It was only a matter of time after the recent purchase of Fictionwise: Barnes and Noble is opening what they are calling the world’s largest eBook store with more than 700,000 titles available both for free and for purchase.
Back when the web was just the web and 2.0 was just a glimmer in the mind’s eye of Timothy Berners-Lee, newspapers tried to get people to pay for content online. Various models were used but the one that sticks out in my head is the “free for a day, pay for the archives” model which some periodicals, including the Wall Street Journal, still use.
In these dark times for newspapers, the notion of trying to resurrect or just erect this model is coming back. Can this apply to eBooks as well?
In May of this year, Smashwords, an eBook publishing platform originally set up to serve as a channel for self-published authors, expanded to offer services designed for publishers.
O’Reilly’s doing it. Simon and Schuster’s doing it. The New York Times, Harvard and Ford are doing it.
Whatever it is you might be guessing (the twist? the dew? the nike corporate schill?), if you didn’t guess selling content through Scribd, then you don’t get the blue ribbon.
BookNet Canada is a non-profit organization that develops technology, standards, and education to serve the Canadian book industry. Founded in 2002 to address systemic challenges in the industry, BookNet Canada supports publishing companies, booksellers, wholesalers, distributors, sales agents, industry associations, literary agents, media, and libraries across the country.
