Hero-Hotels_redDigital Book World is carrying a press release reporting that Simon & Schuster is entering a partnership to give e-books away to customers who book stays through Hotels.com. (That certainly gives new meaning to their slogan “Be smart. Book smart.”) The titles will be distributed via Glose, an “interactive social reading platform” which lets users store and share highlights, links, annotations, and so on.

Titles at launch will include Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King, The Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke, The White Queen by Philippa Gregory, Crazy Love You by Lisa Unger, I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes, You by Caroline Kepnes, and The Ascendant by Drew Chapman. New titles will be added and old titles will be rotated out as the program continues.

The Digital Reader notes this isn’t the first time S&S has tried hotel giveaways; in May it announced an e-book giveaway partnership with Foli, a company that specializes in making public WiFi landing pages. (Those pages where you end up after you log into a WiFi network that asks you to click a button on a website to connect.)

This kind of free e-book giveaway with WiFi has been tried a number of times. For example, in 2010 Starbucks tried it with its new in-store landing page. More recently, a European startup called Rook was looking into offering e-book access while at WiFi hotspots. (Customers would have to buy the e-book to read it somewhere else.)

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