I've discovered that the publisher of my book, "Focus: how to be more productive at work" (that's the US subtitle; in the UK it's "Focus: the power of targeted thinking"), has chopped it up into bite-size chunks, about ten pages each, and is selling them separately. They have the right to do that contractually and I'll get the specified royalty but it would have been nice if they'd told me about it themselves...
Anyway, this may be the way things are going for non-fiction books, so if that's your realm you may be interested in seeing what this is being marketed. The link to one chunk (this one about procrastination) is: www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0137072651
These chunks are available to be downloaded to your iPhone (or iPad...do you have an extra one of those sitting around? I'd be happy to take it off your hands :-)) or other portable viewing device, and I suspect these chunks may end up being very popular.
If you're considering self-publishing, you may also want to think about doing it in chunks either instead of or in addition to publishing the whole thing as one unit.
(for friendly guidance in writing your own book, get a copy of mine, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon, BarnesandNoble, and other online and offline retailers.)
