Back in 1992, however, the World Wide Web was a fraction of its present size, and programmers had yet to release easy, graphically oriented browsers such as Mosaic that would help tame the Web. Even more than today, people needed books to fathom the Net. And yet no popular-level guide was in print. So it was entirely fitting that when Fillmore decided to create a book from scratch—rather than just produce it for a publisher—the Internet was the subject. This how-to guide was _The Internet Companion_, the author was Tracy LaQuey, and the paper publisher was Addison-Wesley. Fillmore kept the network rights and looked forward to distributing the book through her new Online BookStore. Barry Shein of Software Tool & Die, the first commercial service to hook ordinary mortals into the Internet, had offered her space on his bank of hard disks. “He described his operation,” she said, “as basically an electronic store with empty shelves and a cash register at the door. I decided that I’d find electronic properties to fill these shelves.”[4.26] But the Internet at the time had Acceptable Use Policies that prevented her from making a profit. What to do? Fillmore hit on a solution that actually rewarded her for an idealistic approach to publishing. She gave away—with great luck in the end—ASCII files from the book in hopes of drumming up interest in the paper version. “Who wants to read hundreds of pages in ASCII anyway?” Fillmore would later ask. Unadorned ASCII by itself wasn’t always that pleasant to read, and many people liked the Net version well enough to shell out money for a paper book. “Even our publisher was supportive of our effort,” Fillmore said, “and happy with the resulting sales figures.”[4.27] Orders poured in from as far off as Finland and Korea. Netfolks all over the world could learn of Fillmore’s offering immediately rather than waiting for reviews to show up in local magazines and newspapers. Within two years, _Companion_ had sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Al Gore had written the foreword just before his election as vice president, but the freebies on the Net certainly hadn’t hurt. Other publishers also found that free copies could be a boon, not a bane. _Zen and the Art of the Internet_ (Prentice Hall) and _The Hacker’s Dictionary_ (MIT Press) similarly flew off the racks. “Giving something valuable away for free,” Fillmore said, “can make money.”[4.28]