Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist and recent supporter of piracy, has come to an agreement with his publisher HarperCollins to drop the prices of 11 of his books (not including The Alchemist) to $0.99. On his blog, Coelho stated: "This is a crucial decision for me. For years I have been advocating that free content is not a threat to the book business. In lowering the price of a book and equaling it to the price of a song in iTunes, the reader will be encouraged to pay for it, instead of downloading it for free."

The promotion, which Coelho said is for an undetermined period of time, is paying off, and all of the reduced price books are in the top 300 of Amazon's Kindle Store, the highest being By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept at #86. Twenty-four hours ago, the book was ranked #14,277. The promotion is also availabe for Nook books.