That’s great. That’s a brilliant marketing strategy. And we’ve got just a minute or two left, Brandon. I’m wondering if you could say a bit more about being an author with books that are sold in stores and at the same time interfacing with new media.
Well, you know, I think that a lot of industries are not approaching this in the right way. I think that, for instance, the music industry seems too scared of something that could build them a lot of fan base. And particularly in publishing, I feel that my readers are my patrons. And they could get the books for free if they wanted to, they could borrow them from friends, they could go get them from the library, these sorts of things. They support me, they choose to buy my books.
And so, I don’t feel afraid of giving out a free copy. I think it can only help. For instance, I don’t want someone to buy one of my books, read it, and then hate it. I would much rather give them the free book, let them try me out, see what they think of it. And then, if they like my books, I feel that they will want to own them and will want to buy the new ones when they come out. And so, I think it could only help.
And I love new media. I love using things like Facebook and Twitter to connect with my readers. Because as I said, my readers are my patrons. It’s much like if you were living in the 19th century, you would have a wealthy patron often as an artist who would pay for your upkeep while you were creating art, just because they were a lover of the arts. Well, I feel that my readers are much the same thing. They love science fiction and fantasy, they love supporting artists, and it’s because of them that I get to do this. And so I try to do whatever I can to connect with them.
For instance, I release on my web site annotations of my books, where I go chapter by chapter and I do a discussion, sort of like a DVD director’s commentary, on each chapter. Elantris has those up, and the Mistborn books have those up, where you could read a chapter in the book and then go find out why I wrote what I did, what was going through my mind when I wrote it, these sorts of things. And this is all to try and give as much of a bang for the buck, so to speak, on the books as possible, and to get as much of a connection between me and my readers as possible.
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