Penguin Books has launched an in-game publishing venture in the virtual world Second Life, leading with Neal Stephenson’s wonderful Snow Crash. Which is nice, since the book’s Metaverse was the inspiration for the Second Life game.

Penguin worked with the London-based virtual world design agency Rivers Run Red to create an in-world version of the book – this offers readers excerpts of the text, an audio clip and a link which clicks through to a dedicated Second Life page on the Penguin website, complete with the opportunity to buy the book at a discount. They are now developing a virtual bookshelf of other Penguin titles for the Second Life resident.

Link (via BoingBoing)