Online giveaway

If you can't get a book deal, might it be worth giving work away for free online? Jon Evans, on The Guardian Books Blog, thinks so.

...to quote the publisher Tim O'Reilly, "the greatest threat an artist faces is obscurity, not piracy". I don't worry about people who read my work without paying. I worry about people who don't know my books exist. An online release reaches a potentially enormous audience, gets free publicity (because a free book from an established author still seems perverse and hence notable) and attracts readers by letting them try before they buy. If my writing is good enough - and I'm confident it is - people who read one of my books for free will be willing to buy the others.