Last week I stumbled upon, dearreader.com and after a rough start, it’s beginning to grow on me. It’s a free mailing list service that sends the opening pages of new books to your email. The theory behind it is that if you like what you read, you just might buy the book to finish the story.
It’s simple to use, you just pick your genre (mystery, sci-fi, teen, etc) give your email and start getting text only emails that take about 5 minutes to read. After getting three of these emails, which shows you about the first 10 pages of a book, you start getting a new title. Simple, enjoyable and possibly a great way to market books.
The site is run by Susan Beecher, whose eerie smiling face graces each page on the site. When Susan first approached publishers with her idea to send book chapters out via email they, in true publishing form, didn’t think it was a good idea. (Publishers are not quick to pick up on the marketing potential of the internet, as Andrew at Supernovascotian points out.)
But they soon realised that having thousands of people sample your books might not be a bad thing. Now, dearreader.com works with 80 publishers and offers books from some big name authors.
Check it out and start enjoying your email again.
