Having built a large audience for free documents, Scribd.com launches their beta Scribd store today with a model for paid written content that gives rightsholders 80 percent of the revenue. Scribd also lets rightsholders set the prices for their content, with current offerings ranging from $1 up to $5,000 (for market research report on China).
Among participating publishers noted in the release are Lonely Planet, Berrett-Koehler and O’Reilly. The store is currently available only in the US though the company promises “international launches to follow.” They will add an iPhone app shortly.
Since Scribd displays documents of all lengths, the system easily allows selling books by the slice, along with allowing serializations by chapter. Rightsholders can choose among display options that include “view on Scribd only,” “download PDF,” “download PDF with DRM” or “download ePub with DRM.” And, in contrast to a flaw recently underscored in Kindle’s platform, they say that sellers must “provide detailed information about their ownership of those works in order to sell their works through Scribd Store.”
Release
Scribd Store