‘ve been hearing about the free e-books that Random House was offering for a limited time for some its authors, but haven’t had a chance to look at one yet.

When I saw today over at Slush Pile that Beautiful Children, the new novel by Charles Bock, was available through tomorrow February 29, I decided to grab the e-book even though I had absolutely no idea what the novel was about.

I also checked out the author’s stylish and intriguing Web site.

But I couldn’t really figure out what the book was about from the author’s Web site, so I went to Amazon to read the description.

On doing a bit of research for this post, I see that I must have fallen behind in my literary review sources and lit blogs since everyone is remarking that this book has been reviewed pretty much everywhere. Just goes to show that the word free must get my attention more than anything else! Or, maybe I’ve seen the review but just hadn’t paid any attention to it. I don’t know, which also goes to show that this free download helps to make a book memorable. But, what if there were hundreds of titles this week being offered for a limited free download by publishers all across the net? Is this an innovative twist to publishing or a publicity tactic? Either way, I think it’s a good move.

Question to self: Why have I not had The Millions in my Bloglines before today?

On doing a title search on “Beautiful Children”, Amazon returned a prominent display highlighting the free download:

E-book downloads, whether free or at a price, are particularly good for someone like me who lives at the edge of the world, as I’ve previously mentioned on this blog.

A recurring questions: how does someone become aware that a new title is available for download for a limited period? Diligently monitoring the media & lit blogs for announcements? And why does the Random House news announcement page still not have an RSS feed?

f publishing is about creating a narrative experience in print, then why are publishers so bad when it comes to doing the same online?

Everyone in publishing should review the 2008 Digital Outlook Report from Avenue A/Razorfish, a firm with extensive experience in interactive media. (Or, skip the registration and grab a copy from here).

A clean design makes shuffling through the 164 page document an ease. Relevance abounds but I want to focus on one issue, point 4 of the “4 questions that should keep creative people up at night“:

Narrative is the experience. As the Web becomes the preferred destination for brand exploration, digital experiences must become richer, deeper, and more able to tell compelling stories. If your brand experience depends entirely on pages and clicks, it’s time to wonder, “What is my story?”

Is there a story here? Are we designing a page or an experience? What is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the brand story we are creating? Does it move—and are people moved by it?

[Let's set aside the vested interest of Avenue A/Razorfish in encouraging their clients to invest in more complex and costly Web development.]

The stumbling block is often the revenue factor, trying to figure out how to monetize digital information. Of course, the most obvious way is to use the net as a platform for selling your product. Other industries don’t seem to have the problem in understanding that Web experiences fuel sales of physical products.

Tremendous potential exist in creating engaging author Web sites that pull potential readers into the book’s narrative, thereby promoting sales of the book.

That’s why I abhor those sites that provide a generic one-size-fits-all approach to every author.