It’s been some time since Google settled its case with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers. For the last six months or so the first half of every novel we have published is available for free and in sequence with no blocked pages. At the time I wondered if I should do something…but then everything else caught up to me and I put it on the back burner.
I’m trying to think of it like a library option, but honestly, I don’t know of any libraries that have purchased our books. Go to your local library and request The Hog Hotel, From the Painted Stick and Put your hands here…. immediately. We will send you a personal note of thanks.
The truth is, we would love for the books to have a wider audience, so the line of thinking which would suggest “all of this is promotion and reading the first half of the books will hook them for sure” is a temping one, but I don’t know.
Personally, it wouldn’t matter to me because I can’t read like that online. Not for pleasure. I want, nay, need to feel the pages and turn them, to hold the spine and feel the depth change as I plow through from one side to the other. I have on occasion, printed out online books, but printing out pages seems like a waste unless it’s a reference that I need for a class/program or project.
I’m wondering what others have experienced with Google Books. Has the use/reading of a large chunk of a novel encouraged them to buy the book? How many people even look at novels this way at all?
I guess it’s a simple fix if we want to change it. Contact Google via the button at the header…let them know to block one page of every 5 and only the first fifty…..I don’t know. WWTFD? What would Tim Ferriss do?
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