Accelerando author contemplates giving book to Project Gutenberg

When Charles Stross decided to give away the ebook version of his recent novel Accelerando for free, using a Creative Commons license, he did it in the hope of stimulating the sales of the p-book. By releasing a free download, he can get a wider readership which–if the book is good–will create better word of mouth. But now Stross is thinking of taking things a step further: if Accelerando would ever drop out of print, he may donate the copyrights to the work to Project Gutenberg.

This is exceedingly cool, although not entirely altruistic either. In an interview with The Alien Online he says: “I don’t want to see my literary estate die with me. So I’m currently considering ways of ensuring that when there’s no longer any income to be made from them, my copyrights will go somewhere like Project Gutenberg where they can be made available for free. Hopefully this is a long time off, though…”