What price this e-book? Readers decide on payment for British book
Last Updated: Monday, March 2, 2009 | 3:12 PM ET
CBC News
British publisher Faber says it will be releasing a book online, allowing readers to decide how much they want to pay for it.
Historian Ben Wilson's book, What Price Liberty?, will be available for download on April 27, six weeks before it's available in book form, retailing at about $27 Cdn.
Readers can either set their own price or download it for free.
'Any way you can get your ideas out there, the better.'—Author Ben Wilson
"On a personal level it could be quite shocking or it could be quite gratifying," Wilson told the Guardian newspaper.
"Writers don't usually have that sense of immediacy, that sense of what people are paying for their work."
Wilson — whose book examines the decline of civil liberties in Britain — admits it's a gamble but liked the marketing edge it gave his book.
"Any way you can get your ideas out there, the better."
While releasing a book online is not new — writers Paul Coelho and Stephen King have been giving away works for free online for nine years — allowing readers to set a price is a novel idea.
Following in Radiohead's footsteps
The concept was tried, with varying success, by British band Radiohead in 2007. The band released In Rainbows online for fans, giving them the option of deciding payment. Only 38 per cent of downloaders paid anything, with an average price that amounted to about $8.
However, when the CD was released, it landed at the top of the charts.
Silvia Novak, head of marketing at Faber, says the e-book experiment will help the company figure out the online market.
"We'll learn a lot about the thirst for books in digital form," explained Novak.
"We're wondering whether a reader's perspective will change from the initial rush of getting something for free — or close to — to an actual enjoyment of a piece of work, and whether that would translate into wanting to pay more for that experience."
Faber's Monday announcement comes just as Canadian book retailer Indigo Books & Music Inc. launched Shortcovers.com for people who read books and articles online or on mobile devices.
The service offers chunks of about 5,000 words from varying written pieces including individual book chapters, short stories, blogs, magazines, newspaper articles and pieces written and uploaded by users.
Free and paid content can be viewed online or transferred to mobile devices using mobile applications distributed through iTunes and the Shortcovers website.
