Between Amazon's soon-to-be-divided Kindle "bestseller" list to debates about literary freemiums, the free eBook has been a controversial topic around the publishing Internets.

Today's guest on the Morning Media Menu was novelist and blogger Cory Doctorow, author of the new book For the Win--talking about online currency, book promotion, and if worker unions are feasible in digital culture. Doctorow (pictured via Joi Ito) discussed his controversial strategy of releasing a free eBook edition of his book alongside the print book.

Press play below to listen.

Here's an excerpt: "I make the books available as free downloads under a Creative Commons license that encourages my readers to share them and remix them, provided they are doing so non-commercially. That means one reader who loves the book who knows another reader who would love the book can put the book in that reader's hands ... Tim O'Reilly says: 'The problem with writers isn't piracy, it's obscurity.' It may be hard to monetize fame, but it is impossible to monetize obscurity."

Doctorow concluded: "I've been doing this since 2003, and every time there is just a rush--hundreds of thousands of downloads in just a few days. People go crazy for it, sharing it with friends...What you start to see really quickly is [people writing online] 'I've never heard of this Doctorow guy, but a friend sent me a link to this.' Over and over again I see that. That's the thing that makes me really excited, finding new readers who will be readers for life. All the writers that I truly love (who I would buy their shopping list), for the most part, I didn't buy the first book of theirs--those writers you discover by a librarian giving you the book or by a friend pressing the book in your hand."