Author Offers Free Copy Of His Book To Anyone Who Writes An Amazon Review
from the free-books dept
It's pretty common for book publishers to send out free copies of their books to book reviewers and publications. It's part of the publicity effort that any new book tends to go through. However, in this day and age, pretty much everyone is a book reviewer thanks to blogs or Amazon... and one author is responding accordingly. ChurchHatesTucker alerts us to the news that author Charlie Finlay is offering a free copy of his book to anyone who promises to review it on Amazon. Basically, he knows that the best way to build buzz around the book is to actually get people to read it, and giving away the book to people who will provide that buzz is probably a cost effective way to get some attention. Now, some might question whether the reviewers will be "fair" because they received the book for free -- but that's true of most professional book reviewers already.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: books, charlie finlay, free, reviews
Companies: amazon
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not the only option
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
It is the same premise that a library is built upon, people should have free access to information.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"P.S. If you missed out on the advance copy, you can still download an e-copy of the book for free at my website. I'm not sure how much longer it will be available -- the full book at Scribd has already been reduced to a sample chapter -- so you may want to act soon. And thanks again to everyone who's talking up the series. You guys rock."
I know it's not uncommon but it's still sad to see a creator lack distribution control over their own work. Yes I'm aware that he probably signed away said control but still...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And YES, books MUST be free. Not the physical, tree killing, ambient poluter ones, but the content.
Don't mistake me, I have bought and I still buy, at least a hundred books a year. But, oh boy, I read waaaaaaaay more then that. And should I run out of money to buy them anymore, I have enough e-books to last a couple hundred years.
Books WILL be free.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Books should be free?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Books should be free?
Wait a second... am I reading that people believe that we should pay for the paper product, but the content inside should be free? What load of BS are you trying to sell?
Welcome, Celt.
You should google "Creative Commons" and, probably, "Cory Doctorow" to get a lay of the land. It's not as crazy as it may seem at first.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Books should be free?
I do not agree with Luis Carvalho above that it MUST be free. MUST indicates a demand or requirement. The author chooses how to distribute their thoughts and if that author selects to charge for their time and work, then good for them with sticking to a plan. Everyone wanting to read that material has the option of paying for it, or choosing to not contribute to the author's wallet. It is still the author's decision of how that information should be shared with others.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Books should be free?
The author chooses how to distribute their thoughts and if that author selects to charge for their time and work, then good for them with sticking to a plan.
That's true, but the only reason the authors can do that is, essentially, a legal fiction (i.e., you have the magical ability to stop others from repeating your words/music/etc.) To put it another way: it's a limit on free speech.
Some of us (and I'm not (ever) speaking for Mike et al. here) think that was the result of a temporary aberration due to manufacturing constraints. We're now (realistically) back to a world that is much closer to Odyseus' planet. Which still managed to produce some works of note.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
@Celt
Yep, and once I've read it, it's also MY (so-called) "intellectual property".
Oh, I have so much property in my intellect I might need to move to a bigger intellect.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I know
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]