This is not NEW new news, but it's relevant today since they just announced the Booker short:
http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1122
The relevant passage is:
[iAs soon as the shortlist is announced on 9 September avid readers will be able to text MBP to 60300 to listen to or read a free extract of each of the titles. If the reader enjoys the extract, they will also be able to use their mobile phone to purchase the book and have it delivered direct to them. The cost will be added to their mobile phone bill.[/i]
Reading through their FAQs, they only seem to have information about the audio, not the text versions. And nothing about the format. Plus there's the whole oddity of adding the cost directly to the mobile phone bill, so I despite the fact that it says later that <i>For mobiles outside of the UK enter mbp.gospoken.com into your mobile web browser</i>, I don't know how well that it works - I just go to the main page, but since the prize was announced less than 30 minutes ago, I don't know if it's an issue with having an american number or they're just not up yet.
It's interesting, though.