Online Thriller
Headline, part of the same group as my publisher Hodder & Stoughton, is publishing a crime thriller Contract by Simon Spurrier online for free in six weekly installments, according to booktrade.info, the online book trade website.
Interestingly, Simon contacted me via the Ning.com social network site for crime writers Crimespace a few weeks before this announcement and we are now “friends” on that network. On Simon Spurrier’s Crimespace page, he describes himself as “Sarcastic. Odd. Paranoid obsession with aggressive Yaks. Hoping to get rich - in the spiritual karmic sense. Or at least break even.”
You can read the online version of the novel from tomorrow 24 May at http://www.itsallaboutthemoney.co.uk/. Or you can wait till 4 June to buy it in hardback at £19.99.
- Posted on
Wed, May 23rd, 2007 - Author
Yang-May Ooi - Category
- 4 responses
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May 24th, 2007 at 12:47 am
Interesting marketing idea. I suppose after reading the first instalment, the reader can’t wait to read the rest and hence will purchase the book.
May 24th, 2007 at 11:37 am
An admirable marketing ploy. Probably all writers will wish them well.
All online authors, who leave their fiction online for many thousands to read for year after year will wonder at the limited ‘free read’ time of only 6 weeks.
May 27th, 2007 at 9:23 am
I’ve now been on the site and tried to read the first chapter. It’s brilliantly written and draws you in to the story and character. But I found reading online very difficult and tiring on the eyes. Perhaps the marketing concept is to get you browsing through the book but not actually reading it online - but you are so entranced by the great writing, you are inspired to go and buy the hard copy immediately. I don’t think they’d lose any money at all by putting the whole thing up online forever.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Very interesting blog, i have added it to my fovourites, greetings