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You can read the prologue and the first page of the first story right on amazon, it's part of the "look inside" feature.

Yes, but how many people remember/know of this, or even get to the Amazon page?  I still say a link for a sample should be right up there with the main link on the game page, or in the official wiki page. Humans are lazy and lethargic creatures, unless you peak their interest right away.

Two reasons, the first is that I already maxed out my card for this month buying lab equipment I needed.
The second is that I don't really have a lot to judge the quality of this book on. I know Tom's ability as a game designer, but that doesn't lend much credence to his ability as an author. The main trouble is that there is no clear and obvious way to form an opinion on his writing without buying the book. From skimming the forum announcement I found that there were some free chapters floating around in the wiki?  Why not link those? Why not put up a page for the first few stories, hell even one if it's good enough, to give the people an example?

I put up a free E-book a month or so ago. It was a collection of previous pieces and fragments, including a few short stories, that I had earlier posted on my writing blog. They were slightly better edited, and some had drawings of my own making to accompany them.
Now, my blog tracks between 70 to 200 readers every month, depending on how active I am, so I expected at the very least around 30 downloads. At the VERY LEAST. But after leaving the post announcing the book for about two weeks, I only had 15 downloads. I gave up trying to get folks to download it, and just got back to writing as per the usual, letting a few new posts knock the announcement off the front page (keeping a link to the post on the side of the blog). Then an unexpected thing happened: after a few weeks off the front page, downloads had more than tripled for the Ebook.

This was because new readers (and old ones who needed reminding) stumbled upon the blog, were impressed by the writing (English is a third language for me, but in my native tongue, I am truly very talented) and noticed the ever so pitiful tiny link on the side. Now, of course, this is was a free product, but still, interest tripled once people knew what they were in for.

So yeah, free samples. That's my suggestion here. Let us know what we're buying