Fly by website rec: Smashwords.com
It's an eBook publishing site and they have a lot of free books, including gay erotica. Mostly short stories though. I haven't read any of them yet, just downloaded to put on my iPod so I don't actually know if they're any good but I thought you might be interested in checking them out for yourself. You can download in many formats, including pdf, rtf, txt and palm and Kindle formats.
And of course you can buy books as well. They're acting on the idea that making something more easily available, like free online, spreads the word and works better as publicity than just advertising. And in fact their numbers show that the books that are available free online have higher numbers in printed sales.
Which is pretty much what we've been saying all along regarding other media such as tv-shows. Especially if you're trying to reach an audience outside the US (if we're talking US material). A person is rather unlikely to be willing to spend $40-$60 (at least) on DVDs for a TV series they haven't seen. And having to wait for the DVDs also means you can't partake in fandom or any online discussion without being spoiled for the whole thing. And by the time you finally get the DVDs the main (US based) audience has long since moved on. While online availability, whether that be illegal or not, brings more fans in, allows them to be a part of the online fandom community which again makes it more likely that they stay fans AND that they BUY published products once they ARE available, whether that be DVDs, tie-in novels or other things. Not to mention spend hundred of dollars at conventions, even traveling thousands of miles to get there. I guarantee you, the numbers would be sooo much lower outside the US if networks managed somehow to put a stop to illegal downloading. Someone needs to tell those idiots to get with the program.
 | Mood: pensive |
