What do you think?

With all the talk about the internet, how do you think it is affecting the book industry? More particularly, should artists [be they musicians, authors or photographers] do whatever they have to do to get there work “out there”. 

Both musicians and authors are offering free downloadable versions of their work on the web. I have been posting chapters of my first novel, Conduct in Question, the first in The Osgoode Trilogy at my site at Authors Den for the past week or so.

At least one publisher [Random House] is currently offering individual chapters of a book online for $2.99 per chapter. The book by Chip and Dan Heath entitled Made to Stick: Why some Ideas Survive and Others Die has been selected for this publisher’s pilot project.  A number of years back, Stephen King, offered downloadable chapters for sale from his website but discontinued the idea.

I read somewhere that Ian McEwan, the British author especially known for his novel, Atonement, now a movie, tried to give away some of his novels on a Saturday afternoon in a London Park. No takers!

So what do you think? Should authors give their work away? In the meantime, have a look at five Chapters from Conduct in Question which I’ve posted in my “story” section.  Why do I do this? Hopefully, I’ll intrigue you enough to by it or one of the others in the trilogy. After all, what good is a bunch of loose photocopy paper with a novel on it?