How to phrase this as gently as possible: I do not think people have been enthusiastically embracing the flash document viewer in the hope that one day they will be able to use the integrated Buy This Copyrighted Content button.
That said, I wish Scribd and their writers the best of luck.
They don't have to sell the content. Writers can seek vendors and produce "sponsored content". This is likely to skew and fuck up free literature as we know it, but it's done routinely, and for free: people write tutorials for vendor's services and products with no commission (how much effort has gone into "teaching" Google Adsense by SEO professionals who only wanted to pad their resume? would be nice if google sponsored the texts, but they wont, so it's time for authors to look into less known vendors and introduce their products to the reading masses for a fee.)
Or get a better advertising company: [Shameless, but very muted plug] :-)
[Edit: this is strictly for the non-fiction trade publications, the sort of stuff that you typically see on Scribd. Fiction might have a better future in ebook readers and their associated online shops]
For fiction, http://StoryMash.com is doing exactly this. Writers earn over 50% for their collaborative content. Today it all comes from advertising, but when the first great internet novel is re-published, the participating authors will see a real payoff.
I think you're right, and I agree. That said, I also think that most people prefer convenience over anything else.
iTunes has managed to sell an incredible amount of content, even though it doesn't make much sense to me or you. I think in the past I've overestimated what an individual will pay for the ability to Buy This Copyrighted Content. I guess time will tell if this model can apply to text-based content.
iTunes has managed to sell an incredible amount of content, even though it doesn't make much sense to me or you.
It makes a lot of sense to me, actually, because you go to iTunes precisely because you want to pay, and they've built up a user base of people who are willing to pay for music. This user base is not coextensive with people interested in downloading music.
Scribd has built up an audience of users interested in reading things.
(More broadly iTunes is a footnote on the gigantic tome of marketing success that is the iPod, and their profits are rounding error next to the money made selling 4 GB hard disks to people who are probably not spending $20k to fill them, but that is neither here nor there. Even if Apple lost money on every track they'd make it up with volume through the plausible deniability gained.)
Ok fair enough. I didn't mean to put words in your mouth :)
I consider the music, movie and now literature based problem to be basically the same issue regarding digital distribution. Any problem that was present with music will be a problem with the others. I wouldn't be surprised to see iTunes selling books in the future.
If Scribd can provide some pressure to make content less expensive or give people more options, I think that's as good as Amazon's mp3 store was towards making iTunes DRM free.
how was iTunes not built around a user base who wanted to listen to music? and therefore generally bought CDs? and therefore the evolution of their wallets is towards iTunes in the future?
Amazon pays Kindle authors/publishers 35% of the list price (which is set by the content owner). The retail price is set by Amazon. Scribd's margins are clearly more lucrative. Smashwords (http://www.smashwords.com) operates a similar model and pays out 85%. I think this is a great move - high traffic alternatives to Amazon can only be good for the self-publishing ecosystem.
On iTunes, Yale (and I assume others) already distribute a free PDF with most of their educational lectures. The system is there, not sure if anyone has thought to sell just the pdf though...
Internauts have to come to the realization that paying for content is only going to help us get the best. Nevertheless every company integrating their own micro-payment system is not going to work. There needs to be a unified platform that will allow us to pay for content on all the different websites we use from one single account.
That said, I wish Scribd and their writers the best of luck.