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elfsCharlie Stross, Cory Doctorow, and the late Jim Baen must be giggling with glee today, and the poor sods over at SFWA are wringing their hands in sheer terror as the bulldozer of history approaches their cardboard clubhouse.
The Man Booker Prize is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of either the Commonwealth of Nations or the Republic of Ireland. I've actually never read a Booker prize winner, although I have read books by Banville, Atwood, Ishiguro, and Amis, so I suppose I have some casual interest in who has won. The prize has attracted criticism in recent years for nominating "dark and unreadable" books to the prize.
To counter that charge, the Booker Prize Foundation is now negotiating with the nominees to put all its shortlist nominees online, free for download.
The article says, "The downloads will not impact on sales, it is thought. If readers like a novel tasted on the internet, they may just be inspired to buy the actual book." One publisher poohs the idea, saying that an excerpt would be better and that this is just an experiment along the lines of Radiohead's "any price you want" album release last month.
The Man Booker Prize is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of either the Commonwealth of Nations or the Republic of Ireland. I've actually never read a Booker prize winner, although I have read books by Banville, Atwood, Ishiguro, and Amis, so I suppose I have some casual interest in who has won. The prize has attracted criticism in recent years for nominating "dark and unreadable" books to the prize.
To counter that charge, the Booker Prize Foundation is now negotiating with the nominees to put all its shortlist nominees online, free for download.
The article says, "The downloads will not impact on sales, it is thought. If readers like a novel tasted on the internet, they may just be inspired to buy the actual book." One publisher poohs the idea, saying that an excerpt would be better and that this is just an experiment along the lines of Radiohead's "any price you want" album release last month.
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I'll be interested to see how that pans out.
Date: 2007-10-19 05:55 pm (UTC)It will be interesting.
Re: I'll be interested to see how that pans out.
Date: 2007-10-19 08:45 pm (UTC)They've been running that for *years*. Along with cheap ebooks with no copy protection. And the occasional "freely distributable" CD in their books,
And the evidence says that it *increases* sales.
yeah, I've been a fan of the Baen site for a while...
Date: 2007-10-19 09:12 pm (UTC)So we'll see.