Last summer two of the best parties at DragonCon were thrown by Podiobooks.com, one on Friday night, one on Saturday. It featured an open bar (donations accepted). At one point Scott Sigler was behind the bar and he poured me a beer. I said, “Someday when you’re a bestselling New York Times author I can say ‘Scott Sigler once served me a beer.'”

Scott Sigler is now a New York Times Best Seller author. Scott Sigler once served me a beer.

His book “Contagious” debuted at #33 on the NYT Best Seller list. And he got there by giving his stuff away. He also got there by writing a kick-ass novel – generosity won’t make a lousy book a success – but a lot of authors write kick-ass novels that never get published. Many who get published find their books languishing in the remainder bins. Scott’s counter-intuitive business model of giving his novels away via free podiobooks and PDF files built a huge fan base that helped this novel hit the bestseller list the first week it was published.

Congratulations on your success, Scott. You deserve it, not only for your great fiction, but for all the hard work you’ve put into promoting it and making it easily and freely available to everyone.