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Read more from Cory Doctorow at his Web site, www.craphound.com. Buy "The Holly Wreath Man," and Poynter receives a small cut as an Amazon affiliate. Read more in Chip's blog, The Mechanic & the Muse: An owner's manual for writers Wanna learn more? Check out our reporting, writing, and editing seminars. Sign up to receive Chip on your Shoulder by e-mail: Click here Buy Chip's book, "Reporting & Writing for the 21st Century," and Poynter receives a small cut as an Amazon affiliate.

In 1970, a forest-bearded yippie named Abbie Hoffman wrote a book called "Steal This Book."

"Steal This Book" reflected the intense cultural upheaval that became the era's hallmark.

The contents, which Hoffman called "discontents," including lessons on how to grow marijuana and steal food and credit cards, were disturbing enough.

But it was the anarchic title that scared some bookstores, which feared customers might take Hoffman's advice. Many refused to stock the book on their shelves.

"Steal this Book" came to mind yesterday morning when I read "Giving It Away," a provocative piece on Forbes.com that describes one author's similar, but less nefarious, approach to marketing his books.

Written by Cory Doctorow, science fiction author and co-editor of the quirky blog BoingBoing.net, it begins with a startling statement of counter-intuition. "I've been giving away my books ever since my first novel came out," Doctorow writes, "and boy has it ever made me a bunch of money."

Doctorow says his publisher, Tor Books, doesn't object to putting the book online for free:


I'd suggest you take the time to read the story, part of Forbes.com's special report on books and the future of publishing. But, in a nutshell, Doctorow (no relation to the novelist E.L. Doctorow), describes how he not only makes his novels available as free downloads on the Internet, but also gives the people who find them online the right to "copy [them] far and wide."

The bottom line? Here's how Doctorow says his first novel, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom," fared as an online freebie:


Freebies don't bother Doctorow, even though he concedes that most online readers don't buy the printed book. But enough do, he says, to consistently exceed his publisher's expectations.

As for those who don't buy, he says: "They wouldn't have bought it in any event, so I haven't lost any sales, I've just won an audience."

Capturing and keeping audience is a challenge newspapers have been grappling with ever since they started to migrate printed content to their Web sites. With a few notable exceptions -- The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times' TimesSelect, for example -- newspapers have been giving their online content away for free, all the while bemoaning the lack of online revenue to make up for flagging ad sales in their print products.

What if they were to adopt the Doctorow approach, preferring an online audience and banking on the likelihood that some will become paying customers? I've heard predictions that newspaper editors are going to have to accept the reality that breaking news will move to the Web. But that seismic change is softened by a parallel scenario. The newspaper will become the home of narratives, investigative reports, and explanatory journalism -- coverage that is both broad and deep and, if Doctorow is correct, worth paying for. Who knows -- perhaps newspapers will once again become the home for serial novels.

Doctorow acknowledges that "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."

That emphasis is mine. I added it because reading it made me think about how Doctorow's marketing theory relates to a newspaper series that I wrote -- and about its transformation into a hardcover book.

Three years ago, my wife, Katharine Fair, and I wrote a 25-part serialized Christmas novel for newspapers called "The Holly Wreath Man."

Since then, it's been distributed by Universal Press Syndicate to nearly 50 newspapers and Web sites in more than 20 states and Canada -- see a neat map of them here. Its potential audience: nearly 6 million subscribers. That doesn't count what circulation folks like to call the "pass-around effect."

A year ago, Universal's book division, Andrews McMeel Publishing, released the story in hardcover. In that way, our online/newspaper story became a hardcover book.

As with Doctorow's books, "The Holly Wreath Man" remains available online -- and, like Doctorow's, our publisher is okay with that. Right now, for example, you can read the entire story for free at the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times Web site. You can even listen to each chapter, for free, on iTunes, as a series of 25 podcasts that I recorded. To listen, go to the iTunes Music Store and search for "The Holly Wreath Man."

There's nothing stopping you from reading or listening to "The Holly Wreath Man" online, or sharing the links to it with friends and family. You can even print out the chapters and put them in a binder to give away as a holiday gift. So why buy the book?

Granted, our situation differs from Doctorow's in at least one key way. He made his novel available free online at the same time it was published as a printed book. For my wife and me, it was different. Our story was available free on newspaper Web sites long before it was bound in a book.

With Doctorow's marketing theory in mind, I look back and wonder: What would happen if I encourage readers to preview the story online first? What if some of them then take a look at the book using Amazon's "Search Inside" feature? Will it prompt them to buy it, for themselves or as a gift, this holiday season?

I suspect Doctorow would say yes. And that is the hypothesis of this modest experiment in promoting a book and winning an audience.

For authors, Doctorow's approach may not mean a windfall. After all, while Amazon sells our book for $9.95, it also offers 59 copies from other online booksellers for as little 50 cents. If enough people buy our book after reading or listening to it online, the chances of a second edition become more likely.

If I understand Doctorow's thinking, money is not necessarily the only benefit of online giveways:


If enough people like a story, the thinking goes, their enthusiasm will generate viral marketing, the kind of online word-of-mouth exposure that can pierce the wall of noise with which so many books collide.

So here's my proposal: Take the online version of our book, read it and read the story behind it on the book's Web site. We hope, of course, that you'll buy the one between hardcovers. But, like Doctorow, we'll count it a success if you just read it online and spread the word.

Kathy and I have a new Christmas serial out this year, a holiday adventure aimed at the young people whose attention newspapers are increasingly more desperate to win. It's called "Mystery @ Elf Camp," a 14-parter that begins running in newspapers and on Web sites this month. It will be available free online, both in text and as a podcast, on the St. Petersburg Times site this Friday.

Go ahead, please take that one, too. After all, what do writers want more than readers -- even if some don't pay? Win an audience first, and if you're lucky, other rewards may follow.