A "Page Per Day" Novel for Busy Readers With No Time to Read

(PRWEB) March 15, 2005

Most authors or publishing houses wouldn't dream of putting their works online for no charge, but Small Dogs Press and author Susan M. Brooks are trying a different approach to building interest and anticipation for Brooks' second novel, "Collecting Candace." Brooks is posting one page of the novel per day on her author blog, at http://www.susanmbrooks.blogspot.com.

"We don't see this as a way of giving away the books," says Susan Sabo, publisher at Small Dogs Press. "The book is 200 pages long, so this will go on till the end of the year. If someone is really bent on not paying for the book, I suppose they could visit the blog everyday and print it out, but I seriously doubt anyone would want to read a book that way."

By visiting the blog, readers can read each entry (named by the page number) in sequence or out, depending on their need for continuity and linear action. But the main idea, says Brooks, is not to get people to visit everyday and read the entire book, but to be enticed by the few pages they might read into buying the book.

"Unknown authors have a really tough time of selling books," says Brooks. "So free content, like teasers, are essential to building an audience." Although there are dozens of ways an author can blog a novel, Brooks likes the idea of the slow tease of one page per day. "It can really build a lot of interest and anticipation," she says, "when you're in the middle of some really exciting scene, and you're cut off by a hyphenated word!"

"Collecting Candace" is a quirky, violent and visceral love story and thriller, about a man who believes the only way to purify his love for a woman is to recapture to piece of her that she has given to other lovers. This, he believes, can be accomplished only by killing them.

The Page-Per-Day blogging is the 2nd innovative approach that Small Dogs Press and Brooks have initiated to garner interest in the novel, which has already been favorably reviewed by many horror and thriller sites. A few months ago, the publishing house put up a video trailer of the book, giving potential readers a way to experience the books, visually, before buying it. The trailer can be seen at http://www.smalldogspress.com/books/candace.html

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