The Random House Publishing Group is launching a pilot project to sell individual chapters of a book online. This is believed to be the first time a major trade publisher has offered readers the opportunity to buy digitized sections of a book.
The title chosen for this digital download format is Chip Heath and Dan Heath’s successful Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. A creative guide to communicating ideas effectively, it was originally published as a Random House hardcover in January 2007. It appeared on the New York Times Advice, How To bestseller list and continues to sell well, with 220,000 copies in print.
Its six chapters and Epilogue is available for $2.99 each. The introduction and index will be available at no charge to those who buy at least one chapter. Consumers who buy a chapter will receive an email with a link for downloading the purchased file, which cannot be shared electronically.
Originally posted on February 11, 2008 @ 10:28 am
I’m not sure why anyone would want to buy just one or some of the chapters and not the whole book.
For an ebook, $18 is a lot. That is almost the hardcover price. I know there are royalties to pay but surely they are saving enough by not printing and transporting the book that the electronic version’s price could come down.
I can only guess that the DRM is so draconian that the file will be useless, unopenable in a few years, so I’ll be passing on this half-backed scheme.
Thanks for reporting.