Two of the world's largest publishing groups are going head-to-head in a battle for new readers by making new books, or extracts from them, available for digital download.

From Monday HarperCollins is to post online for anybody to read entire copies of the latest works by some of its leading authors. Random House has announced plans to sell online books by the chapter to gauge reader demand for complete digital books.

Industry observers see HarperCollins's decision as a vote of confidence in the old-fashioned printed book. The idea is to replicate the browsing experience provided in bookshops, Jane Friedman, the chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, said.

HarperCollins, which is owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times, is betting that readers will be hooked by the chance to flick through the unabridged text of a book but will balk at reading it cover-to- cover on screen. Ms Friedman said: “The best way to sell books is to have the consumer be able to read some of the content.”

Offering electronic copies of chapters of books for free or for a minimal charge is a widespread practice in the industry. There are also precedents for providing access to whole novels: Stephen King's Riding the Bullet was free to anyone with the right device in 2000, and Google is locked in legal disputes with authors and publishers over its plans to make free electronic copies available of every book ever written over the next ten years. Amazon has found that its “Search Inside” function, which lets readers see selected pages of books, has increased sales. Until now, no big publisher has taken the concept of free electronic books as far as HarperCollins will.

Random House is making available a business title by the brothers Chip and Dan Heath for $2.99 (£1.50) each chapter. Users will receive a link for downloading the chapters of their choice via e-mail. The publisher is seeking new revenue streams because, although the publishing industry is not facing the same pressures as the music industry, growth is relatively slow.

Howard Davies, a director at Deloitte, said: “I'm sceptical about this working for novels, but it could work well in the business and reference market. However, paying $2.99 per chapter could prove quite expensive.”

Joel Rickett, deputy editor of The Bookseller, the industry magazine, said that the book world has been wary of exposing itself to the online fate of the record industry. “HarperCollins is gambling that people aren't comfortable reading for an extended period of time on screen and I think this probably shows that they are more confident now that books are unique.”

Free electronic editions will be available for one month and readers will not be able to download them to laptops or an electronic reading device. The print function will also be disabled, but readers will be able to link to online retailers to buy copies of the books.

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