This is a fascinating phenomenon that evolved through the unexpected use of technology. It classically illustrates the way people find their own uses for technology. |
This seemed insanely limiting. So ... Yahoo tells me to deliberately keep a large number of users from seeing my pages, but won't even suggest a way to do this. Clever, huh? |
What little empirical evidence is out there points to eBooks and free downloading increases sales on a net basis. |
What petulant jerks. Look, Sony, you got caught sleazing your customers' computers. Telling us that it wasn't so bad is just infuriating and insulting. An apology would have been better received. |
[Has it been a success though, I ask.] I don't know, ... I don't have another first novel that wasn't pushed electronically to compare it to. But the book itself is doing very well. Looking at other publishers, a good example is Baen Books , who do a lot of multi volume series of books. From experience, they know how much volume 13 should sell based on the sales of boook 12. So when volume 13 comes out, they bundled a CD-Rom with eBook versions of the first 12 books. They also hosted these eBooks online for free. When this happens, the sales of volume 13 were beyond expectation, and volumes 1 through 12 see a bump in sales as well. |
[What is the new is the creative process involved in producing a blook.] Blogs encourage their authors to publish in small, partially formed chunks, ... Previously, such jottings might have been kept in the author's notebook but something amazing happens when you post them online: readers help you connect them, flesh them out and grow them into fully-fledged books or blooks. |