Free Downloads of ‘Da Vinci Code’ to Promote ‘Inferno’

How about this for a promotional thriller: Beginning Monday, on the 10th anniversary of the release of the mega-bestseller “The Da Vinci Code,” its publisher, Doubleday, will allow anyone to download the entire book free for a week.

The move is part celebration and part marketing experiment, because the download will come with the prologue and one chapter of Dan Brown’s forthcoming book, “Inferno.”

It is common for publishers to tease an author’s coming thriller by including the first chapter of the next book in the back of the paperback version of a best seller. This free e-book is an extension of that practice.

“The Da Vinci Code” preceded the e-book era, but it has sold solidly ever since in all forms. Doubleday is betting that any loss of sales of “Da Vinci,” which has outlived its golden goose days, will be offset by the fire it wll light under the new book.

“Inferno,” which will be published on May 14, will once again feature the Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, the protagonist of “The Da Vinci Code” as well as the best-selling “Angels and Demons” (Simon and Schuster, 2000) and “The Lost Symbol,” (2009).

All of the Langdon books have been best sellers, but “Da Vinci” was a blockbuster. Doubleday says it was the “fastest-selling adult hardcover of all time with 81 million copies sold.”

For “Inferno,” Dr. Langdon will go back into the heart of Europe and untangle a mystery involving the poet Dante. The tight-lipped Mr. Brown has revealed little else about the book, but clearly Doubleday is expecting a sensation and has ordered four million copies for the first printing.

The free download will be available only in the United States and Canada through all e-book retailers, through March 24. A serialization in print only of the prologue and first chapter of “Inferno” will! begin Sunday in The Daily Mail in Britain.

Mr. Brown will make his sole United States promotional appearance on May 15 at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, where he will discuss codes, symbols, art, religion, publishing and filmmaking. Doubleday is providing a live stream to interested bookstores and libraries, and says that some 150 outlets have already signed on.