I tend to agree with Claire Isreal. It will be interesting to see.

To provide additional perspective there is another example of high-profile free texts (and audio) in the SF field. After the nominations for the Hugo awards are announced many of the works in the competition are released for free in e-text form on the net. Here is a Usenet message from 2001 about Hugo nominees available online. Here is a web page with links to works for the 2006 Hugos.

The works are typically not placed in the public domain nor are they placed under a “Creative Commons” license (though some nominated works, e.g., Doctorow’s were already available under “Creative Commons” license). The free availability is often temporary and the works are withdrawn from official distribution sources after the Hugo competition is over. Yet some stories remain available longer. The winner of the 2006 Hugo for short story was “Tk’tk’tk” by David D. Levine. It is available free now in text form and even as an audio podcast at the “Escape Pod” website.

Much as I support open publishing, I do question whether it would work for everyone, or every genre. The examples that we have tend to be in the computing/scifi/fantasy genres, (if computing is a genre!), where readers are already likely to be online and aware of this model of publishing.

One could draw parallels with so-called ‘blooks’, where people have taken the content of a blog and turned it into a book, such as Tom Reynold’s Blood, Sweat and Tea (also released online for free), but again you have the online component.

The problem is, as Cory says, that we don’t have a way of doing direct comparisons. If I release a book online for free, we don’t have access to a parallel universe where I didn’t release that book online for free, so we have no way to make a direct comparison. Question is, how do we try to understand the influences at work in these experiments? Can we really say that The Linux Network Administrator’s Guide sold less because it was release online? Or was there something about the book that put people off buying it? Can we really say that Cory’s books sold more? Or was it Cory’s existing reputation/fanbase?

The post you quoted was just one aspect of a complex story… I need to write more on the issue to balance things out. The problem I see is that naysayers talk about the cannibalisation of sales as if that effect has been studied and proven, but it hasn’t. It’s far more complicated than ‘one download = one lost sales’.

The case of Baen is not precisely like Doctorow’s however: in most cases Baen has offered free versions of older books, the first books in a series. The last books are not offered for free. In spite of this, Mr Flint offers in his columns hard numbers supporting his claim that the free ebooks helped sales of all his books including the volumes with free e-editions.

Personally I think it makes sense that readers today will “try out” ebooks they can get for free, and, if they like them, they will buy print editions to finish reading.

Once better ebook devices become available and widely used, though — that is likely to change.

I’ve only read one free Baen ebook. I read it all on my old Psion, and liked it enough to finish it, but not enough to investigate other titles by the author. (I am curious to see if this author later improved — so I might still check out other titles, I just haven’t done so yet.) So in my case the free ebook “bait” brought neither Baen nor that author any hard-cash sales.

Just one anecdote.

Offering ebooks/web versions for free does reduce the incentive to buy a print copy. The reason Cory found a publisher who went along with the idea was NOT because the idea would work in all cases at all times for all authors.

The publisher went along with the idea because:

1. (I’m guessing) Cory refused to consider publishers that wouldn’t go along with it
2. Cory already had a high visibility blog and amassed quite a reputation already at technical conferences. Merely mentioning it in his blog would be great publicity enough. Cory has plugged his new books (ahem) more than once or twice. Frankly, that is his right and privilege! That is what blogs are for.
3. There is still a relatively small number of ebook readers out there and full length books out on the web. When these print books were produced, a lot of people still had a reason for wanting a print copy (convenience, comfort, etc). That could easily change as ebook readers come down in price.
4. Of those who own ebook-capable devices, not a lot of them know how to scrape html files from the web and convert them to binary ebook files.

From the writer’s standpoint, the “thrill and glory” of getting something published as a print book (and the modest royalty advance) is hardly worth the penalty of not being able to keep the content online for readers.

If I were Author X and had no reputation and no web presence and I insisted that my novel (or manifesto) be simultaneously published in print and web form, I doubt publishers would jump at the chance to sign me up. The thing is the web is great at attracting content. People can’t help it; they write; they publish; it’s instant gratification. For writers like Cory, they already had their works on the web. It made no sense to agree to a publishing deal if it stripped them of the exposure they had previously. The financial inducements would have to be pretty high.

So IF you have an A-list blog where you can publicize your book and IF ebook devices are still cumbersome and expensive, it MIGHT make sense for publishers to allow simultaneous publication for free on the web. In most cases, it does not make sense. That is why (for fiction writers) getting that web traffic is a BFD.

However, some kinds of content will have a enduring appeal in the print world even after ebooks take off. I’m speaking of novelty books (popup books, multimedia print books), oversized coffee table books and technical manuals (there are advantages to having a print book beside your PC or in your backpack while on the bus). Also cookbooks (bringing your laptop to the supermarket is –shall we–say a pain). As ebook readers become more affordable or have more display real estate, I predict that fewer publishers will agree to allow web versions of this content. (That is, unless the author insists upon it!).

One option that might occur is publishers might let you preview the entire contents of a ebook’s content on a special proprietary PC browser (like what Amazon has). You can view the contents; you just will have to buy the ebook to be able to have it in a portable form.