Listen to My Beautiful Idol – Free!

My friend Pete Gall is making his infectiously-funny, hard-hitting memoir My Beautiful Idol available for free as an audio book on NoiseTrade if you share it with 5 friends. If you like Dave Eggers, Tom Wolfe, Anne Lamott, Sara Miles, or (yes) Don Miller, you should download this puppy and give it a listen. Word on the street is Pete’s got another book coming out soon; I can’t wait.

Oh, and incidentally, I think Pete’s decision to give this book away for a season in audio format is a smart one from a publishing standpoint; this week, God-willing, I’ll be blogging a bit about the recession, publishing industry, and creative marketing innovation.

But anyway, you can download the free audiobook here.

5 Responses to Listen to My Beautiful Idol – Free!

  1. david January 25, 2009 at 5:28 pm #

    sweet deal. recommended and downloaded.
    you know … the only problem with a 4 minute work out is you don’t get very far when attempting to get through an audiobook.

  2. Mark January 25, 2009 at 6:51 pm #

    Free sells, and I wish publishers weren’t so afraid of it. Looking forward to your thoughts on publishing later this week.

  3. Pete Gall January 25, 2009 at 8:44 pm #

    Thanks for the shout-out, Mike. I appreciate it.

    Zondervan has been VERY cool with their willingness to try new things like this — so cool, in fact, that I’m the one who keeps the email addresses when people download the book…so the only marketing hits people may receive are the ones that come from me…that’s remarkable.

    I think Derek Webb and Noisetrade are on to a cool way to share content, and I’m proud to be the first audiobook there. So far NoiseTrade isn’t a great way for artists to recoup their costs (through NT), but I think that’s because they’re out in front of the general population in terms of payment options — if I’m downloading a song that is offered in exchange for either five referrals (requiring emails I can copy and paste from my computer) or a cash amount of my choice (which means pulling out a credit card or signing up for PayPal), I’m still more likely to offer the email addresses. I think more people will have immediate online payment tools ready in the future, but I’ve only had a few people offer cash for the download.

    Which is TOTALLY fine, by the way — I’m just talking about the NoiseTrade experiment and the culture and business posture it’s a part of.

    In terms of helping artists and authors, book and CD sales are obviously great, but the real business behind the system is the artist’s “platform” — meaning how many people know who the heck the artist or author is — so the best reward people like me can get is stuff like reviews at Amazon, blog posts, or notes like this one. Thank you for that!

    BY THE WAY — I’m in the endorsement-gathering/review phase for Learning My Name. If people are interested in an advance read (or listen — the audiobook is already finished) and sharing their opinion of the new book, they should drop a note to my marketing manager at Zondervan, Marcy Schorsch, at marcy.schorsch@zondervan.com and put something like “Review copies of Learning My Name?” in the subject line.

    Thanks again, Mike, for the post!

    Pete

  4. forwardonline January 26, 2009 at 8:18 am #

    Great Mike, and I look forward to reading your future posts on creative marketing innovation. As a foresight specialist who is interested in helping individuals and companies to pursue strategic initiatives in order to achieve new opportunities and reach their aspirational goals (and even develop transformational pathways that allow them to have a positive impact on the larger world outside of their industry, even through the use of that very industry, whether publishing or some other domain), I always look forward to hearing how people can become more creative in their particular environment. Hope you get the chance to talk a little about impacting humanity through the use of organizational environments rethinking their ultimate purpose – while continuing to make a profit and succeed in the market, as I know this topic is close to your heart.

    Frank

  5. JJ January 27, 2009 at 2:37 pm #

    There it is again! Your a hub for the distribution revolution! Great site Mike. I’m subscribing!

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