The News Corporation's publishing division, HarperCollins, has made the entire text of a new business book available online for free, but it's displaying a banner ad and several contextual ads by
Yahoo on each of its more than 200 pages. Ad revenues will be shared between the author and the publisher. Like other book publishers, HarperCollins is testing new ways to use the Internet as a
selling vehicle for its books. Ad revenue will obviously fall far short of the retail value of the book, but the publisher believes that making the text of
Go It Alone! The Secret to Building a
Successful Business on Your Own, by Bruce Judson, available for free could actually boost sales of the title. Both Google and Yahoo are indexing the entire book, which should drive more traffic to
its pages.
Read the whole story at Crain's New York Business »