New Site and App Offer Free Full-Text Previews of Christian Books

Through partnerships with religious book publishers, the recently launched FreeBookPreview.com allows readers to access full-text previews of upcoming and newly released Christian books on mobile devices for a limited time. A service of Bellingham, Wash.-based electronic publisher Logos Bible Software, the new website is the first book promotion tool to maximize mobile technology and social networking for e-books and print books, according to the company.

"In order to really show publishers what a great promotional tool this is, we felt we needed to actually launch the site and prove the concept," says Dan Pritchett, vice president of marketing and business development at Logos. "The primary advantage of FreeBookPreview.com is instant promotion and publicity to the installed base of about a quarter of a million users of the Logos Bible Software iPhone application," which is available to iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users. Users of other web-enabled mobile devices can access previews by logging on to Library.Logos.com on their devices.

Each week, a free preview will be featured on the app's home page; the book may then be purchased in print or electronic format from the app as well as from FreeBookPreview.com. Twitter and Facebook sharing features also allow users to share the previews with their friends and followers.

"Compared to a magazine ad where a few people may notice [it], FreeBookPreview.com has already engaged 10,000-plus actual reads of the promoted titles, 1,000-plus people have shared the idea socially, and people are tweeting and buzzing about the books," says Pritchett. "The user response has been great, especially since we have not even ramped up the promotion of the newest titles."

Since its launch in late July, the site has captured nearly 30,000 page views and the first featured title–Christian Focus Publication's "Finally Alive" by John Piper—was previewed over 8,000 times, according to Logos. Sales of electronic titles—which are outselling print editions by nearly 30 to one—have topped a $1,000 thus far.