Scribd's turning a page to sell eBooks
Document-sharing Web site Scribd is opening a digital bookstore where writers can set the prices for their work. How will this affect the publishing industry and eBook rival Amazon? Joel Rose reports.
A screen shot of Scribd's store (scribd.com/store)
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Kai Ryssdal: If you've been working away at the next great American novel without a nibble from one of the big publishing houses, take heart. As of today, there is a new way to sell your masterpiece. The Web site Scribd has launched an online store where writers and publishers set the prices for their work. And here's the payoff: They get to keep 80 percent of the revenue. The company's taking direct aim at Amazon.com and some other established players in the growing market for eBooks, as Joel Rose reports.
JOEL ROSE: San Francisco novelist Kemble Scott released his first book in paperback through a traditional New York publishing house. But he's decided to skip the print edition with his second, a comedy called "The Sower." Scott says he's able to charge the very recession-friendly price of $2 dollars per download and still make more money than he would from a typical publishing deal.
KEMBLE Scott: Scripd is allowing us to keep 80 percent of the revenues from the sales of our books. That's unheard of revenue-sharing agreement with an author.
JARED Firedman: We just believe that the economics of the publishing industry are changing.
Jared Friedman co-founded Scribd two years ago. The start-up attracts millions of users per month by offering lots of content for free, sort of like a YouTube for documents. Now Friedman and his company are asking users to pay for some of the stuff on the site.
Friedman: We're confident because of the early success of the Amazon Kindle because it shows that people really are willing to pay for great written content if it's presented in a way that they like.
There are some key differences between Amazon and Scribd. E-books from Amazon only work on the Kindle book reader, while downloads from Scribd will work on a range of devices including laptops and smart phones. Simba Information analyst Michael Norris says that could give Scribd a leg up.
MICHAEL Norris: It's a huge advantage because the Amazon Kindle really hasn't had as, you know, quite as much penetration as Amazon wants the public to believe.
But the openness of Scribd's model could also make downloads from the site more vulnerable to piracy. Scribd says it will let authors decide whether to protect their documents with security software. But so far, none of the big publishing houses have signed up.
I'm Joel Rose, for Marketplace.
Comments
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From D.C. / Northern Virginia, VA, 05/20/2009
Glad to see Amazon getting some competition in the eBook arena. Amazon's 70/30 revenue split with Kindle authors stinks. This is more than they're taking from sales of physical books, and they don't have the costs of storage and fulfillment.
It used to be that Amazon was all about choice. This strategy of locking everyone into proprietary hardware and eBook formats is not going to work.
I will also be glad when Scribd fixes my account, which is erroneously blocked from selling documents because I'm supposedly outside the United States.
And finally, I would suggest that the author quoted in this story release his new title in paperback as well as eBook. The vast majority of book buyers still prefer paper books, so forgoing a print edition shortchanges your sales.
Steve Weber
From Bangor, ME, 05/18/2009
Oh, how the tides turn.
Amazon is in many ways in the same sort of market as Apple's iTunes was while online music downloading was really starting to explode a couple of years ago. Though it was a wildly popular application, many people voiced concern due to the fact that iTunes downloads would only play on Apple's own iPod players. As iTunes gained ground, another service entered the market promoting files that could play on any device, including the iPod. That service? AmazonMP3.
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