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 […]
eNews
Don't Get Kindled by Someone Else
We’ve been waiting to see if there would be any real news today, but it’s looking like a summer Friday, so there are just a number of short items below. This recent TechCrunch posting should serve as a warning to all, however. Amazon’s new open “Kindle Yourself” invitation to bloggers unfortunately also made it easy for people to register and claim blogs–like Tech Crunch–that do not belong to them. As part of that discovery, author Paul Carr told Tech Crunch he recently uploaded his book BRINGING NOTHING TO THE PARTY onto Kindle (since the print edition is available only in […]
Amazon to Bloggers: Go Kindle Yourself
Amazon has created a self-service platform that lets any blogger to enroll and distribute their blog to Kindle users–after accepting Amazon’s terms of service. Just like the big newspapers, Amazon keeps 70 percent of the proceeds, and they have sole power to set pricing (which for most blogs in either $1.99 or $.99 a month.)Sign in page
Inside the Kindle Sales Explosion
There was one, and only one, surprise for trade publishers at last week’s press conference to introduce the Kindle DX, but its impact is still being examined carefully at multiple publishers. It came when Amazon ceo Jeff Bezos said “Kindle sales are now 35 percent of books where we have Kindle editions” and print editions of the same title. Bezos indicated the increase was “coincident with the launch of Kindle 2.” That jaw-dropping figure, such as it is, was more than three times the ratio that Amazon had reported previously, first in October and then again in February when Kindle […]
Princeton Kindle Pilot Focuses on Reducing Printing, Not Replacing Textbooks
Princeton University says they are testing the Kindle DX for the same reason that many publishers bought Sony Readers for staff: to save on printing and photocopying. At a site to explain the pilot, the university says, “A driving factor in the launch of this pilot was the patterns of printing on campus. Statistics show that students are not reading digital articles and book selections on their computer screens, but rather downloading the same files again and again, and printing them multiple times in the course of a semester…. Since the inception of digital document delivery on campus, printing has […]
Kindle Klean-Up
A few details following yesterday’s press conference. Pace University has joined the five other universities in Amazon’s higher education pilot program for SuperKindle–and their provost underscored that about 50 students are involved. (That’s thought to be the comparable number at the five other schools.) But that’s almost $150,000 in sales right there. Pace expects to split the cost of the devices with the students. Meanwhile, Dallas Morning News ceo James Moroney explained why so few newspapers (just 37) are available on Kindle and why SuperKindle certainly won’t save them. “Amazon wanted 70 per cent of any subscription revenues his paper […]