Showing posts with label You Tube-like text approach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label You Tube-like text approach. Show all posts

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Simon & Schuster to Sell Digital Books on Scribd.com; New York Times, 6/12/09

Brad Stone via New York Times: Simon & Schuster to Sell Digital Books on Scribd.com:

"In another sign that book publishers are looking to embrace alternatives to Amazon.com’s Kindle e-book store, Simon & Schuster has agreed to sell digital copies of its books on Scribd.com, a popular document-sharing Web site.

Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS, plans to announce Friday that it will make digital editions of about 5,000 titles available for purchase on the site, including books from best-selling authors like Stephen King, Dan Brown and Mary Higgins Clark. It will also add thousands of other titles to Scribd’s search engine, allowing readers to sample 10 percent of the content of the books on the site and providing links to buy the print editions.

We are interested in getting our books in front of consumers in as many formats and distribution platforms as possible,” said Ellie Hirschhorn, chief digital officer of Simon & Schuster."...

The Scribd Web site is the most popular of several document-sharing sites that take a YouTube-like approach to text, letting people upload sample chapters of books, research reports, homework and recipes. About 60 million users a month read documents on the site, embed them in blogs and share links to texts over social networks and e-mail messages.

Scribd has been criticized by publishers in the past for allowing users to upload pirated copies of their works. In an effort to combat the practice, Scribd will use the digital files of Simon & Schuster’s books to find and remove unauthorized copies from its site."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/technology/internet/12books.html?_r=1&sq=scribd&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1244909378-hifOeZiF+9Odinrgj8r/Xw

Monday, May 18, 2009

Site Lets Writers Sell Digital Copies; The New York Times, 5/18/09

Brad Stone via The New York Times; Site Lets Writers Sell Digital Copies:

"The Scribd Web site is the most popular of several document-sharing sites that take a YouTube-like approach to text, letting people upload sample chapters of books, research reports, homework, recipes and the like. Users can read documents on the site, embed them in other sites and share links over social networks and e-mail.

In the new Scribd store, authors or publishers will be able to set their own price for their work and keep 80 percent of the revenue. They can also decide whether to encode their documents with security software that will prevent their texts from being downloaded or freely copied...

Trying to address the piracy problem, Scribd is building a database of copyrighted works and using it to filter its system. If a publisher participates in the Scribd store, its books will be added to that database, the company said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/technology/start-ups/18download.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=scribd&st=cse