Somewhere, Chris Anderson is Smiling
The thinking is consistent with what Chris Anderson spoke of in his Wired article earlier this year. And while I think it's an extremely viable option, it's not the only one...and it may not even turn out to be the most popular one in the long run. My gut tells me we should all be experimenting with free content models to see what we can learn and what our audience prefers, but it should only be one approach out of many that any good book publisher should explore.
Speaking of which, our group here at Wiley realizes we need to experiment with non-traditional content delivery models. We've been hard at work on a number of e-content initiatives over the past couple of years and several of them are now out of beta and available for general use. I've added this page to my blog where you can see the complete list. I'll add to that page as we launch new products, so stay tuned for even more new ventures on this front.
I agree. Free should be an option, not a requirement. And with more reasonable tools (technical and legal), non-free digital contents will be a viable option as well.
I have written a lot about this issue. One is http://slowblogger.com/2008/02/is-free-special.html and I had a series of posts regarding free before (and after) that.
Posted by: Slow Blogger | May 27, 2008 at 10:56 PM