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Originally Posted by Daithi
That's great. I'd planned on buying Assassin's Apprentice and Red Mars anyways and now I get them for free -- pretty smart on the publishers part because they are series and I'm sure they are giving these away to get you hooked.
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Yes -- as the press release says (bold is by me):
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NEW YORK, NY - March 4, 2009 - Random House, Inc. today unveiled the first five titles in its new Suvudu Free First Book Library. Designed to introduce new readers to popular and acclaimed science fiction and fantasy series, the Suvudu Free First Book Library allows readers to access free digital copies of the first book in each series....
Says Christine Cabello, Random House Publishing Group Deputy Director of Marketing: "The Suvudu Free First Book promotion provides us with a new digital vehicle to build an author's fan base and is an ideal way to bring new readers to these series."
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This is the same approach taken by Baen with its 117 free books and TOR's give-away last year. Cory Doctorow has been a very vocal advocate of giving away electronic books as a means of building a demand for the paper books. And, based on the {non}availability of sequels from TOR, it appeared that they were aiming on building a demand for paper books instead of setting themselves up for selling electronic books. Baen, on the other hand, has caught onto the marketplace for electronic books.
I'm seeing a lot of resistance to purchase of paper books among those of us who have purchased electronic book readers, and many of us are making sure that the publishers know that we really want to *buy* the sequels in electronic formats. Things are looking up.