Free Fever

A while back I signed up for Bantam Dell Publishing’s email newsletter as part of a promotional game they were running in connection with George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series.  Well, yesterday I received an email announcing the free audiobook release of a Bantam book.  The novel is Karen Marie Monig’s Darkfever, and it seems the entire work will be available as a series of free podcasts.  From the email:

This the very first joint effort between Bantam Dell and one of its authors to release the full version of a book for free as a podcast. The book will be presented in its entirety, with four episodes per week available for download.

Apparently, Darkfever is a “paranormal romance.”  Or, as the author writes in a blog entry on the novel’s Amazon page, “It’s the first installment of a story told over the course of five novels that is a romance, and a fantasy, and a mystery and even part thriller.”  The novel’s heroine travels to Ireland to investigate her sister’s murder and apparently discovers she can see Fae and other mystical beings. Not surprisingly, vampires play a role as well.  The book has an average review score of 3.5 stars on Amazon and there are 184 reviews.  It was originally published in October, 2006.

This is definitely not the type of novel I would usually buy, but since it is free in podcast form and I am interested in Irish mythology, I might just give it a listen.  The fact that I’m even considering downloading this podcast is proof that this kind of promotion does work.  People who normally wouldn’t buy the book may listen to the free audio and end up purchasing more of the author’s work.  I’d love to see more fantasy/sci-fi novels released by publishers as free audiobooks, so I’m happy to encourage the practice.  Personally, I do think it would work better if they released the entire audiobook from the start, rather than portioning it out as podcasts over time.

If you are interested, the podcast is available on iTunes and also from this page.

Two warnings:  This book is only part one of a five part series and I doubt they will be releasing the other books in the series for free.  Also, the novel apparently has explicit sex scenes, so you may not want to blast it over your speakers at work.  Unless you work in some kind of vampire sex club, of course.