Free Samples = More Book Sales

In February, author Neil Gaiman and his publisher decided to put up the entire text of his book American Gods online as a promotion for his upcoming work, The Graveyard Book. Booksellers went bonkers, worried that the act would effectively kill sales of his book. If you can read the whole thing for free, they reasoned, why would anyone buy it?

Contrary to traditional logic, sales of Gaiman’s books actually went up. An increase of 40% was seen for all of his titles amongst independent book stores alone. The only common complaint heard was that the book reader interface was flawed.

[via Ad Freak]