ReadWriteWeb

You could write a novel in binary, but it's hard enough getting people to pay attention to your words in plain English. Futurists and programmers like Paul Graham, Eric S. Raymond and Ray Kurzweil may be prolific thinkers, but if they hadn't bothered to write down their ideas, many of us would have never found them. All of us have stories to tell, and Fast Pencil offers us a chance to format and publish them.

The increasing usage of BitTorrent services has been a living nightmare for big industry publishers. The RIAA is one of the most notable opponents of BitTorrent sites due to most users using the service to pirate music among other things. Some of these opponents fail to see the upside to using BitTorrent technology as a great marketing tool. However, a Program Director at the University of Seattle has chosen to use BitTorrent to generate buzz and spread his latest eBook to the masses.

We all know what it looks like when a novel is adapted for film or television. But what would it look like when the novel format is adapted for the Internet? We reported in March that more and more reading is being done online, especially by the younger generation, but because of the distractions of the media rich world in which we live, most reading on the web is actually just skimming. So how do you create a compelling novel format for the online world? Canadian author Nicola Furlong thinks the answer is a new web publishing format she's calling a "Quillr."

In an effort to promote the latest book in the Star Wars "Legacy of the Force" series, starting at 9am tomorrow (Tuesday, April 29), Del Ray will give out book one Betrayal for free as an audio book, eBook, and PDF download. Betrayal, which was a New York Times Bestseller, is the first book in the series and the free download will be available for two weeks until May 13, when the ninth and final book, Invicible, is released. This is an interesting marketing tactic from Del Ray, which is emulating popular music acts.