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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 'We are trying to rid the world from outdated, expensive ritual of buying a book before you read it,' says founder ~Yoarv Lorch, saying that readers can save money and move on if they start a best-seller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."
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.
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.
so only buy the highest reviewed books
i haven't bought an ebook i didn't like yet
Or worse, they go out of business just before you can buy the last chapter of a TotalBoox exclusive.
Haven't these people heard of inter library loan?
....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."
....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.
Clearly the best way to consume choose your own adventure books. I mean nobody really picks every choice, right?
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.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Lots of books get great reviews and I hate them anyways.
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.
But Amazon lets you return ebooks!
Sometimes even when you didn't want 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.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
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!
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...
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
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:
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.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I bought an ebook that had terrible formatting. For example, there was no spacing between chapters. Amazon refunded it no problem.
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.