by tylershores on January 27, 2012
Here’s one that I’ve been thinking about, courtesy of Media Bistro: “Could Selling Used eBooks Work?”
“The whole concept of selling used digital content is tough. Yes, it was nice in the days of print to resell records, CDs, DVDs and books that you have already listened to or read, and to pick up used copies of other people’s old media at a cheaper price. But how do you do this with digital content?”
I’d rather think that the potential is there, since ebook lending (for example,
Kindle Lending) that involves transferring ebook files from one user to another is only one step removed from selling those ebook files from one user to another. Right? The main questions seem to be less of a technical issue as it is a matter of economics.
“What’s actually happening, of course, is not the transfer of a physical object, but the transfer of access rights or data. Data don’t depreciate, so there’s no real reason to discount the product because it’s been used. The straight transfer is therefore rather dull: person A yields it to person B for the same amount he or she paid for it, and person B gets the file via bluetooth or similar rather than via Whispernet or broadband download. Um. No measurable benefit to anyone. Or, yes, you’d end up with a market where people would discount in order to make some money back, and ultimately drive down the value of the book. Not great news.”
by tylershores on January 25, 2012
We took a look at Melville House’s HybridBooks earlier (“What are ‘Hybrid Books’?“), and the New York Times provided a closer look at the reading experience: “The Book Beyond the Book“.
The HybridBook exists first and foremost as a paperback book, but the Melville House approach is the addition of curated content which adds a layer of background information to the story text itself intended to fill in those gaps while reading, say, Bartleby, The Scrivener –
“The electronic element comes in with the ancillary material. The last page of the Melville edition directs readers to a Web site, where they will find an 1852 map of lower Manhattan: a recipe for Ginger Nuts, a biscuit that plays a role in the narrative; lengthy excepts from Emerson and Thoreau; a contemporaneous classified ad for a scrivener; and similar material.
“Basically, we decided to mimic our own reading process,” Mr. Johnson said “When I read a great classic, if I like it, I want the experience to somehow continue, so I will pursue more information about the writer, or the setting, or some aspect of the plot’s background. (Dueling? What’s up with that?) My mind wanders, imagining what the world of the book looked like. And so on. Now we have curated exactly that kind of material, and it allows you to linger in the world of the book, to understand more about it — to simply luxuriate in the world of the book longer. It’s something more than just the book, but something very much ‘of’ the book. This seems very innovative to me at the same time that it seems kind of an obvious innovation.”