Chapters on Demand
There have been countless times over the past several years when customers have asked us, "hey, how come I have to buy the entire book when all I really want are these 3 chapters?" This is a pretty popular question when you're standing in the WROX booth at a developer's conference, for example. Well, I'm happy to say that we now have a product for that situation and it's called Chapters on Demand.
The service launched yesterday and there are currently 47 titles available in PDF format, most selling for $4.99 each. That's about 900 chapters that are available immediately and we've got another 800 chapters (from 37 other titles) that will be added shortly.
My favorite part of this: We're selling all this e-content without the use of traditional DRM. I say "traditional" because we're using more of a social DRM solution where we inject the customer's name in the footer of the PDF. Print it. Use it on however many devices you want to. Just don't release it into the wild. Is this hack-proof? Of course not, but what is? The key is that we want to make this a very attractive product for our customers and we believe this is the right approach.
For more details, see this post on Jim Minatel's blog. Btw, Jim and the rest of the team did a fantastic job implementing this great service -- congrats to everyone involved!
Joe,
I love this. We have discussed it internally at Thomas Nelson several times. You beat us to the punch!
Do keep us posted. I think it's a great idea.
Mike
Posted by: Michael Hyatt | May 15, 2008 at 02:30 PM
What a great idea and I'm sure that professors will love this.
Do you offer a cover and/or some front matter/back matter with the chapter or is it just the select text pages?
Thanks,
Karina Mikhli
Posted by: Karina Mikhi | May 21, 2008 at 02:19 AM
Hi Mike. I'll definitely do periodic follow-up posts to talk about the progress.
Karina, the covers are pretty simple. Actually, you should just go download one of the many free samples we offer on the site and see for yourself. Your question about backmatter is an interesting one...and it just sparked an idea. Let me dig into this further and report back shortly. Thanks for the suggestion!
Posted by: Joe Wikert | May 21, 2008 at 06:06 PM
Joe,
You're welcome and I'd be interested in hearing about the idea I sparked. I'll also be sure to check out the Wiley site when I get a chance.
Thanks,
Karina
Posted by: Karina Mikhli | May 29, 2008 at 03:41 PM