The contest is hosted by Microsoft search engine Bing and challenges fans to reveal the pages of his new book, in which he details the stories and meaning behind many of the lyrics in his songs.

On Bing's website,www.bing.decodejay-z.com, users must answer questions based on lyrics from Jay-Z's songs to find pages of his book that have been hidden in cities including New York, Las Vegas, London and Los Angeles. Interactive maps enable fans to roam the streets of a city that may be far away to uncover the hidden book pages.

"It's actually really simple. What I did was I took pages from the book and I spread it all around the world and hopefully people will put the book back together," Jay-Z said at the launch of the hunt.

The entrepreneur and rapper said the game is meant to "fairly simple and fun."

The first players to find a page get a hard copy of the book signed by the artist. All the winners will be eligible to win the grand prize - a ticket to see Jay-Z and Coldplay in concert on New Year's Eve in Las Vegas.

Mariel Concepcion, associate editor of Billboard.com, said it is not surprising that Jay-Z would do a non-traditional promotion for his book launch.

"It just wouldn't make sense for someone of Jay-Z's caliber not to go out that way. It would have been easier for him to just put the book at Barnes & Noble and just put it on the shelves and have a book signing, which I'm sure he's gonna do anyway, but how much more interesting is it that he's doing the scavenger hunt thing."

"Decoded" will be released in stores on November 16th.