murder.booklocker.com

Simon Spurrier, author of CONTRACT, published by Headline Review, June 2007, posted to a Crimespace forum about promotion. With his permission, I quote him:

Nonetheless, my publishers (and I) feel that modernisation has to start somewhere. To the best of our knowledge no one (certainly not in the UK, and certainly not any of the “big” publishers) are using the Internet cleverly enough yet. There’s this reliance on library hardbacks as a cultural inroad, which nobody ever buys and which very rarely make any money.

So our scheme is simply this: after weeks of building-up interest in odd corners of the Internet - MySpace, blogs, etc etc - we’re unveiling a website dedicated to the novel, which will allow visitors to read it for free. In chunks, that is, with a fresh section becoming available every two weeks, and the option to buy the hardback at any stage (at a discount). At the end of the period the book is taken down from the site, then the paperback becomes available 6 weeks later.

The idea (as I understand it) is to simply allow people to get buzzing about the book. If anyone has the patience and cheapskate-dedication to read the whole thing for free, good for them: it’s a loss leader we’re prepared to endure if it generates a bit of conversation on the ‘net. And in the mean time people have always got the option to get fed-up of reading the bloody thing on their screen, and hit the “buy hardback” icon instead.

This ENTIRE thing is intended to allow us, ultimately, to approach the retailers with the paperback and say: “Hey, yeah, we know it’s a debut author, we know it’s a tricky genre book, but it’s created aaaaaaall this Internet interest. You can’t afford NOT to stock it…”

[I feel obliged to tell my readers that when I went to the link for Contract, I was a bit disturbed that there was a countdown in place (no, that didn't disturb me) and a link to a myspace location. The myspace account belongs to Michael Point. I queried Simon about this and here's his reply: "Yeah – that’s all correct.  The countdown is marking time until the first chapters of the novel are put up there for free, and the myspace page belongs to the central character.  One of the conceits of the marketing campaign is that he’s a real person – we’re advertising in all sorts of places by effectively soliciting his services as a hitman.  All very unscrupulous. ;)"    ]