If you're tracking books that appear in both free-online and priced-print editions, then add the 9/11 Commission Report to your list. The full-text is free online and also for sale in a $10 paperback from W.W. Norton & Co. Over 600,000 people have so far bought the print edition. In an article on this phenomenon for today's Wired News, Joanna Glasner writes, "Today, heady sales of the 9/11 Commission Report are providing fresh ammunition to authors who have been pressing publishers to release their books both in print and online. While publishers commonly provide free access to excerpts of books, so far few have been willing to put works online in their entirety without charging. 'The conventional wisdom was, of course, if I give it away for free no one's going to buy it,' said Peter Watts, a biologist and writer who attempted unsuccessfully to persuade his publisher, Tor Science Fiction, to let him put his novels online for free. Watts, who does publish free short fiction on his website, disputes that notion. If people get free access to a novel, they're more likely to begin reading it. And once they begin reading, provided it holds their attention, they'll probably buy the book."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/21/2004 10:12:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
