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Afer my frst book came oul was surprised by how Mtle promotion my publsher did. and decided to start
abusiness to help authors get more (1) (Gxposure / popular / fashionable) for heir work and to help readers
learn about books that might interest them. Again. quite a number of people asked me what made me think 1
could start a company. This was cleary a(2) stretch for me. but l assumed | could(3)( iout lstared
BookBrowser in 1991. several years before the Web was born.
Te idea was to create a Kioskrbased system for bookslore customers that would "Match Books wih
Buys・ lbuiN he(4) ptolotoe on my Mac computer using HyperCerd, a program that alowed users to put
inks from one “card' to another "card". just like HotLinks on he Web today. The software allowed users to
follow links for a particular author tile. or genre. also met with local bookstore managers. who agreed to
putthe kiosks in their stores and | talked with dozens of publishers who were enthusiasiic about includinglheir
books in the systems. (5) Satisfied that the idea was sound. | hired a team of programmers to implement the
product Nobody told me l could or should do this.… just did