Book publisher HarperCollins has been inching towards an improved web strategy for well over a year now, with widgets and promotional profiles on popular social networks like MySpace. But HarperCollins' most recent move may finally help the company change the game. In what appears to be the online version of a bricks and mortar Borders book store, HarperCollins will be offering free electronic editions of some its book on its website. In an effort to increase book sales, HarperCollins is adopting a web-based "try before you buy" approach to book promotion, both for online and on the iPhone.
To start, HarperCollins will be offering a novel by Paulo Coelho and a cookbook by the Food Network's Robert Irvine, according to The New York Times. In fact, one of Coelho's novels will be made available for online previewing once every month, for the rest of the year. So it looks like HarperCollins will be able to use tis new service as a way to promote its authors as well.
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It seems like this new campaign could easily be integrated with other online initiatives, such as BookVideos.TV, BookGlutton, CafeScribe or BookTour. While HarperCollins is already involved in some of these sites, having a deeper level of integration with them, in terms of offering some free content, would be a value add for these networks, the consumers, and in the end, HarperCollins.