More on TechnologyTell: Gadget News | Apple News
‘Downloads of “Iraq Study Group Report” Beat Out Sales’
December 15, 2006 | 1:00 am
|
By David Rothman
So, e-book fans, does what this mean for the e-free/p-paid model? As reported in the The Book Standard:
Readers are heading online to download The Iraq Study Group Report for free, rather than buy the $10.95 book, published last Wednesday by Random House’s Vintage Imprint. The book, which has already gone back for a second printing, sold 35,000 copies in the week ending Dec. 10, according to Nielsen BookScan, while the online version has been downloaded approximately 1.2 million times, according to the U.S. Institute of Peace, which hosts the report on its website.
I’m not saying that e-free/p-paid is wrong—certainly Baen‘s experiences show it can work beautifully. Ditto for Cory Doctorow and other authors. But could Random House have moved more copies of the Iraq report if the word of the free online version hadn’t spread so widely?
Also, if the answer is “yes,” then why is it at Baen and Cory have been so successful with e-free/p-paid? How much of this could be the goodwill factor? Or the desire of fiction readers to wallow in a nice, easy-to-read p-book rather than wolf down the latest information via a PDF?
Related: Free Iraq report from eBookwise, via Jim Carr. Download here. Also get other formats from Fictionwise.
|
Previous
SUBSCRIBE TO RSS
Comments:
I think the question is whether there were lost sales because of the free download. Or conversely would there have been more sales without the free download.
Actually, the situation is different from Baen, where you do actually have to pay a premium price for the newest e-books. It’s just the older ones that are free.
Also, this is information. Government information. No one really wants to pay money that will go to government if they can help it. Sounds too much like tax. Whereas I’ll happily spend money on Eric Flint, because he seems like a nice guy.
I think you’re absoloutly right when it comes to information/pleasure reading. I’ll read articles for hours on my computer, but reading a novel is more difficult for me, even though it’s the exact same thing.
I agree with PML that the situation is very different for a lot of reasons. Here’s some:
* Most people probably feel that this kind of Govt info should be free
* People resist paying more to govt on top of taxes
* This is a book that a lot of people will browse rather than read
* There is no sense of wanting to support an author
* This is even not quite the same as the 9/11 report, which captured the attention of the public in a different way because it was the first real awareness of how huge the terrorist threat could be, and that the threat wasn’t just small or “over there somewhere”. The Iraq Commission is more controversial and on a topic that has been hashed and rehashed for a long time now.
* This is sort of like a one-hit event. Baen builds readership for an author over time
* The free/pay model seems to work primarily because authors want to go from obscurity to name recognition, or because they (and readers) have an inherant desire to fight DRM or support ebooks. The problems that the US Govt faces aren’t exactly about obscurity!
Many thanks, Jane, PML and Bob. My thoughts:
> s whether there were lost sales because of the free download. Or conversely would there have been more sales without the free download.
I thought that came through by strong implication if nothing else. But if not, thanks very much for clarifying.
> Actually, the situation is different from Baen…
Well, the Doctorow example at least still stands. Thanks for setting the record straight on that specific.
> Also, this is information. Government information. No one really wants to pay money that will go to government if they can help it.
But the paper version of the Iraq report is from a commercial publisher, Random House.
> I think you’re absolutely right when it comes to information/pleasure reading. I’ll read articles for hours on my computer, but reading a novel is more difficult for me, even though it’s the exact same thing.
I myself can read hour after hour off a Palm TX or Cybook. But it’ll vary. Hence the practicality of the Baen model right now. Elsewhere someone has suggested that perhaps it could still work when the masses are more comfortable with e-books—via the providing of enhancements for the for-sale electronic versions. I wonder what enhancements it would take. Is it possible that the real money would be made off annotations rather than off the core works? Not sure. It’s a case by case thing. I’m wandering a little off the main topic, but I’m thinking “aloud” for a future post.
> Most people probably feel that this kind of Govt info should be free
Well, RH was at least providing the extra value of the paper presentation.
> People resist paying more to govt on top of taxes
But RH isn’t the government.
> This is a book that a lot of people will browse rather than read
Same would be true of the 911 report, of which the paper edition did much better than in the case of the Iraq report. Could greater popularity of online screen (compared to the past) explain the difference?
> There is no sense of wanting to support an author
Same as in the case of the 9/11 report.
> This is even not quite the same as the 9/11 report, which captured the attention of the public in a different way because it was the first real awareness of how huge the terrorist threat could be, and that the threat wasn’t just small or “over there somewhere”. The Iraq Commission is more controversial and on a topic that has been hashed and rehashed for a long time now.
But Iraq is important in its own way. The war’s been going on longer than World War II, if I recall correctly, and the U.S. death toll has surpassed 9/11′s (correct me if I’m wrong). Not to mention all the dead Iraqis.
> This is sort of like a one-hit event. Baen builds readership for an author over time
I hope you’re right about that distinction since I’m rooting mightily for Baen to keep succeeding without DRM!
> The free/pay model seems to work primarily because authors want to go from obscurity to name recognition, or because they (and readers) have an inherant desire to fight DRM or support ebooks. The problems that the US Govt faces aren’t exactly about obscurity!
Again, we go back to the 9/11 report. Uncle was just as famous back then.
Just to repeat: I want Baen to succeed. My raising questions, in the context of the Iraq Report, is not to be confused with condemnation of the Baen model. It’s urgent to come up with ways to do without DRM and convince the publishers to feel the same.