HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS PROMOTION TO MAKE SELECT BOOKS AVAILABLE ONLINE FOR FREE

Date: 02/11/2008Author: Erin Crum Subject: HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS PROMOTION TO MAKE SELECT BOOKS AVAILABLE ONLINE FOR FREEContact: Erin CrumDirector, Corporate Communications (212)207 7223 Erin.Crum@HarperCollins.com
HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS PROMOTION TO MAKE SELECT BOOKS AVAILABLE ONLINE FOR FREE
Includes Books From Paulo Coelho, Neil Gaiman and Erin Hunter;Separately, More Than 100 Books Will Be Part of a Sneak Peek Marketing ProgramNew York, N.Y. (February 11, 2008) – HarperCollins Publishers today announced a variety of online promotions to allow consumers exclusive sampling of books on www.HarperCollins.com. In the “Full Access” Program, a select number of titles can be seen in their entirety for a limited time; in the “Sneak Peek” Program, readers will be able to view 20% of many new titles two weeks before their on sale date; and the remaining titles in the digital warehouse are now available for 20% viewing after the on sale date in the “Browse Inside” Program. In the “Full Access” Program, HarperCollins is working with individual authors to test how free access affects books sales. For a one month period the following books will be available in their entirety on www.HarperCollins.com: Paulo Coelho’s The Witch of Portobello; I Dream in Blue: Life, Death, and the New York Giants by Roger Director; Mark Halperin’s The Undecided Voter's Guide to the Next President: Who the Candidates Are, Where They Come from, and How You Can Choose;Mission: Cook!: My Life, My Recipes, and Making the Impossible Easy by Robert Irvine; and Warriors: Into the Wild, the first volume of the bestselling children’s series by Erin Hunter. In addition, a Neil Gaiman title will also be included.* After sampling online, consumers can follow a link to buy the book from any retailer. Additional title promotions will be decided upon on a case-by-case basis moving forward in consultation with our authors.“We developed the ‘Browse Inside’ platform to allow us to tailor promotions to reach new audiences online and to grow our authors’ sales,” said Jane Friedman, President and CEO of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide. “This is analogous to removing the shrink wrap from a book. The advantage of our digital warehouse is that we can securely, quickly and easily change what content is available, whether it is to meet an author’s request, to preview a title before it is on sale, or to promote backlist books. And we believe it’s the role of the publisher to develop tools to easily allow authors to promote their work to their communities online.” A key component of this program is the launch of a year-long promotion of bestselling author Paulo Coelho’s books. Each month an entire book will be available for free. The first book, currently accessible, is The Witch of Portobello. “I believe that online reading helps increase book sales,” said Paulo Coelho. “I am very pleased that HarperCollins is able to make my titles available online for my fans to read.” *As another example of an innovative “Full Access” promotion the Neil Gaiman book will actually be selected by his readers. Gaiman is blogging about the promotion on his journal at www.neilgaiman.com and inviting his readers to vote for which book will be offered in its entirety on www.HarperCollins.com. The “Sneak Peek” program, which allows readers to preview 20% of the book two weeks before its on sale date, is already underway. Last month, Warriors: Power of Three #2, Dark River was made available through “Sneak Peek” and pre-orders doubled over the previous book in the series. Among the other titles being previewed in “Sneak Peek” in February are The Perfect Wife by Victoria Alexander, Deep Dish by Mary Kay Andrews, and Friend of the Devil by Peter Robinson. “‘Sneak Peek’ is a great program; Warriors fans are always asking what's going to happen next. I was thrilled to see the pre-publication buzz that this promotion generated in the online fan communities,” said Erin Hunter. HarperCollins first experimented with making a book available online for free in February 2006 when they worked with author Bruce Judson to host his book, Go It Alone!: The Secret to Building a Successful Business on Your Own. In August 2006 the company launched “Browse Inside,” allowing consumers to sample pages of thousands of HarperCollins titles on its Web site. About HarperCollins PublishersHarperCollins, one of the largest English-language publishers in the world, is a subsidiary of News Corporation(NYSE: NWS, NWS.A; ASX: NWS, NWSLV). Headquartered in New York, HarperCollins has publishing groups around the world including the HarperCollins General Books Group, HarperCollins Children’s Books Group, Zondervan, HarperCollins UK, HarperCollins Canada, HarperCollins Australia/New Zealand and HarperCollins India. HarperCollins is a broad-based publisher with strengths in literary and commercial fiction, business books, children's books, cookbooks, mystery, romance, reference, religious and spiritual books. With nearly 200 years of history HarperCollins has published some of the world’s foremost authors and has won numerous awards including the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, the Newbery Medal and the Caldecott. Consistently at the forefront of innovation and technological advancement HarperCollins is the first publisher to digitize its content and create a global digital warehouse to protect the rights of its authors, meet consumer demand and generate additional business opportunities. You can visit HarperCollins Publishers on the Internet at http://www.harpercollins.com.