RosettaBooks Offers Five Free eBooks of Titles Turned Into Movies
Digital publisher RosettaBooks LLC is giving away a few classic movie-themed titles, like “The Graduate,” in the hopes that it will spur new sales, WSJ’s Jeffrey Trachtenberg reports.
The quintet, which includes “The Graduate” and “Midnight Cowboy,” has been largely ignored by digital consumers, generating only marginal sales over the past decade. In April, cumulative sales of the books numbered an estimated 250 copies across all e-retailer websites. The other titles are “A Passage to India,” “Shoeless Joe,” which inspired “Field of Dreams,” and “Red Alert,” the basis of “Dr. Strangelove.”
The promotion, which started May 7, will last until June 3.
RosettaBooks, which acquires e-book rights for older titles from literary agents, authors and heirs, is betting that word of mouth and numerous consumer views of the books’ dust jackets will spur unit sales after the titles go back on sale.
Filed under: Publishing, Reports
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
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