3255 Why he gives away his e-books

Cory Doctorow's first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, has been downloaded 700,000 times--it's free on the internet. But he's made a lot of money:

"Most people who download the book don't end up buying it, but they wouldn’t have bought it in any event, so I haven’t lost any sales, I’ve just won an audience. A tiny minority of downloaders treat the free e-book as a substitute for the printed book--those are the lost sales. But a much larger minority treat the e-book as an enticement to buy the printed book. They're gained sales. As long as gained sales outnumber lost sales, I'm ahead of the game. After all, distributing nearly a million copies of my book has cost me nothing."

Full story at Forbes. HT Bibliofuture at LISNews.com