Selling Books - Using Select Text and Images in Sales Literature

I plan to sell specialist informational and DIY books that are currently protected by copyright. To sell successfully I need to provide more information than the standard photograph of the book cover, the author name and the one paragraph of text that normally pops up with an ISBN search. I've seen a number of online vendors who go to great length in quoting the TOC, providing an extended summary taken from the introduction to the book (maybe 3 or 4 paragraphs), and generating some JPEG images of 3 to 6 select pages. My question is twofold, (i) is this legally acceptable when strictly done for sales purposes, and (ii) if not strictly legal, is this a generally accepted practice to enhance sales of the copyright holders work.

Thank You

Garry Print Received on Thu Sep 15 2005 - 01:35:00 GMT