A spokesman with the University Press of Kentucky says response has been phenomenal to a special online promotion involving a new book from former NPR personality, and Kentucky native, Bob Edwards. Publicity Manager Mack McCormick says the decision to offer "A Voice In The Box, My Life In Radio" as a limited time, free download has put the Lexington-based publishing company on the national map."Right now we are sitting with the number one downloaded biography and memoir on Amazon. So in essence we have a 'best seller' but that's never happened for us before. We've had books climb high in the rankings; James Still's last novel, for example. We had a book on the Lincoln assassination called 'Blood on the Moon', that got some huge p.r., but we've never hit number one before."
McCormick says publishing companies, large and small, are now embracing such digital grass-roots marketing techniques like free downloads because they believe in reaching readers wherever they happen to be.
"It's a possibility that didn't exist a year ago. Now the number of people that have e-readers, kindles, nooks, aps on their smartphone, has grown exponentially in the last year."
