Authors are trying various ways to get their books seen and generate sales. One simple model is being used by Mark Boulton for his book, "A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web." It includes these elements:
* a version of the book you can read for free online (but not download)
* a sample chapter you can download (about 18 pp)
* a download of the whole book you can buy - pdf format costs £12 / about $18
* a hardcopy of the book you can buy (I couldn't find the link to the hardcopy and it seems to be out of print on Amazon.co.uk--only used copies for sale).
I think this makes good use of the "freemium" model but with a reasonable chance that people who are really interested will pay to download or get a hardcopy. Of course that is much more likely with reference books.
If you're trying to figure out a strategy for a book you've written or have in mind, this could be a good way to go. You could have the hardcopy version be Print on Demand, which means you'd have almost no upfront costs.
(If you want 100 examples of innovative but inexpensive marketing ideas, get my book, "Do Something Different," published by Virgin Books with a foreword by Sir Richard Branson; if you want more of a step by step approach, get my other book, "Marketing for Entrepreneurs," published by Pearson. Both available from the usual suspects.)
