J. Michael Straczynski Debuts New Book on Bookface

Posted on July 31, 2000

Bookface, an online reading provider, has announced that J. Michael Straczynski, writer and creator of the Emmy Award Winning T.V. series Babylon 5, will debut his new book, Tribulations exclusively in online reading form at Bookface.com. Tribulations will be released online at Bookface.com in four installments, one per week, beginning on August 7th. Later in August, Bookface and Straczynski plan to offer readers the option to purchase the paper version of Tribulations through a print-on-demand solution with publisher, Darktales Publications.

Straczynski says in a statement, "The greatest dilemma facing authors on the Internet today is the division between the desires of the net population to make the greatest amount of information available freely, and the authors who need to find some way to protect their work. It's only a matter of time before the courts are clogged with cases trying to find a solution. I've always believed that Bookface offered the perfect solution, offering readers the ability to read published works online without charge, while offering the authors both compensation and publicity. The democratization of literature spearheaded by Bookface offers a unique opportunity for publishers, authors and readers hitherto impossible unless you want to go live in a public library."

Straczynski is the latest author to test the waters of using the Internet to connect with readers. Stephen King has been experimenting with eBooks and direct publishing with his Riding the Bullet and The Plant projects. Internet marketing guru Seth Godin has taken eBooks a step further by offering free digital downloads of his latest book, Unleashing the Ideavirus. Recently, publishing houses including Time Warner Trade Publishing, HarperCollins, Penguin Putnam, Random House and St. Martin's press have agreed to use Bookface to display book content, such as Robert Ludlum's latest The Hades Factor, directly on the Internet.

Booface CEO Tammy Deuster adds, "The Internet provides authors with a new, and effective channel for connecting with their readers. This is why we are seeing so many authors and publishers exploring different digital publishing solutions: from direct publishing to online reading to eBooks. Tribulations is a perfect book for online reading because J. Michael Straczynski is masterful at using the Internet to intimately communicate with his fans."