As Books Go Digital, Is A New Model Evolving?
VentureBeat has written about a new soon to be launched startup, Smashwords, that will allow writers to publish their books in a variety of online formats, by converting simple documents into a variety of online and electronic book formats for authors, then allow them to sell the results (or give the book away for free). What it intends to be is a portal readers visit to find new books and download them onto their devices, be that a computer, PDA or an e-book reading device.
This comes at a time, when publishers are looking at alternative means to generate revenues. HarperCollins Publishers for instance plans to begin offering free electronic editions of some of its books on its Web site, while Random House hopes to test selling a book online by the chapter with the six chapters and epilogue of “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” for $2.99 each.
As music artists and even movie production houses look to experimenting with revenue models on the web, so are authors - Paulo Coelho for instance gives readers links to pirated editions uploaded by readers in numerous languages on his blog, with the belief that readers would not want to go beyond 20 or 30 pages when reading online.
Neil Gaiman, the fantasy novelist, short story and comics writer, on the other hand, is asking readers of his blog to vote on the title they would most like to give as a gift. An electronic scan of the winning title would then be offered free on the HarperCollins site later this month.
Are we seeing the beginnings of an ad supported model for books as well?
Filed under: Business, Digital culture