Book excerpts can be searched online

Publishers like Random House, HarperCollins hope move will drive sales

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updated 2:15 p.m. ET Feb. 27, 2007

NEW YORK - Random House, Inc. has made online excerpts available from books by Toni Morrison, Calvin Trillin and thousands of others as publishers continue their push to sell more books through the Internet.

The Random House search and browser program, Insight, was officially launched Tuesday.

"We believe Insight will be an invaluable marketing tool for our publishers, our authors, and particularly our booksellers, as book content sampling frequently is followed by consumer purchase," Andrew Weber, Random House's senior vice president for operations and technology, said in a statement.

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Earlier this week, HarperCollins announced its own Browse Inside "widget" program, with excerpts available from books by Michael Crichton, Sidney Poitier and many others. According to HarperCollins, the new program enables "fans and authors to embed sample pages of their favorite books directly onto social networking sites and blogs."

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"The Browse Inside widget is the most recent marketing tool we have developed using the capabilities of our digital warehouse to market our titles to the MySpace generation online," HarperCollins Group President Brian Murray said in a statement.

"We are extending our reach beyond the HarperCollins site to where many potential book buyers visit — on social communities, blogs or author sites."