Booker Short List is Free

The Times Online is reporting that the MAN Booker prize short listed titles will be made available for free download. Apparently the initiative is well advanced but what I really thought interesting was this statement:

The downloads will not impact on sales, it is thought. If readers like a novel tasted on the internet, they may just be inspired to buy the actual book.

Hummm. I must be missing something because while some forward thinking people in the industry subscribe to this theory it is by no means universally held. In fact I laughed when I read it. Surely, if free downloads were a promotional vehicle there would be more (all) of them.

Also, in one sweep the publisher disparaged the sales data in Nielsen's bookscan product by suggesting that the sales units of the Booker winner documented in the Nielsen reports were only 10% of the actual total. (Me thinks they are counting in Cusslers). The writer goes on to say that winning will do wonders for sales of the title - breathlessly, "Enright’s sales may now quadruple, at least". Gosh, is that an extra 12,000 units?