Harper Collins Offers Free Previews

By Ned On February 11, 2008 · 7 Comments · In Publishing News ·

Harper Collins has decided to do things a little different than Random House. While Random House is charging 2.99 / chapter, Harper is going to give away free previews of select books at their website. You will be able to view the entire book online. HC believes this will help drive sales. They liken it to someone going to a bookstore and thumbing through a book.

Via The New York Times

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7 Responses to Harper Collins Offers Free Previews

(JÄn) says:

February 11, 2008 at 6:27 pm

This always worked for Baen…
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Ann Bruce says:

February 11, 2008 at 7:59 pm

Ah, Rupert Murdoch wins again.
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Cynthia says:

February 11, 2008 at 9:00 pm

Is this not what Amazon is doing with their “sneak peeks?” If you continue to “sneak peek” a book, it will take you to different sections of the book, or at least that’s what it did for me.
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Ned says:

February 11, 2008 at 9:36 pm

It is not actually a “sneak peak”, you can actually read the entire book from cover to cover. The article states that the majority of people would only read 20 or 30 pages maximum. There is no print option by the way.
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Keishon says:

February 11, 2008 at 10:15 pm

There is no print option by the way.

No, I wouldn’t think so. [g]

I srsly doubt that this will drive sales. The only benefit from something like this would be to allow all books to be available for free online previews. Just sayin.
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Lisa says:

February 13, 2008 at 4:45 pm

Whats to stop someone from reading the entire book online, like an ebook? Dumb idea. There should be a limit on how many pages can be previewed. Hook ‘em first, then let them PAY to read the ending.
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Aart says:

February 17, 2008 at 10:50 pm

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!
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