One of a most popular entertainments is watching somebody else at work. It fascinates us. Reading a book as it's being written is part of this. At the same time, when a product is made available in a more convenient form, even though we got it for free originally we are willing to pay for the new version.

As an example of the latter, Eric Flints "The Mother of Demons" is simultaneously available for free as an ebook, and for $7.99 in paperback. The paperback a solid mid-list item.

In a variation on this a number of roleplaying game publishers have made some of their titles available in .PDF for free. The largest such White Wolf Game Studios and their New World of Darkness core book.

Over the course of time I can see publishers establishing "book in production" blogs for their authors, as well as free ebook editions of various works. All in the interest of getting word out and thus boosting sales.

Errant Thought

As I typed that last a thought occured to me. Print on demand is improving all the time. I can see a day when a publisher will have printing licenses with local printers. Instead of a book being printed in a central location, it would be printed locally, then shipped to a local store or individual. A license could be per book, or for a period of time. The printer pays his license, then gets the full amount for each book he prints.

An individual would download the book as a .PDF file, receiving a license to have one copy of the book printed. Printing price to be set by the printer. A book store would get a license to have a certain number of copies printed from a file, printing cost to be set by the printer.

Anybody care to flesh this out?

Besides your favorite bookblogs or litblogs I can think of no better place to review daily than Bud Parr's excellent metaxucafe.
http://metaxucafe.com/