I call it the hamburger locater.  Seems like all I ever use it for is finding food joints.  It's a nice fusion of technologies and easy to use when I can't type. Doesn't use Google so that is a plus.

Maybe I talk funny but I don't get good results beyond: "Hamburger, pizza, Chinese, etc." the rest seem too complex.

First, Doctorow can really write.

Second, it is hard for a new or midlist author to break out of the pack, especially if your publisher is not spending advertising dollars on you. So to break out, Doctorow decided to gain some traction by giving away ebook versions of his books - use WOM on the Internet to rise above the pack.  It's worked.  A lot of readers will buy their favorite books in dead tree editions but first you got to get them to try your writing.  Reader bait.

Michael Martinez had something similar happen when a free ebook of his ended up on a file sharing service with like 100K downloads. Suddenly people were searching for him by name looking for more books on Tolkien right when the movie frenzy was hitting. 

Baen Books has done something similar with the Baen Free Library.  Baen is a very traditional science fiction publisher, but they have found that by giving away some titles for free, it has increased sales of both paid ebooks and print.  They usually do this by making the first book in a series free at the Library it gets people hooked and they buy the rest.  Or they use it to reintroduce authors from 20 years ago to a whole new generation of readers that have grown up with downloads.

Quote from: ukgimp on November 17, 2010, 09:11:00 PM
Brad Enslen?  Good to see you buddy.

Spiderfood was a good one on your list. Small but nice.

Heyas ukgimp.  Yeah that's me.  Spiderfood was good.

I've shopped a lot on my iPhone but a lot of times I wait to actually buy until I'm home.  Besides ebooks and music I've bought stuff from both Amazon and Walmart on the iPhone.  Costco has an app coming out and that might get dangerous.

I'm amazed at how many forum nicks I recognize (or remember) although I don't know most of you well.

I think I've been Brad or brad at most seo forums.

In the early 1980's I sold computers, mainly Kaypro CP/M luggable models referred to as 'Darth Vader's Lunchbox', plus a few mini-computers running Unix. 

In 2000 I started building niche directories as a quit smoking scheme. Enjoyed it.  Needed to learn how search worked. Joined SEO forums.

Since 2000 I've moderated at: Searchking, Spiderfood, Searchguild forums, been a member of SEF, WmW, Threadwatch, Cre8 and others.