On 23 Dec 2008, Paul A. Rubin wrote: > Steve Litt wrote: >> On Monday 22 December 2008 12:46:10 pm Jonathan Kroner wrote: >> >> I have a question about the "search inside the book". A publishing >> mailing list of which I'm also a member is extremely upset about >> Google's plan to scan all books from the libraries. The thought is that >> why should customers buy the cow if the milk is free -- if you can view >> it online, why should you pay for the book? >> > > My impression is that neither Amazon's "search inside the book" feature > nor Google's scanning project are going to make copyrighted works freely > available to anyone. You'll just get to see excerpts. For works of > fiction, I suspect the main virtue is that you can read a few paragraphs > and see if you like the author's style. AFAIC this is no different than > the previews of the next book in a series that you find at the end of > many books. > > For nonfictional works, particularly technical works, I think this might > stimulate sales. Before I buy, say, a guide to writing books in LyX, I > usually peruse it at the local "big barn" bookstore, because I want to > be sure it's at the right level, covers the specific topics I want, etc. > That limits me to the titles those stores carry. I'm at an advantage > in that I live in a town with a university, so we have several of these > stores. Back in my hometown, I might have been stuck. Even if the > local mall had, say, a Barnes and Noble, I don't know that they'd waste > a lot of shelf space on slow-moving technical books. So the Amazon and > Google endeavors may let me locate a suitable book for online purchase > that I would otherwise not take a chance on. > > FWIW, > Paul
I think this is probably correct. Currently I have two non-fiction books on Amazon (plus another on the way). Both are now 'search inside'; I opted for this in the case of Google, while Amazon did it anyway. Both books are selling, though in small numbers. On balance, I think/hope that the ability of readers to see a selection of pages will be helpful to sales. As Steve says, it is much the same as being able to look through a book in a bookshop. Anthony -- Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux http://www.acampbell.org.uk (blog, book reviews, and sceptical articles)
