I must have missed it the first time around, and only saw it via Boing Boing (thanks, Cory!).
Reuters reported last Friday that “Book sales get a lift from Google scan plan“.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read the story. Read it for yourself.
Someone’s finally figured out that letting people ‘taste” books actually helps sell books. Even obscure ones. Especially obscure ones.
I guess the penny had to drop sometime. As Doc is wont to say, they will make money because of the excerpts rather than with the excerpts.
Is this an example of a mismatch of interests between on one side, authors and stockholders of publishing companies, and on the other, all the Legal and Marketing employees of publishing companies? It’s way more work to sell a book pre-Google, and that work represents someone’s paycheck.
You know…these old guard companies have such a tough time embracing the chaos and just trusting their customers. They will have to have something disruptive that kills their old fashioned ways come along.
Speaking of books, I’m reading this amazing new one called, “The Starfish and the Spider” that talks about the phenomenon of decentralized organizations – and talks about the P2P stuff and how an organization like the RIAA can just keep killing the P2P companies, but they will resprout as even more decentralized and stronger.