Celebrate Read an E-Book Week with a free e-book from UW Press

The University of Wisconsin Press is urging readers to celebrate Read an E-Book Week and is offering hundreds of titles — and a free e-book.

The publisher is marking this year’s Read an E-Book Week with the launch of hundreds of titles in e-book format and a free e-book offer.

UW Press has begun selling its e-books through its website for the first time, offering everything from novels and poetry to scholarly works on classical literature and African history. Throughout the month of March,  UW Press will introduce hundreds of new e-books on the site, making over 400 titles available by the end of the month.

“E-books are becoming both more prevalent and increasingly sophisticated, offering readers a greatly expanded range of options and choices,” says UW Press electronic publishing manager Krista Coulson. “The UW Press’s entry into the e-book market is an important step in reaching out to these readers and disseminating the Press’s content — one of many steps we’re taking as we continue to grow our e-book program and experiment with new technologies.”

During Read an E-Book Week, visitors to the UW Press website and UW Press Facebook page will also be able to download a free e-book, “Human Goodness,” by Yi-Fu Tuan, professor emeritus of geography at the UW–Madison.

The book, a probing and heartfelt meditation on good people and actions throughout history, was named the L&S Honors Program Common Book for the 2009/2010 academic year and earned high marks from reviewers.  ForeWord called the book “an important and encouraging contribution to the literature on what it means to be truly human” and Publishers Weekly declared, “readers will feel better and more intelligent for having read about these lives well-lived.”

Coulson adds, “I am so pleased that we’ve chosen ‘Human Goodness’ to be a featured part of our e-books launch.  It brings a great deal of satisfaction to be able to use a new technology like this to spread such a wonderful and inspiring work to a wider, and wired, audience.”

Now in its seventh year, Read an E-Book Week seeks to raise awareness about fastest growing segment in the publishing industry. According to the Association of American Publishers e-book sales to individuals and institutions soared 176.6% in 2009, with forecasts for even stronger growth in 2010 as new digital platforms and formats for electronic books proliferate.