Neil Gaiman's Journal: More on free and suchlike
Neil Gaiman became my hero a few days ago, when he announced that American Gods would be available for free online. Now, the interface is kind of clunky, and the book will only be there for a month, and I (and everyone I know who reads books) prefer reading books in dead-tree form, but still, it’s such a nice gesture. He makes no effort to hide the fact that he’s doing it to sell more books, but he also says he’s doing it to help teach more people to read for pleasure, and because he likes giving away things for free, and I’m inclined to believe him.
In this post, he responds to the owner of an independent bookshop, who wonders whether Gaiman has thought about the consequences for small bookshops when giving away books for free:
Remember: one in four adults read no books last year. Among those who said they had read books, the median figure — with half reading more, half fewer — was nine books for women and five for men. The figures also indicated that those with college degrees read the most, and people aged 50 and up read more than those who are younger.
Which means you need to find ways to get young readers to read books. And means that if someone likes American Gods (It’s a free download) and goes out and buys my entire backlist, that’s more books than most Americans read in a year.
If you get as excited as me about these things (that would make you a geek, I’m afraid), you can go read an interview with Neil Gaiman in the Guardian, and one more blog post on Gaiman’s blog. (hat tip to Travors for link)
