Two-time Booker Prize-winning author Peter Carey is set to read to booklovers in an Ottawa bookstore Thursday night — and with the help of modern technology, the writer won't even have to leave his home in New York to do so.

The Collected Works bookstore is connecting with Carey via webcam and the internet for the 7:30 p.m. ET event, in which the author will read from His Illegal Self, his latest novel.

"He's willing to do it," Collected Works co-owner Craig Poile told CBC News. "It's unfamiliar territory, but he says he's committed. And 'There will be a show,' he said."

Poile has spent the last few days setting up a webcam, a projector and a large screen in his Wellington Street West bookstore to launch what he's calling the first-ever "Giant Talking Head" event.

By streaming live webcasts of author readings, Poile said he hopes to draw more customers into his independent store.

"With all the competition from online sellers and in the big-box stores, we just needed to give people some fresh programming ideas to get them out to the stores and to get them thinking about books," he said.

As well, Poile said it has been getting harder to attract writers to Ottawa as part of traditional in-person book tours.

Random House publicist Sharon Klein agreed, saying book tours tend to hit fewer cities these days — partly because of publishers' budgets, and partly because some authors don't want to tour, she said.

But Klein said she was eager to help Collected Works by arranging for a couple of her authors to try the webcam-based readings.

"It's a different market out there, it's a tougher market out there," she said. "We just thought, 'You know what? This is a great opportunity.'"

However, Klein added that webcam readings will not replace traditional readings, which give booklovers the feeling of meeting an author in person.