Blogger Party

While the Author's Guild and the Association of American Publishers are filing lawsuits against Google to prevent them from putting excerpts of copyrighted books online, HarperCollins plans to make full text versions of select books available online for free. The program is being launched with the title Go It Alone! The Secret to Building a Successful Business on Your Own by Bruce Judson, which can now be read in full text on the author's website. How do they plan on generating revenue by giving a book away online? Advertising, of course. Judson's website includes "Ads by Yahoo" in a column on the left side of the text of the book.

However, not all readers will want to read an entire book online. This, in fact, is something else HarperCollins is hoping for. Readers will read enough of a book online to decide whether or not it is a worthy investment and click on the coveniently placed link to Amazon.com for purchase.

I'm definitely interested in how this plays out. This could be a step in the right direction for publishing companies, so they can flow with the tide of technology instead of fighting against it.

Posted in Musings of a Wordsmith | | | | 459 reads