Is A Free Book Download A Boon Or A Bane?
The publishing community has endlessly debated the effects of making text available online, with some saying that free downloading is a valuable promotional tool and others worrying that sales for the paper editions would be harmed.
Looking at Suze Orman’s Women & Money, as a case study, we would tend to lean towards the former - More than 1 million copies were downloaded after the announcement last week on Winfrey’s television show that the e-book edition would be available for free on her Web site, for a period of 33 hours.
The download offer “has built excitement for Suze’s book across all formats,” Julie Grau, the book’s publisher, told the Associated Press. The offer has not kept people from buying the traditional version - as of Saturday, the book ranked No. 6 on Amazon.com.
The same was the case with “The 9-11 Commission Report,” which the federal government had made available for downloads - the paper edition published in 2004 by W.W. Norton and Co., was a best seller for months.
Filed under: Business