Free Harper Collins books-Online Only

[Kingston]

Harper Collins is offering some of its books for 'browsing' online.
You can't download them to your device but can read the entire book online.

Here's an excerpt from a NYT article about it:

The idea is to give readers the opportunity to sample the books online
in the same way that prospective buyers can flip through books in a
bookstore.

“It’s like taking the shrink wrap off a book,” said Jane Friedman,
chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide. “The best way
to sell books is to have the consumer be able to read some of that
content.”

Readers who log on to www.harpercollins.com will be
able to see the entire contents of “The Witch of Portobello” by Mr.
Coelho; “Mission: Cook! My Life, My Recipes and Making the Impossible
Easy” by Mr. Irvine; “I Dream in Blue: Life, Death and the New York
Giants” by Roger Director; “The Undecided Voter’s Guide to the Next
President: Who the Candidates Are, Where They Come from and How You
Can Choose” by Mark Halperin; and “Warriors: Into the Wild” the first
volume in a children’s series by Erin


If you're a fan of the NY Giants or a political junkie you will enjoy
the books by Director or Halperin.

http://www.harpercollins.com/

[vivaldirules]

Free books can be good. Having to read them online is less so. Having to use their beta viewer even less so. There are no links and no way to jump to a particular page. If you look at the TOC and then want to look at page 324 you have to scroll down guessing where it might be. Then you have to wait while it slowly loads every page between the TOC and the page you're trying to get to. I know I shouldn't gripe but it's pretty lame.

[JSWolf]

This is worse then the PDF TOR gave us.

[aarthilal]

well – what people don't know is that Harper Collins only launched this free online reading site after the bestselling author Paulo Coelho revealed his pirate coelho blog to the world during the DLD conference in Munich last January.
I read the interveiw he gave for Newsweek and can't help to join the dots:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/108715
I doubt Harper Collins would have made such a move without this author's pressure.
Thumbs up for Pirate Coelho!

[DanT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

This is worse then the PDF TOR gave us.

Your supposed to buy the book if you like it then it's offer in the regular DRM format. (Adobe eBook Reader | Gemstar eBook | Microsoft Reader | MobiPocket | Palm Reader | Sony)

It's not only limited to the author listed above. I just browse a bit the HC website and there is a huge amount of browse inside book.
If I click on new release paperback 16/17 books are available free online new hardcover 26/38 were available.

By randomly selecting various title there is a very large portion of the books are available in Browse inside.

EDIT: Well I start reading some books and they are not complete. You have a few page at the beginning of each chapters then it skip to the next chapter.

So it's mostly excerpt. Beside those mention in the first post. Oh well, sorry peoples