giving stuff away for free can mean making more money

From Neil Gaiman's blog (bold emphasis mine):

It's worth drawing people's attention to the fact that the free online reading copy of American Gods is now in its last six days online (it ends 31 March 08). I learned this from an email from Harper Collins, which also told me the latest batch of statistics.

For American Gods:

68,000 unique visitors to the book pages of American Gods

3,000,000 book pages viewed in aggregate

And that the weekly book sales of American Gods have apparently gone up by 300%, rather than tumbling into the abyss. (Which is -- the rise, not the tumble -- what I thought would happen. Or at least, what I devoutly hoped would happen.)

The book is up at This URL, if you're interested, or want to pass it along to a friend.

Hear that you sellers of books and music and journals and other content? This is how you make fans. Fans buy stuff. Simple as that.

libraries + video games in the new york times

I love the focus of this article, legitimizing video games as a medium that is worthy of its place in libraries, not only as program center but circulating material. Plus, the idea that the video games encourage young people to use the library, and that is something we actually want (v. trying to get rid of teens in libraries)

Taking Play Seriously At The Public Library With Young Video Gamers >