HarperCollins unveils first online book

February 6, 2006 | 1 book mentioned

In December, I wrote about HarperCollins’ plan to host digitized copies of their books on their own Web site rather than make them available to Google’s book search. Now the AP is reporting that HarperCollins has unleashed its first offering in this format, Go It Alone, a business book by Bruce Judson. The book is available, in its entirety, at Judson’s Web site. As Google does with its book search, HarperCollins has surrounded the book with contextual ads and provided a link to buy the book. The article points out the supposed irony of using Google ads, but I see Yahoo ads in there too and anyway, HarperCollins isn’t trying to screw over Google, they’re trying to maintain control over the process. HarperCollins has mostly gotten good reviews for their efforts primarily because they’re not using any sort of Digital Rights Management (DRM) to “protect” their intellectual property. To some, this approach is nothing new. As is noted in the article, marketing guru Seth Godin and science fiction author Cory Doctorow (to give two examples), have both made their books available in this way. The news here is that a major publisher is doing it.

Based on this article, though, HarperCollins doesn’t seem to understand that by allowing easy, free access to the book, they are, in effect, using the book as marketing for itself in much the same way that one can flip through a book at bookstore before buying. Instead they view the ads displayed next to the book’s pages as a “new revenue stream.” That’s why you shouldn’t expect to see any fiction as a part of this program. According to Brian Murray, group president of HarperCollins, “I don’t think advertisers are clamoring to place ads around literary fiction.” Hence, no literary fiction.

created The Millions and is its publisher. He and his family live in New Jersey.