ENTRIES TAGGED "access"

New life for used ebooks

Old ebooks and clever thinking can create new opportunities for publishers.

I’ve got quite a few ebooks in two different accounts that I’ve read and will never read again. I’ll bet you do, too. In the print world, we’d pass those along to friends, resell them or donate them to the local library. Good luck doing any of those things with an ebook.

Once you buy an ebook, you’re pretty much stuck with it. That’s yet another reason why consumers want low ebook prices. Ebooks are lacking some of the basic features of a print book, so of course they should be lower-priced. I realize that’s not the only reason consumers want low ebook prices, but it’s definitely a contributing factor. I’d be willing to pay more for an ebook if I knew I could pass it along to someone else when I’m finished with it.

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Business models to monetize publishing in the digital era

Business models to monetize publishing in the digital era

The third in a series looking at the major themes of this year's TOC conference.

Several overriding themes permeated this year's Tools of Change for Publishing conference. The third in a series looking at five major themes, here we look at monetization in publishing, including subscription/access models, freemium, and ad-based models.

What if a book is just a URL?

What if a book is just a URL?

A software company and an Australian bookstore are experimenting with books in the cloud.

Australian indie bookstore Readings is in full experiment mode with a cloud-based pay-for-access model. Software and ebook files don't play a role — everything is done through the browser.