For the second month we are working with Carcanet to promote their wonderful poetry list by providing temporary free access to ten of their new books, throughout November. These are all for sale as perpetual access resources from Exact Editions, along with 60 other titles.

Exact Editions is able to provide publishers with an opportunity to make titles freely available for a limited period, because the platform provides users with access to a service. The technology is not driven by a system of file down-loads – unlike, for example, PDF files or ebook systems, where the whole book is downloaded to a user’s device before being fired up locally through a reading app. Because the whole book has to be downloaded and installed if a PDF file or a Kindle-file is to be read, it is not really practicable to promote these platforms temporarily.

That is an important advantage that many publishers will appreciate. But there are some other features which come in to their own when Exact Editions is used to provide an evaluation service:

  • Individual pages can be directly cited through their URL (see this poem Marriage by William Letford)
  • Each page looks exactly as it was printed. This matters so much for poetry.
  • The books and their lovely front covers can be tweeted or shared via social media.

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