A novel that was yesterday shortlisted for the Orange Prize will be made available as a free download for a day.
Burnt Shadows is being offered to anyone who wishes to download it by the publisher Bloomsbury.
The book by Kamila Shamsie, a Pakistani-born author who now lives in London, concerns Hiroko Tanaka, a survivor of the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki, whose attempts to build a new life outside Japan are interrupted by new conflicts.
The work is one of two by British authors shortlisted for the women-only prize.
Orange Prize novel Burnt Shadows to be offered as a free download
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6141046.ece
Well, what do you make of this?
Britain’s Orange Prize for any novel length fiction written by a woman and published in the UK is of Britain’s most prestigious writing awards. To be sure, Samantha Harvey whose work was also short listed along with Kamila Shamsie, was chosen from a longer list of more established authors and their works that included our own Toni Morrison and her recent short novel, “A Mercy.”
Yet and still, how is Bloomsbury going to pay for the publication of Shamsie’s work, “Burnt Shadows,” by offering it as a free download, of which I might add I offered my e-mail address as where my copy could be sent?
Perhaps it goes like this.
I’ve been watching Kamila Shamsie for quite a while. She’s no newcomer to publishing. A graduate of Hamilton College, she earned her MFA from MFA Program for Poets & Writers at University Massachusetts at Amherst.
She’s the author of In the City by the Sea (1998), Salt and Saffron (2000), Kartography (2002), Broken Verses (2005), and presently Burnt Shadows (2009) I’ve been watching her since the publication of Kartography in 2002 off which I have a copy. But I’ve just never gotten around to reading it.
Why?
The old problem of Father Time.
I have tons of books, but alas, only so much time. I am a writer. (LOL)
Yet Bloomsbury seems to know this–the human struggle with time seems to be on their radar screen as a publisher attempting to make sales in a world short of cash and even less of time.
And yes, this is the same Bloomsbury who launched the publication of J.K. Rowling’s mega-success. And that of Khaled Hosseini too.
Bloomsbury is also bucking conventional wisdom that says no one cares about who comes in second, it’s only the ones who finish first that matter.
Quite frankly, I still don’t know who won the 2009 Orange Prize for fiction and could care less.
I’ve been given the opportunity (for 24 hours) to download a copy of an author’s work that I’ve been meaning to read. I’ve checked out the books, kept up with her life and know I’ll like her work. Only time has stood in my way.
Now money and easy of getting a copy of her work, not to mention, attention–that Bloomsbury decided not to let the fact that Shamsie didn’t win stop them from promoting her work has interested me so much that I’m going to read Burnt Shadows.
And you know what? I’m going to go back and pull out my copy of Kartography and read that too. And if I like Shamsie’s work as I anticipate I will, I will order her two other novels and read them too.
Better go now and check on my download. I want to get reading.
By the way (BTW), would you give away one novel, offer it free for a day, in order to sell one, perhaps two or three more?