Startup Offers Pay-Per-Page E-Books

judgecorp writes "TotalBoox, a startup from Tel Aviv, plans to sell pay-as-you-read eBooks, charging for each page read. 'We are trying to rid the world from outdated, expensive ritual of buying a book before you read it,' says founder ~Yoarv Lorch, saying that readers can save money and move on if they start a best-seller on the spur of the moment and it turns out to be a turkey. But what about slow-burning classics that you have to 'get into'? What about reference books? And all the bits of a reference book that you don't actually need? The company has a beta app on Google Play for Android tablets."

Comments

Are the closing pages of a chapter / book

[Neil_Brown]

capable of commanding a higher price than the opening pages?

Re:Are the closing pages of a chapter / book

[davester666]

Last page of a whodunit costs more than the rest of the pages combined!

New business scheme

[Brandano]

Publish hundreds of books 10 pages long

Re:New business scheme

[SJHillman]

Hardly new. Take a look on Amazon sometime - there's tons of "ebooks" that are hardly more than pamphlets going for a buck or two apiece.

Re:New business scheme

[Maximum Prophet]

Publish hundreds of books 10 pages long

Why not? As long as you are upfront with your customers. Kickstarter style, write the first chapter of a dozen books, then finish the ones that people actually read to the end.

Yes, that will work best for the immediate action thrillers. The slow burners can still use the old business model of writing whole books that you may or may not get paid for.

Re:New business scheme

[History's Coming To]

This is pretty much the current model anyway. Authors rarely write an entire book unless they've been commissioned to do so and paid an advance, instead the normal model is to provide a publisher with a synopsis and a sample chapter or two. Self-published authors tend to write whole books up-front, but that's usually because it's a labour of love rather than a way of making a living - there's an awful lot of (generally awful) books out there written without the benefit of an editor or proof-reader and it shows.

Re:New business scheme

[Brandano]

Five Shades of Grey?

A stupid idea, badly executed

[DiamondGeezer]

What next? TotalBoox hold the final chapters of thrillers to ransom...it'll end really badly

Re:A stupid idea, badly executed

[SJHillman]

Or worse, they go out of business just before you can buy the last chapter of a TotalBoox exclusive.

Sign me up

[SJHillman]

I would be all over this. I have tons of reference ebooks that I only use a few chapters out of. If it's $40 for a 600 page book, I would gladly pay $10 for the 100 pages I would actually use even though the unit price (per page) would be higher. As it stands now, there are a lot of books I shy away from buying because a good chunk of it is irrelevant to me and the total purchase price is above my budget.

Re:Sign me up

[SJHillman]

I also see this being popular with students. Buy a chapter as it comes up in class... less upfront cost and I've never had a course that used every chapter of a textbook - even the one time a professor special-ordered an abridged version of his text of choice with only certain chapters.

Re:Sign me up

[cbope]

It won't take long before the books are structured in such a way as to make this impractical. Constant references to other parts of the book for example...

Sorry, but this is NOT a good idea, it will only be abused by the book sellers.

Re:Sign me up

[History's Coming To]

When I was working for an academic chain bookseller we frequently supplied custom textbooks which were a collection of chapters from four or five main texts - saves the students a fortune because they only have to buy the one, and it's good for the bookshops because the books are only available locally, everyone wins.

Re:Sign me up

[camperdave]

I would gladly pay $10 for the 100 pages I would actually use ...

How do you know which hundred of the 600 pages you will actually need without buying the entire book to begin with?

Re:Sign me up

[SJHillman]

The same way I skip over all the pages I don't use now. I refer to the table of contents. Sure, I might still end up with some useless pages, but the signal to crap ratio will be much more favorable.

Re:Sign me up

[jbengt]

I have tons of reference ebooks that I only use a few chapters out of. If it's $40 for a 600 page book, I would gladly pay $10 for the 100 pages I would actually use . . .

I would like to know where you find those $40, 600 page reference books. Most of the reference books I use are more like $120 for 60 pages.

Re:Sign me up

[Sigg3.net]

+ 1 for students!

I have 8 books remaining on this semester's to-order list, and only 2 of them require more than 1 chapter in the curriculum. (16 books total this semester but I'm out of cash.)

PDF would be even better.

Re:BUT

[alen]

so only buy the highest reviewed books

i haven't bought an ebook i didn't like yet

Re:They have this already

[Rockoon]

I am reminded of the old encyclopedia marketing model.

Sell the first N pages for $0.01 per page or whatever, but the last chapter is $2.00 per page.

ILL

[hardie]

Haven't these people heard of inter library loan?

The Plant

[Anonymous Coward]

Stephen King did "something" like that a while ago with the story "The Plant" where people would voluntarily pay for chapters. If 75% paid he would continue the story. Unfortunately he cut it short since the voluntary pay method didn't work very well. It will be interesting if this gets off the ground.

Re:The Plant

[h4rr4r]

Do 75% of the readers of his paper copy books pay?

How many are borrowing from a friend or a library or the book was bought for a whole family meaning only one copy was bought for 2-4 or more readers?

I think he set that mark too high.

Re:The Plant

[smooth wombat]

Actually, he cut it short because it WAS working well

False. This is the Wired article wherein his assistant, Marsha Defillipo states:

By part four, only 46 percent of the people who downloaded the book paid for it, DeFillipo said.

As I always say when these stories come up, and routinely get modded down, people are lazy and cheap. If they can get something for nothing, they will, regardless if it hurts the person producing the work. They feel they are entitled to take someone else's work without compensation and will use every excuse and twist of language to justify their actions.

This will lead to terrible books...

[Lispy]

....that just try to keep you turning pages just like soap operas. All the drama will be lost by an effectdriven style that resembles "keep tuned for the next page where he will get the girl....no really just read on a weee bit more."

Re:This will lead to terrible books...

[Anonymous Coward]

- But, how can we stretch it further?

He landed in his chair and poured a glass of whisky.

- Sir?

- Yes, William?

- May I make a suggestion?

- Go ahead, William.

- You know about Dumas?

- Dumas?

- Classic French writer.

- Yes, yes, Three Musketeers and all that. What about him?..

He was visibly starting to lose his temper.

- They say he was paid by the line.

- Yes?

- And he had a simple trick to make his works stretch out...

- Oh, for God's sake!..

He leapt from his chair, spilling his whisky, and barely stopped himself from grabbing William's collar, opting instead for sticking his finger under man's nose.

- Just spit it all out already, or else!..

William took a step back, visibly shaken.

- Alright, alright!

He took a breath and went on.

- So, basically, he had two or three characters speaking in short lines. Just make each spoken line one printed line and...

- Yes! Oh, yes, I can see now!

He was rapidly pacing across the room.

- Say, what if we stretch it even further by sprucing it up with some short actions and description?

- Splendid idea, sir!

(cont'd)

Re:This will lead to terrible books...

[Lispy]

Slashdot comments. Theyre still the best.

Re:This will lead to terrible books...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it happened much earlier, in the Middle Eastern Regions, where the stories would lead to other stories, not quite ending, dragging out the whole thing night after night after night.

Ironically, it was done so the storyteller wouldn't be dead in her tracks.

Re:This will lead to terrible books...

[Rogerborg]

What the Dickens are you on about?

Re:This will lead to terrible books...

[tlhIngan]

You might be onto something here. I guess you could call it novel serialization. Imagine if this had occured back during the Victorian era. It might have killed literature dead in its tracks. Glad that never happened.

But at least novel serialization took place at the chapter or several chapter levels, which at least leaves a fair bit of media to go into details and other stuff.

Writing, as a medium, is a different way of expressing an idea. You could also do it with music, a movie/film, a play, video game or other medium. The thing is, they all have their unique quirks that can make one medium better than another. Too often people assume a book can be translated to a movie (it can't directly because you can do things in a book that will entertain a reader, but bore a viewer), likewise a video game and movie/book transformations. Not to say some aren't successful (See the Halo franchise - with video games and NYT bestselling books), but they are successful because they concentrate on what makes each medium special and the strengths each brings - they're not direct translations.

At the page level, all you're going to get is a Michael Bay like novel where no cut lasts longer than 3 paragraphs (seriously - watch a Michael Bay movie and you'll see no scene lasts longer than 10 seconds before you cut to a different angle), and every page would have some explosion or other.

Hell, add in some creative pagination so it always breaks off in the middle...

The Classics are free

[jjsimp]

....what about slow-burning classics that you have to 'get into'?

Why would you pay for the classics? Go to Project Guttenberg and download at will for free.

Re:The Classics are free

[Fallingcow]

Translations that aren't in 19th century English trying to sound like Attic Greek?

Nice introductions and footnotes benefiting from recent scholarship?

I could go on, but most of the other nice things about newer-than-1923 editions of classics are only found in (or are only good in) print books, for now. Project Gutenberg is noble and all, but it's fairly awful as a source of top-notch copies of the classics. Until one of the GitHub-alike projects to build on it takes off (if ever) it'll likely stay that way.

Re:The Classics are free

[Sigg3.net]

Classics are written today as well, you dolt.

ebookoid

[Anonymous Coward]

or just go to ebookoid.com and download millions of books for free from Russian pirates

Choose your own adventure?

[Joehonkie]

Clearly the best way to consume choose your own adventure books. I mean nobody really picks every choice, right?

Re:Choose your own adventure?

[RivenAleem]

Yes, but it punishes you for being good.

Re:BUT

[Joehonkie]

Lots of books get great reviews and I hate them anyways.

Micropayments taken to the extreme

[rknop]

Holy cow... like most people, I already don't like micropayments in most circumstances-- it leads to stress because you're watching what you do at all times knowing that every little thing leads to more money being charged, rather than the comfort of knowing that you've got what you got. This, however, is the concept metastasized.

This is the kind of headline I'd expect to read on April 1.

Re:Micropayments taken to the extreme

[SJHillman]

Oh, you can get a lot more extreme than this. How about by the letter? The book just scrolls across your screen word by word, letter by letter with a little meter racking up until you hit STOP. The best publishers will give you the punctuation for free.

Re:Micropayments taken to the extreme

[bill_mcgonigle]

like most people, I already don't like micropayments

Is this why the local newspapers that implement $20/mo paywalls are doing so well?

Re:BUT

[RabidReindeer]

But Amazon lets you return ebooks!

Sometimes even when you didn't want to!

Re:BUT

[Anonymous Coward]

so only buy the highest reviewed books

I don't even bother with reviews; what the reviewer hates I may love, and vice versa. I only buy books from authors I've already read and enjoyed -- only a fool buys a pig in a poke. That best seller? It's in the library. I'll check it out, and if I like it I may buy the author's next book. I have to work for my money, and am not foolish enough to gamble it on uncertainties like "Is this guy a great writer or a talentless hack?"

TotalBoox

[Ralph Spoilsport]

has fail written all over it. Just the opposition from publishing alone will kill this dead. @ 10cents a page, you'll have to mortgage your house to read Proust.

just wait for the next scheme...

[girlinatrainingbra]

Next scheme coming up will be to add eyetrackers and scan which words you are reading which will allow (sarcasm begin) two great new additions:
1 -- why, you only pay for the words you read! Boring paragraphs like Jules Verne's 20k Leagues of their Own Under the Sea 5-page long paragraphs describing every color of every fish seen can be skipped and you'll save money!!!
2 -- need to re-read a sentence to grok its meaning? We'll charge you for the opportunity!
(/sarcasm)
Seriously, why do people fall for these crazy crazy ideas? Lke submitting your schoolwork to turnitin and giving them a life-time or perpetual license on your work... as in that other article earlier.... cray-crazy!

I can't see authors getting on board with this

[sandytaru]

At least not for fiction. Non fiction, textbook, and reference books would be suited for this. But no author is going to want to give someone an escape clause in case their book doesn't end the way the reader wants. There will be entire forums and websites dedicated to listing spoilers for the books, so that people can decide based on the final outcome whether they want to bother paying for the rest of a book or not.

Re:They have this already

[camperdave]

Sell the first N pages for $0.01 per page or whatever, but the last chapter is $2.00 per page.

I could see that working for mystery novels...

Not good

[fyngyrz]

Which is the opposite of the intent of US copyright (note this is not a US app/project), which is to, for a limited time (too long right now, but that's another discussion), secure the rights to the author so that eventually the work will promote progress. From the constitution:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

In the US context, at least, this would work against such a thing. The way I see it, someone writes a book, eventually, that book should become part of the shared knowledge base, arts base, etc. I'm wary of a concept where a book is only available in part, where readers may never get the whole thing, and where e-readers... not exactly known for avoiding DRM and other such intellectual poison... contain the only (partial) copies.

A used book should be a treasure, something saved and valued and passed along. Electronic or not.

No sir, don't like it.

Re:Not good

[History's Coming To]

Agreed, although for textbooks you have the problem that they can become out of date pretty quickly. Old medical and legal texts in particular tend to get pulped very quickly as they're worse than useless.

BAD IDEA

[erroneus]

One of the main problems with "be on the internet" DRM scemes is that the internet, the users' devices and the hosts' servers can never all at once be depended upon. And what could be more frustrating than starting a book to find you can't get the next page for some reason?

One more data point

[Corwn of Amber]

If it fails (probably will : making people pay for data can't compete with free data + premium manufactured matter) it will just be one more data point to inscribe on the spectrum of possible businesses sorted by level of success or failure.

Re:BUT

[nogginthenog]

I bought an ebook that had terrible formatting. For example, there was no spacing between chapters. Amazon refunded it no problem.

Re:They have this already

[tyrione]

Sell the first N pages for $0.01 per page or whatever, but the last chapter is $2.00 per page.

I could see that working for mystery novels...

Really? That scheme would result in one action: hardbound books and paperback sales through the roof.

Be warned, vendors will adapt

[mykro76]

- super-wow graphic on front page to suck you in
- 6 page thank you note by author
- 11 page table of contents, double spaced
- 17 page prologue describing the conception of the e-book
- overly normalized content, stuffed with references to other chapters
- no index, forcing you to flip through all the pages

I don't know about you, but I don't like the sound of these e-books.

In practice

[RivenAleem]

I have a great way to game the system.

(please pay €1 to read next comment)

Re:In practice

[RivenAleem]

You simply spread your work onto more pages!