"The top results in a Google search for "Jayne Dennis" are a Web page with a photo of the B-list actress posing on a red carpet, and a fan site full of snapshots and gossip about Ms. Dennis's relationship with actor Keanu Reeves.
"The twist: Jayne Dennis doesn't exist -- not in the real world, at least. She is a figment of writer Bret Easton Ellis's imagination and a character in his upcoming novel, Lunar Park. The woman pictured on JayneDennis.com is actually a model, and readers who click around on the site can eventually find a link to the publisher's official site for the book.
"The fake Web sites came from Farah Miller, manager of new media at Mr. Ellis's U.S. publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, and by the book's U.K. publisher, Picador. Ms. Miller has also created a profile for the protagonist's teenage son Robby on social-networking site MySpace.com, and plans to solicit help from Mr. Ellis's fans to maintain it."
Thus begins an article on Using Fiction to Sell Fiction in Wall Street Journal Online. To read the entire story, which features some new ways to market novels, go to: online.wsj.com.
