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Reading the future. If you want to read Contract, the debut novel by 2000 AD writer Simon Spurrier, you won’t have to fork out a penny. It may be told through the disturbed eyes of a professional hitman, but readers can sample it through the website of Spurrier’s publishers Headline, safe in the knowledge that no-one will be sending the heavies round to extract “royalties”.Making a book available for free — albeit with the hope that readers will buy the paper version — may be an unusual move from a major publisher, but it’s hardly a new one. Whilst larger imprints are only now realising that free e-books don’t have to equal commercial suicide, independents were faster to spot the potential for spreading the word. Webcomics are a particularly thriving sector: without hefty printing costs, sites such as the German-run Electrocomics can offer cutting-edge graphic novels as pdfs. If you like them, the suggested donation is just 1.5 euros.  Electrocomics. Back in the world of black-and-white text, West Yorkshire-based Route straddle traditional and online publishing, publishing contemporary fiction and poetry. Since 2005, their site has been offering Bytebacks: free 48-page downloads that can be printed and assembled into a book. According to Route editor Ian Daley, Bytebacks were mainly conceived as a development project for new writers, yet have proved surprisingly popular. “I know some people who every time we put one up, print them out and leave them in their staffroom,” he says. The books can’t be read online as the pages are deliberately ordered for cutting up and assembling. “What we believe is that the printed book is the right vehicle for anyone who reads for leisure. You don’t read off the screen,” he explains.  Route. However, technology is fast catching up with paper and ink. The recent International Digital Publishing Forum conference in New York, which Daley attended, saw manufacturers such as Sony unveiling improved digital readers with clearer screens, suggesting that the bookworld’s answer to iPod ubiquity can’t be far away. On the other hand, printing paper books is becoming ever easier, with print on demand (where books can be ordered online and printed individually) finding favour with both self-publishers and imprints not wanting to risk thousands of unloved copies on their hands. As the quality of digital printing improves, Daley sees this as the next step in Bytebacks’ evolution. Meanwhile, e-books could soon be anywhere your computer isn’t. Recently launched in the USA, Espresso is an e-book vending machine: choose from one of around 2.7 million titles and see it printed and bound in the time it takes to order a coffee. Even a hard-pressed hitman might be tempted.
Abu Bliss
You can read Contract for free until 05 July 07, or buy a limited edition hardback, at www.itsallaboutthemoney.co.uk.
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