John Grisham's Fans

• February 12, 1998

John Grisham's Fans

Oakland, CA - 1 February 1999 - Fans of best-selling author John Grisham didn't have to wait until Tuesday's release of his new novel "The Testament" to get a taste of his newest characters and plot. Thanks to his publisher, Doubleday (a division of Random House), Grisham fans were treated to an innovative e-mail serialization of the second and third chapters of the novel in the weeks that lead up to the February 2 release.

"This is a tremendously innovative and important use of e-mail list technology," said John Buckman, president and CEO of Lyris Technologies, Inc., whose Lyris e-mail list server software and hosting service were used to host the mailing list. "At a very low cost, Doubleday was able to generate an incredible amount of excitement for Grisham's new book."

Fans signed up for the mailing list at Grisham¹s Web site, at http://www.jgrisham.com, or sent e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , which will continue to update subscribers on Grisham news after the book's release.

Buckman says that while the newspaper industry has been using e-mail as a low-cost method of driving readers to buy paper publications for some time, Random House is leading the way for publishing houses. "It's hard to imagine a better way for a publishing house, or any content vendor, to create a buzz around its latest big thing than to tease fans through free e-mail content," noted Buckman. "It's exciting to see it working so well."