Scribd founder Trip Alder
(Credit: CNET Networks / Josh Lowensohn)
By Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor.com - Mon May 18, 2009 12:38PM EDT
Riding on the momentum of Amazon's Kindle, Scribd has launched an e-book store where authors can upload and sell their written works to a readership of 60 million. The company also plans to further extend its reach with an iPhone application to give buyers access to documents across multiple platforms.
The beta version of the Scribd Store expands the social-publishing company's library of free original documents to include for-purchase works. Publishers set their own prices and receive 80 percent of the revenue.
Prices for content currently range from $1 for a graphic novel to $5,000 for an in-depth
"Our goal has always been to democratize the publishing process for everyday people who have so many great ideas to share," said Trip Adler, Scribd CEO and cofounder. "Adding e-commerce capability gives all our users -- professional and nonprofessional publishers -- even more options in recessionary times, when every dollar counts."
In the Seller's Seat
A wide range of written works is already available on Scribd, including recipes, articles, novels and research reports. At launch, the Scribd Store includes works such as never-before-released novels from best-selling authors Tamim Ansary, Joe Quirk andKemble Scott, and Tim O'Reilly. It also includes an available-before-print edition of Sarah Milstein's The Twitter Book and books from theWorld Bank and Lonely Planet, among many others.
Sellers can decide to sell whole documents, a chapter, an exact selection of pages, or installments. They can also choose whether to serialize their books for $1 per chapter. For example, instead of having to purchase a country guide, travelers can buy a stand-alone city chapter from Lonely Planet. Documents can be read onScribd.com, downloaded to a PC, printed or made accessible through Web-enabled mobile phones.
"The Scribd Store has the potential to revolutionize book publishing by allowing readers the opportunity to pay only for the content they need -- a model that offers real value in this down economy," said Johanna Vondeling, vice president of editorial and digital at Berrett-Koehler Publishers. "It also gives book publishers a promising new marketplace to sell short and unique content, as we are doing with our new Fast Fundamentals whitepaper series."
The Ongoing Digital Shift
The only catch is that sellers on Scribd Store must prove they own the digital rights to the works they sell. Sellers can also manage their digital rights. For example, sellers can choose reading options such as View on Scribd only, Download PDF, Download PDF with DRM, or Download ePub with DRM."
Scribd Store sellers also tap into Scribd's Copyright Management System, a technology that helps prevent the upload of unauthorized works onto the site. Every document uploaded to Scribd is compared to the CMS database. If someone tries to upload a document that the system identifies as one of the tens of thousands of works in the database, that document is automatically removed. All works sold in the Scribd Store are added to the CMS automatically.
The compelling aspect of Scribd's new e-book store is the wide variety of written content, according to Tim Deal, a senior analyst at Pike & Fischer. The company has avoided cornering itself into a particular genre or niche, he said, which would inhibit volume sales.
"This, coupled with the availability of cross-platform file types, may help support a sustainable business model for its e-book sales initiative," Deal said. "While this initiative does not represent a first in the market, it does underscore the ongoing shift of content publishing toward a highly accessible, even grassroots, approach to distribution."
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