Vegas novel offered free online
NEW YORK -- Charles Bock's "Beautiful Children, a best-selling debut novel about characters adrift in Las Vegas, is the latest book to be offered for free online.
Starting today, Bock's novel can be downloaded from www. beautifulchildren.net/read.
The free electronic edition also will be available from such leading retailers as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.
"I want people to read the book," Bock said in a statement issued by the Random House Publishing Group. "If that means giving it away for free online, great."
"The book really struck a chord with readers as bookstore sales have demonstrated," Avideh Bashirrad, deputy director of marketing for Random House, said in a statement. "We believe it has even more potential readers out there, and the best way to reach them is online, with this unrestricted access."
Publishers have worried about Internet piracy and whether online text could hurt traditional sales. But lately, the trend has been to make more books available on the Internet and hope that interest in all formats will be increased.
