diverse subjects from a team of bloggers that includes in-house people from across the business and outside "friends of Tor" including novelists, fans, critics, and sundry others. And there's a social networking system that ties it all together.

Oh, and for a short time, they're also hosting all the free ebooks they gave away to entice you to sign up for the launch-announcement. Run, don't walk. Link

[#1 posted by Soon Lee , July 21, 2008 12:17 AM]

It's a work in progress; the frontpage reads "Tor.com beta". There are the inevitable teething problems but there's also plenty of 'good stuff'. I'm loving what I've seen so far.

[#2 posted by Joyuna , July 21, 2008 12:40 AM]

JoCo?

[#3 posted by frankiez , July 21, 2008 1:10 AM]

"All your base belogn to us"!

Great site Cori!

[#4 posted by eustace , July 21, 2008 1:26 AM]

Tor Publishing; not to be confused with my favorite Tor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PlanNine_10.jpg

[#5 posted by brownbat , July 21, 2008 1:37 AM]

@4: I wonder if they'd publish my book anonymously...

[#6 posted by Talia , July 21, 2008 3:24 AM]

I was just exploring the site yesterday, it looks great. Tor gets big kudos from me for putting this thing together.

[#7 posted by namewithoutwords , July 21, 2008 3:59 AM]

great Jonathan Coulton reference, Cory.

[#8 posted by clothingoptional , July 21, 2008 5:31 AM]

Ha ha! I actually got a copy of Cory's story when it went live too early. It rocks. :)

Strong recommend Charlie Stross' story. It's a tale of The Laundry, which is always good stuff.

[#9 posted by skarbreeze , July 21, 2008 6:00 AM]

There are a number of very very good books they are giving away (read: Sun of Suns, Spin, Starfish, Black & White, Mistborn, and others). I've been keeping up pretty well reading all of these as they gave them away via email, and now everyone can get them for a short time. Great way to meet new authors!

If you want to skip directly to the free books;
http://tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=577

[#10 posted by milk , July 21, 2008 7:58 AM]

fantastico! now, where's the OpenID login... ah....

[#11 posted by jcfiala , July 21, 2008 8:22 AM]

Hmm... It looks nice, but I can't seem to get the rss feed to work properly - instead of getting xml, I'm just getting a differently-formatted page.

[#12 posted by jcfiala , July 21, 2008 8:33 AM]

And there doesn't seem to be any way to contact the web master/developers/whomever about problems with the site. Or if there is a way, it's not easy enough to find, IMHO.

[#13 posted by insect_hooves , July 21, 2008 9:08 AM]

I honestly think this is the critical mass point for Big Doins' in SF ebook publishing.

[#14 posted by byronba , July 21, 2008 11:15 AM]

JCFIALA @12:

Here ya go:
http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&func=view&id=135

Hopefully that works. Some posters mentioned a link in the Hot Bookmarks section but I don't see it there now. Must have been bumped off or something...

[#15 posted by Soon Lee , July 21, 2008 11:17 AM]

JCFIALA #12:

A host of feedback is being posted & addressed in this thread.

[#16 posted by jcfiala , July 21, 2008 3:16 PM]

I'm glad there's a thread for the users to comment about problems, but it doesn't look like a non-user can comment/email the site admins about problems... and I'm not yet convinced I want to create *yet*another*useraccount* on the internet. (Shame they don't take openid, at least...)

As it is, I'm going to arrive at the afterlife, and they're going to want me to sign up and wait for a confirmation email before they can look me up and let me in. :)

[#17 posted by debacle , July 21, 2008 5:30 PM]

So does that count as fair use, or did you get Jonathon Colton's permission to do that?