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I was thrilled and grateful when McClelland & Stewart allowed me to podcast The High Road, in its entirety, chapter-by-chapter, for free. The wonderful digital team at M&S made a strong case for the podcast, and it worked. I’m very thankful. But giving it away for free as a podcast is a difficult notion for some. I believe strongly in the theory that listeners who really enjoy the podcast will want to purchase the book. It makes sense to me and it seemed to work with my first novel, The Best Laid Plans, which I also podcast. But let’s be clear, it’s still just a theory, and The High Road podcast is the experiment that I hope will prove it. But that’s really up to all of you who have been listening to, and I hope enjoying, the podcast. And now is the time to step up and justify McClelland & Stewart’s decision to podcast the novel for free, so that I might be allowed to follow the same path with novel number three, whenever it’s finished.
So while I have always preached that social media is not really an appropriate platform for hardcore selling, I’m going to cross the line this once, but I think all for a good cause. If you want to have a hand in reshaping the approach traditional publishers like McClelland & Stewart have historically adopted, please take a second to buy The High Road. Here are Amazon and Indigo links, and you’ll also find links in the left hand side bar.
If we can show that the podcast helped to drive early sales, M&S will be more likely to consider podasting to be an effective way to promote new titles. As always, thanks for all the support. The High Road hits bookstores today (September 7th), so now is the perfect time to place that order. Besides, the holiday season is just around the corner. Thank you all, I’m grateful…
Update: It seems I’m not the only one with this idea. Check out this wonderful post by Mark Leslie, the writer and forward-looking bookseller at Titles, McMaster University‘s great bookstore.
