Arts, Briefly: HarperCollins to Offer Free Books Online
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Seems like a lot of people want Neil Gaiman, the fantasy novelist, short-story and comics writer, to give away his books. On Saturday Mr. Gaiman invited readers of his blog to select the book they would give to a friend who has never read his work before. More than 16,500 votes have been cast for one of eight titles highlighted at neilgaiman.com. Mr. Gaiman will select a winner next week, and a free electronic copy of that book will be posted on the Web site of HarperCollins Publishers, harpercollins.com, later this month. The book will be one of six, including a novel by Paulo Coelho and a cookbook by the Food Network star Robert Irvine, that HarperCollins is making available free online for a month each. Readers will not be able to download or print the books. In Mr. Coelhoâs case the publisher will upload a different title each month until the end of the year.
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A small group of authors (including a Nobel Prize winner and a couple of perennial best-seller writers) dare to hit the shelves this month.
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Abebooks.com, one of the world's most   visited online book retailers, is trying to develop a more   sophisticated way to recommend titles from its catalog of 100   million books to match tools available to music fans.
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Chinese publishers discover that online novel sales help move physical books off the shelves. And for a growing number of authors and readers, epic tales on the web are a thriving art form.
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It converts to online publisher and shows it can make money from mostly free services.
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Controversial book search engine can be co-branded and embedded on publishers' sites.
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HarperCollins Publishers' HarperTeen unit is creating a MySpace page for teenagers that will include blogs, message boards and forums.
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Children starting primary and secondary schools will receive free books to help raise reading levels,  Chancellor Gordon Brown says.
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Books have been a bit of the orphan in the digital world. Music has the iPod. Video has YouTube. Books have, well, Amazon.com, where you can buy them printed on paper.
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Google on Wednesday began offering full downloads of out-of-copyright books in PDF format, enabling users to read at their own pace or use an ebook device. Currently being offered are a handful of classics and obscure titles in the public domain.
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Can you write your way into the White House? A number of prospective 2008 presidential candidates are betting that the free publicity that comes with the release of a book can't hurt.
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HarperCollins will rush out a book submitted by former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto just days before her December 27 assassination, it said on Monday.
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New Warner Music video archives will be supported by advertising, offer free downloads.
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Ticketmaster.com and Apple's iTunes Music Store will offer ticket buyers one free song for each ticket purchased.
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Bloggers are scoring rich paydays by  turning their online diaries into books, but some publishers  say the craze could fizzle out with a glut of new titles  destined to yield disappointing sales.
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I noted yesterday that there seems to be some media fanfare surrounding Amazon's launch of a digital book tablet. It occurred to me that the markets surrounding media such as books, music and movies bear more than a passing resemblance to financial markets, and as such, perhaps they were amenable to a similar method of analysis. Being the owner of a sizable collection of paper books, this led me to consider the drawbacks one faces when Digital Rights Management restrictions are put in place.
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HarperCollins is rushing into print a  manuscript it recently received from slain former Pakistani  Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the New York Post reported on  Friday.