Marketing Books (The Penguin Lets You Peek)

Penguin Publishing has consistently been ahead of the curve in innovative digital initiatives, and their website both looks and is user-friendly. Their newest innovation: they are planning to offer free downloads of the first chapter of every fiction title they publish. The downloads can be to your computer, iPhone, Palm or Blackberry. My only concern is that it takes away one more reason for people to go to their local bookshop (although I’m sure most of us will still enjoy browsing actual books).

If nothing else, it’ll give us a great chance to see how other authors hook (or fail to hook) readers with their first sentence, first page, and first chapter.

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