Giving Away E-Books to Drive Sales

Author Paolo Coelho has apparently been giving away electronic versions of his books to great marketing effect. There's a quote on a site called TorrentFreak:

In 2001, I sold 10,000 hard copies. And everyone was puzzled. We came from zero, from 1000, to 10,000. And then the next year we were over 100,000. […]

I thought that this is fantastic. You give to the reader the possibility of reading your books and choosing whether to buy it or not. […]

So, I went to BitTorrent and I got all my pirate editions… And I created a site called The Pirate Coelho.

And here's something from his official blog discussing a talk he gave about the phenomenon. I'm not saying that every author should immediately run off and give away copies, but the success that some have with this method does give one pause to think. With so many book purchases happening online, maybe this is the online equivalent of going to a book store, having a title catch your eye, flipping through it, and deciding to buy it. Or perhaps this will only work with a few authors and eventually the whole approach will fall apart. Interestingly, the people I've heard of who have had success - Coelho; journalist, science fiction author, and co-publisher of the popular web site BoingBoing.net; and M.J. Rose - have all been giving fiction away.

It makes me wonder whether there has been any success with giving away non-fiction - at least the non-literary type. (If you've heard of a case, please email me and let me know.) It could be that it's an approach that only works with more "literary" works. Or perhaps it's just that non-fiction authors generally have an easier time to get commercially published, and aren't quite desperate enough to take big chances that could result in success.