Chris Anderson announced two days ago that his new book, Free, would be released free to the unwashed masses, beginning with an upload to the online document site Scribd. When I first linked to it two days ago the Scribd site worked fine and I was able to read it all the way through to page 23 on the site’s online reader. That experience is no longer possible. As of yesterday Free is no longer free for all: it is currently available in the US and to US citizens only; other people, like me, from countries outside the US will have to make-do with a most unwelcoming Free page from Scribd:
I don’t like this, of course, though I don’t think Anderson’s got any say in the matter: he blogged recently to confess that he’s limited by the way global book-rights work, and that there’s nothing he can do about it at the moment. Here’s a thought, though: why not publish the digital versions of Free under a Creative Commons license, distribute that through as many publisher-sanctioned channels as possible, and then reap the benefits this liberalization would bring to both him and his publisher? I cannot answer that question, nor can I profess to know the minds of the publishing people behind Hyperion … but it’s worked for several books published by (now defunct) The Friday Project, and I’m sure it can work for Free.
But … Why Publisher Sanctioned?
Notice that I suggested publisher sanctioned channels of distribution, and not JUST channels of distribution. This slight distinction brings us to the topic of today’s post, which is, namely: if you make something free, and you allow users access to downloaded copies of your work, should you encourage file sharing between users and prospective new readers? Should you mind, even if you’re not in this for the money?
The short answer to that is yes, you should; but the long answer is no, you shouldn’t. And I think it’s pretty obvious, what I’m going to tell you today, but the right answer to the above question also depends on why you’re writing and publishing on the Internet. Let’s begin with the basics: the first thing that springs to mind when we’re talking about file sharing is piracy, and recently Gavin Williams and John/RavenProject had a discussion on Novelr about whether sharing an already free file was considered piracy.
I didn’t have a good answer back then, but I do have one now – and the answer is yes. Let’s face it: why are things free on the Internet? Things are free on the Internet because people expect things to be free, and because they expect things to be free you get more eyeballs whenever you meet this expectation. This is a remarkably old economic truth, to be honest: people are attracted to free things regardless of whether you’re talking about baubles or condoms, and free things on the Internet are, quite frankly, irresistible. (I’ve lost track of the number of ebooks I’ve downloaded as a direct result of the writer making it a limited-time offer, so go figure).
But the thing about offering free products is that you’re not really expecting zero returns. Free downloads earn you human attention, and human attention is the real currency of the Internet. You may not consider it particularly valuable, nor may you consider it particularly helpful when the landlord comes knocking for the rent, but publishers and independent content producers would do well to sit up and take notice of this untapped resource – human attention usually leads to community, and community in turn leads to a captive audience … always a good thing to have on hand if and when you finally decide to monetize your online efforts.
If you’re a one-man show it would make sense to distribute things for free and remain ambivalent to torrenting/filesharing amongst your users. You will, after all, gain hopeful readers. But if you’re a publisher, or if you’re in this for the long-run – serious no shit I want to make money kinda long run – then controlling your free distribution matters as much as making your products free in the first place. File sharing builds no community. Stay away from it.
9 Comments
Hey Eli, been following your blog with some interest for a while but this is my first comment because it happens to hit on a publishing model that we’re trying to get off the ground right now.
The problem with content providing on the internet is that the internet is a NEW medium and the content providers are still trying to paste content formatted for old mediums onto the internet. It’s very much the same thing that happened when the technology to make movies was developed. At first all that came out were stage theater productions that were filmed exactly like the camera was an audience member, but eventually people realized that oh hey! you can take this technology and do close ups, you can shoot three minutes of film from one angle and the next six minutes from a completely different angle. In short you have the ability to give the audience an experience unique to the medium.
Content providers on the internet are only just beginning to get that, and that I think is the secret of making money off of internet content. The internet allows you to create an EXPERIENCE around a work, a community, a social network, and a level of interaction not possible in traditional printing. Here’s an example: there’s a project going on now called Comment Press where books can be annotated and footnoted and commented on line by line by the readers– Zing has a similar format– you can highlight a bit of text you like in what you’re reading and post a comment directly to that. Sort of like writing a note in the margins. Other readers can read these comments and reply to them, cultivating a whole interactive experience from the work.
I think content should be free, content should always be free on the internet, but accessing and contributing to the EXPERIENCE will require people to sign up for accounts which can easily be subscription. So there is money to be made here once people stop trying to sell the content and focus on selling the experience.
Don’t have the time now to write an actual comment, but you might find this article on the topic interesting too! http://wordful.com/can-you-afford-the-price-of-free/
I think you’ve hit on the same theme as Mark Cuban, which is that Free is good, but Free Distribution is dangerous. If someone reads your book because it popped up on some random site, they’re likely to re-visit that random site rather than YOUR site, which is the same as losing a fan. It’s fine for them to read it without paying, but you want them to stick around in the long run, so when you’re pre-selling your next project, they’ll know it exists. I think this applies to big orgs as much as it does to one-man-bands… you’re building a brand (either for yourself or for a member of your roster), and the best way to do that is with Sticky Free in your own shop.
Interestingly, since I switched from a “free PDF download” model to a “read on my site” model, my overall site traffic has increased over 500%, mainly from people reading one story and then trying out another. For the last three years, I’d been attracting readers with the promise of Free, and then losing them just as fast. Under the new system, I stand a chance of holding onto some of them. Tying the reading experience to my brand was a simple one, but it’s made a huge difference. I’ve already had good pre-sales of my next title, even though I don’t exactly know it is yet!
Eli,
I was just reading in the New York Times Book Review a review of Anderson’s book and it was lukewarm at best, the review not Anderson’s book.
Then I read Gladwell’s critique of Anderson’s book and I began curious. Gladwell felt passionately against Anderson’s ideas.
Ultimately I think about my own costs as a developer. If I have to maintain a $500 monthly budget or a $1500 monthly budget. All websites are different. When my monthly costs go down, then I’ll start to believe the “Free” theories. These days, the economy is as inconsistent and unpredictable as the human attention span.
Personally, I believe journalists, who write books for a living, are messianic figures. I think they have a messiah complex, but that’s another story.
Storytellers get the most traction. A brand will even become a storyteller. What is the “story” Disney is telling; or Pixar; or Paramount?
PR used to be spin. The new media relations is person to person. This means that Anderson has trust in his influence among large numbers. Think of it like a candidate running for office all the time.
Anderson already is coming from a reputable magazine. He’s the chief editor of Wired, which everyone knows.
He’s basically playing the role of speculator–which is fun but dangerous. Because to a certain extent, the “economy” is also a story. Journalism plays a huge role in how the economy, or the economy’s health is represented.
He says he plans to make money and raise a family on being a paid public speaker. Essentially he’s betting on his personality, his social influence, to get him by.
OUr age is dominated by the attention economy. Anderson knows this and most people are beginning to get it. The attention economy is based on a person in the public light, a storyteller in a sense.
Anderson is telling his own point of view/experience. But he’s only one person. What he’s doing is projecting his own past experience into the future.
That’s not the future.
The future is unpredictable. Always.
@Isa: thank you for your comment, it’s much appreciated. =)
I’m afraid, however, that I’m skeptical of selling experience over content on the Internet – it might be possible, certainly – but we’ve yet to find a good alternative to the experiential joy of reading a proper dead-tree book, with a warm cup of coffee, in bed. I understand that the experience you’re referring to here is the interaction between readers (or between readers and writers) – and indeed that’s something the Internet does exceedingly well … but it begs the question: will your readers be coming back for the fiction, or for the interaction? I’ve yet to see an example that balances both attractions and remains compelling to users. (Novelr – as with other blogs – does have a good balance between reading and interacting, but it’s nonfiction … which is both easier and less compelling than epistolary fiction).
I hope you find that balance, though, and I’d like to suggest that what you’re looking for is going to be in a format that is radically different from everything we’ve seen before.
@Jan: thank you for the link. I’ve just finished it, and I’m pleased to have read that. It’s one of the old ticks I have, I suppose, with online fiction: 1 year on and we still need better filters.
(Incidentally, I’ve been thinking a lot lately of my role as an ‘attention editor’, if you will, on Novelr – what should I link to? What shouldn’t I link to? I’m still working out the kinks, I guess, but rest assured I’m fully aware of the responsibility I have in directing the online writer’s attention to other sites)
@MCM: I just googled Mark Cuban and read his piece on ‘Free’, and my God he argues the idea a hundred times better than I did! Thanks for pointing me in that direction.
On your site experience, would you be interested in writing a guest post for Novelr? I’ll email you in a bit.
@Lethe: oops, missed your comment by a couple of minutes.
God I love that line.
Like you, I wonder if Anderson is basing his projections on opinion or data – he was once a scientist, if I’m not mistaken, and I’d like to think that he values empirical data over choice observation. But I’ll save my judgment till I finish the book (which is going to take some time, I bet, considering that it’s not even out in bookstores over here. Only digital copy I’ve got on my computer is an audiobook).
BTW, Seth Godin’s got a response to the Gladwell article – he argues that it’s obvious, and it’s already happening anyway … so why bother arguing about it?
@Eli: I have different experiences with it. Look at readers of foreign publications: let’s take Japanese manga as an example. As little as five years ago the only place to get new, fresh content from your favorite writers/creatives in this market was the internet (unless you were in Asia of course) As a result rich communities popped up surrounding the individuals who had access to the material and were willing to pass it along. These communities became so popular and so profitable that they inevitably led to US companies striking deals to publish the material much faster than before if not concurrently with the Japanese publication schedule in order to capture the market.
However, many fans still prefer to get this content from the internet because the content itself was only one part of what they enjoyed. When something was new, it was more fun to have it online where they could share and discuss it with other fans, but once it was no longer new they preferred to buy the material from the traditional publishers.
The point is Internet publishing is not going to supplant traditional publishing because internet publishing is good at handling fresh new content and real time discussion but not so good at archiving that content. As you said, for that people will always prefer having a real book to peruse at their leisure, put down, dogear, whatever. But then, going back to my original example, movies have not supplanted the theater either. There will be some cross over (blogs that become books, books that are released as web serials) just as there are some cross overs between theater and movies, but it’s a different medium and when it’s used to its advantages instead of as a replacement for traditional publishing I think it will prove quite profitable.
In a couple months I hope to be able to come back here and use my own company (http://www.fluffy-seme.net) as an example to prove my point, but as it is we’ve only been out of private beta for two months … and the jury is still out :)
@Isa: When you think that time has come, by all means contact me, and I’ll slot you in for a guest post. I wish you all the best till then.
Hello – A lot of fuss over “FREE’ — well, I am writing a book about the decline of the newspaper industry. after contacting a few publishers who assured me no one would be interested in reading it, I decided to offer it FREE as a FREE PDF DOWNLOAD. It’s not finished yet, but my intention is to make this book as FREE as a book could ever possibly be. “If you paid for this document, you paid too much” is going to be prominently displayed on page one! I’ll announce when it’s ready on my blog, hopefully within the next 30 days.