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E-free/p-paid, Long Tail, print on demand, among E-related topics in BookExpo article in NYT
June 4, 2007 | 8:01 am
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By David Rothman
“Giving an author’s book away for nothing on the Web as a way to market books seems a mirage to me. All it does is feed the hungry angles of journalists and bloggers who plunder it without any of the author’s context or nuance and makes the reader feel there is nothing new to learn from the genuine article when it finally limps on its weary way to a book shop.” – Tina Brown, former editor of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, as quoted in Waxing Philosophical, Booksellers Face the Digital in today’s New York Times.
The TeleRead take: Hey, Ms. Brown, it’s a book-by-book decision. You really should have a chat with Cory Doctorow. Meanwhile, “plundering” the quote from the New York Times, perhaps I’ve sent a little traffic to the NYT article, which covers topics ranging from the Long Tail to print on demand.
Related: Free Downloads vs. Sales: A Publishing Case Study, from Tim O’Reilly (via Chris Webb). “Our goal of course, is to help publishers understand whether free downloads help or hurt sales,” he writes of an O’Reilly experiment. “The quick answer from this experiment is that we saw no definitive correlation, but there is little sign that the free downloads hurt sales.” Again, however, as I see it, this is a book-by-book issue.
And just to make Ms. Brown’s day: Mike Shatzkin’s BookExpo speech on “the end of trade publishing”, also via Chris W. The speech is here. He’s CEO of Idea Logical.
Excerpt from an e-book-related passage in the Shatzkin speech: “It seems intuitively that the explosion of reading on screens–which has happened–will ultimately result in ebook reading on screens, but exactly how is not evident yet. Ebook take up has been minimal. Relatively scarce product offerings–counterintuitively, even production of new titles in the trade area has slowed in recent years–combined with a consumer-unfriendly combination of formats, proprietary offerings cut off from normal book retailing channels, klunky merchandising, and anti-viral DRM have prevented book reading from being among the first things besides email to be read on devices. In fact, books will be among the last. That’s not something for us to be proud of as an industry.”
Memo to IDPF members, with above in mind: Get going ASAP on interoperable DRM, or ditch “protection,” if you want e-books to take off. Core standards are nice but without DRM incompatibilities addressed, they’ll mean squat.
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Comments:
I think it’s too easy to dismiss this position. I certainly defend the right of authors and publishers to offer their books for free if they wish, and can’t argue that doing so has helped some early adopters. Whether following their lead is wise is another issue.
I was reminded of this as I was reading an article about the decline (not particularly lamented by me) of the pornography business. Giving away free pornography online has not helped the business of the DVD porn moviemakers. Instead, this business declined something like 25% last year alone. Here’s the article:
http://news.com.com/For+pornographers%2C+Internets+virtues+turn+to+vice/2100-1026_3-6188341.html?tag=cd.top
What does this mean for authors and publishers? Let me suggest that as readers become more familiar with eReading, eBooks shift from a complement to a substitute for pBooks and those giving away current content suffer. There may still be a case for giving away the backlist to help sell current p-Content, but as eBooks grow, the backlist becomes a huge source of revenue and giving that away becomes increasingly dangerous.
Tina Brown is a smart lady–I suggest not dismissing her thoughts without careful consideration.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
Hi, Rob. As noted, I think this is a book-by-book decision—I’m hardly accusing Tina B of idiocy. As E becomes more common, yes, that could change the game. Along with others here, including you, I believe, I’ve made that point earlier. Meanwhile, for certain kinds of books, the giveaways in my opinion may make sense. People in some cases would buy some POD books based on e-versions. I’m thinking of books whose readers may be sophisticated enough to go online but not feel entirely comfortable with existing e-book technology. Plus, they may want something to put on a bookshelf and show off to friends. Thanks. David