I recently got an e-mail message from the PR team at HarperCollins for Tom Breitling‘s book Double or Nothing. Although I’m not interested enough in the topic to read the book, I have to admit the message got my attention. Why? HarperCollins is offering access to the entire book for free on the company’s Web site till April 14th. So if you really think you can read a 256-page book via HarperCollins’ Browse Inside service, go for it! Details are on Tom’s site and here’s the link to HarperCollins’s Browse Inside access for the book.
The reality is very few people are going to read the entire book online even when the price is zero. Rather, what HarperCollins is doing is leveraging its Browse Inside service to see how much of a sales bump can come from full access for a limited period of time. As a fellow publisher, I’m intrigued by the experiment. And thanks to the magic of Bookscan data, I can keep an eye on the sales trends during and after the free access period. My gut tells me they could leave the full access in place indefinitely and it would only help sell more copies in the long run. Regardless, I love it that a major trade publisher like HC is experimenting like this with free access to e-content.
Moderator: From the Double or Nothing site: “Americans have caught green felt fever, and gambling is staking its claim as one of the country’s hottest new pastimes. Now, revealing the smarts, loyalty, and sheer love of the game that would draw a nod from Danny Ocean, Tom Breitling—a guy who had never seen The Godfather or a $100 bill until he went to college—tells how he and his best friend Tim Poster made their second $100 million in Vegas by age 35.” – D.R.
