DailyLit Turns Books Into Bite-Sized Bits

Like many busy people, Scarsdale resident Susan Danziger didn't have as much time to dedicate to reading as she would like.

What she noticed is that she, like most of us, have a lot of "free" interstitial time, whether on the Metro-North train to Manhattan, waiting for the kids or in a dentist's office.

What if she could fill that time with little snippets of reading? And, most critically, reading that doesn't rely on remembering to throw a book in her bag?

That question led to the birth of DailyLit, a Mamaroneck-based Web site that allows subscribers to receive installments of books in their e-mail inbox.

While Amazon.com's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook dedicated electronic book readers are getting a lot of attention for bringing ebooks into the mainstream, Danziger said DailyLit is easier because no one must buy an extra gadget.

DailyLit users can read their installments on any e-mail capable device, whether it's the laptop computer on the breakfast table or the iPhones on the go.

"We're a big believer in making it really easy to get started," she said. "You always have your phone with you, you might forget to bring a book."

Danziger, a former Random House executive, founded the company about three years ago with her husband, Albert Wenger, a investor in other notable Web ventures such as the social bookmarking site Del.icio.us and the craft marketplace Etsy.

A mother of three, Danziger said she values her short commute to an airy second-floor office on Mamaroneck Avenue, where light-colored hardwood floors, high ceilings and large artworks create a bright, cheerful place for working alone or with the freelancers she employs to create the Web site.

"I love the fact that I don't have to commute into the city every day," she said. "I love Mamaroneck. It's a fun town. There is something so wonderfully real. You don't have chain stores here. You have the mom-and-pop shops."

While DailyLit initially had a mix of paid and free titles, today the company's offerings are all free to users, who simply provide a screen name and e-mail to sign up.

So far, DailyLit has sent more than 35 million installments of books as widely varied as "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy, "Emeril at the Grill" by Emeril Lagasse and "The Little Big Things" by Tom Peters.

The books are serialized into 1,000-word installments that can be read in five minutes or less.

It takes a while to finish a lengthy book at this pace. For instance, "Dracula" by Bram Stoker comes in 187 installments. If you read one a day on workdays, it would take 37 weeks to finish the novel.

The bite-sized reading strategy lends itself especially well to self-help and education. Among the most popular titles are Berlitz language courses and several "poem-a-day" offerings.

"There are two kinds of readers: Ones who want to follow the whole story, like 'Pride and Prejudice,' and those of us who like distinct little pieces that you don't have to read every single day but can dip in and dip out," Danziger said.

More than a half-million people have subscribed to DailyLit since it started.

"Our original premise is to appeal to people who are busy and who don't have time to read," Danziger said.

Since moving from a paid marketplace to a free one, Danziger's business strategy has moved into sponsorships.

"Books can be sponsored by the publisher or a third party, and that's a win-win-win situation. You have a win for the reader who gets premier content free. You have a win for the publishers who get their books exposed to the readers. And you have a win for the sponsors if they are not the publishers because their brand is associated with great content," Danziger said.

Among the sponsors so far as been the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is behind a "Shoes, Bags and Tiaras: Highlights from the Victoria and Albert Museum."

Each day, a subscriber gets a snippet with a shoe, bag or tiara and the history of the piece.

O, The Oprah Magazine, is sponsoring "Words That Matter," and subscribers get selected essays from the book.

Wine guru Gary Vaynerchuk's "Crush It!: Why Now Is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion" is also free through sponsorship.

Although the books on DailyLit were very moderately priced at less than $10 for the most part, Danziger said there wasn't enough response from the public to the paid content.

She speculates that people are accustomed to getting other content free via e-mail and also perhaps didn't value a book that was broken up into a series of e-mails in their inbox in the same way they would one they could hold in their hands.

Michael Norris, a senior trade book analyst with Simba Information, said that making content more accessible does not necessarily make it more valued.

Electronic book publishers and device makers are experiencing the same issue. "A good number of people tend to look for free ebooks first when they are browsing," Norris said.

Simba data shows that about 9 percent of the U.S. population bought at least one ebook in 2009.

Since a lot of people still use their PCs to read ebooks rather than opt for a Kindle, Norris said books via e-mail could be a compelling alternative.

"I give her credit for trying something new," he said. "What Susan wanted to do is explore a new way to deliver content to people that spoke more to the relationship busy people have with reading."

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