Following Amazon Look Inside and Google Books, 2 of the biggest book publishers HarperCollins and RandomHouse, who uptil now resist this idea, are putting up their books online - free…

HarperCollins: ‘Browse Inside’ is the digital experience of flipping through the pages of a book to get a sense of it. Ultimately, each book in the HarperCollins catalog will have the Browse Inside link. Until then, this page will present noteworthy books as they become available with Browse Inside digital pages for you.

Random House: The ability to search and read actual pages from all of these books is just a click away. Have a favorite book? Then search for your favorite character, sample some pages, buy it, or add it to your own web site!

As more and more of their target audience are favoring online videos, social networks and videogames - publishers are scrambling to catch their eyeballs, even if it means giving away the book for free..!

Update: Just for kicks I searched Google Books for my name… and got a hit! - for an old book for which I was a consulting editor…