Today's Wall Street Journal has an excellent piece on electronic book marketing, which talks about my experiments in making downloadable versions of my novel available.
Science-fiction novelist Cory Doctorow — whose books are published by Tor Books, an imprint of New York publisher Tom Doherty Associates LLC — has made his past two novels available as free downloads on his own Web site. His reasoning: As a relatively unknown author, he is worried more about getting readers familiar with his work than about how a free version might cut into sales. "My biggest business challenge is obscurity," says Mr. Doctorow, who also writes for the tech-related blog Boing Boing. "The more freely my books flow, the better."
Mr. Doctorow's efforts have helped curry favor among his core audience of technophiles. Players of an online simulation game called Second Life have invited the author to a virtual book-signing event. They asked for Mr. Doctorow's physical measurements and pictures of himself in his favorite clothes, which they used to design a virtual character for him. One player even created a virtual version of the book that Mr. Doctorow will be able to sign by clicking with his computer mouse. Mr. Doctorow points out that he hasn't paid a cent for the publicity.
(Thanks, Vauhini!)
