Random House, Amazon Launch Online Viewing of Books
-- Library Journal, 11/4/2005
Random House Inc., the world's largest trade book publisher, yesterday announced an online "pay-per-page-view" effort, just before the online retailer Amazon.com made a similar announcement—shaking up the world of econtent and raising questions about the role of libraries in providing such access. Random House said it will negotiate separate agreements with vendors in this arena, but has outlined some key components for each deal: books will be available for full indexing, search, and display, but downloading, printing, or copying will not be permitted. A publisher-determined "free sample" of page views up to a typical threshold of 5 percent of a book's total length will be permitted. For the initial range of fiction and narrative non-fiction titles, 4 cents per page will be paid to Random House, Inc. by vendors for every page beyond the free sample. Vendors will establish their own pricing to consumers, with Random House suggesting that "$0.99 for 20 pages could represent an attractive introductory consumer offer."
Richard Sarnoff, president of Random House, Inc.'s Corporate Development Group, said that Random House would allow authors to opt out of the pay-per-page-view programs and hinted that Random House might eventually decide to host and serve pages inhouse. Random House has submitted only a limited number of in-copyright books to Google Print. The latter program does not yet include a pay-per-view component.
But Amazon.com does. Yesterday, Amazon announced Amazon Pages, which will enable purchase of online access to any page, section, or chapter of a book. Another offering, Amazon Upgrade, will allow customers who buy a physical copy of a book to get online access to the whole book—especially useful for topics such as programming and cooking, Amazon suggested. The program is based on Amazon's Search Inside the Book, which allows digital searching of texts. Half the books sold in the U.S. by Amazon.com are in the Search Inside the Book program, and Amazon has recently launched Search Inside the Book in the U.K., Germany, France, Canada and Japan. While the specific publishers involved in the new programs was not initially clear, and terms were not specified, some heavyweights have signed on. "It is important for the publishing community to explore new business models for digital delivery that compensate publishers and authors fairly," said John Sargent, CEO, Holtzbrinck Publishers.
