By The Bookwise

Podcasts are a new one for me, I must admit. It is a blog post that is read to you. You can hear news shows, radio talk shows, or now being introduced, entire books.  Authors such as Scott Sigler http://www.scottsigler.com/ are reading a novel in chapters, similar to what was done in earlier times on the radio. 

Sigler built up his readership by disseminating his books through the Internet, after numerous publishers turned his work down. Now that he has built up a major following, they have changed their tune. He has now gone a further step and reads his book on iTunes and his website. 

Sigler has a dedicated following of listeners in the thousands, he calls “junkies. These junkies boosted his Ancestorto No. 7 in overall sales on Amazon.com, which encouraged  a deal with the Crown Publishing Group. This Tuesday, Sigler’s latest book, Infected was also released by Crown. 

Interestingly, a “free” digital manuscript of the book was downloaded 45,000 times in just 100 hours after the Crown book was released.  Sigler still offers his novels as free podcasts, but confidently says that the junkies will buy the $24.95 because “I ask them too.”

The number of publishing companies is dwindling, and it is becoming increasingly more difficult to sell a book through traditional methods. The entrepreneurial authors are coming up with new ideas every day.

Would you like to listen to your latest novel online?  For more information   http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/04/DDS7VUH5M.DTL

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