During the past decade, the massive worldwide conversion of learning content from print and other older media on to digital networks has created gatekeepers who limit access to their digital content or require online users to pay for it.
A variety of gatekeepers have made a third choice:
to open their content freely into the Internet.
These are their stories.
October 25, 2006
Google Book Scan Project
"Our sales through the Web are steadily increasing in proportion to our total sales, and we're confident that Google Book Search will accelerate this growth."
Historical warefare publisher Osprey's managing director William Shepherd
Kirtas APT BookScan 2400 Gold
kirtas-tec.com
Complexities and lawsuits aside, the fact is that the scanning of books by Google and others has generated some profitable book sales.
An October 6, 2006 Reuters story, quoted in full below, reports publishers' unexpected sales stimulated by people finding their books through what is called Google Book Search. The Oxford University Press and several specialty publishers describe positive customer response to the Google project and similar scanning/search services at Amazon and other online enterprises.
Why would open access at no cost stimulate book sales?
A Washington Post article of May 18, 2006 about Google's book scanning project describes computer scientist Vinton Cerf as working for Google as its chief Internet evangelist. The article quotes Cerf: "When you stand in your own personal library looking for something and you realize that A, you can't remember which book it was in, and B, there's no way you can go through manually looking at all the pages, then you think, 'God, I wish all this stuff was online.'"
The article continues: "Cerf thinks publishers fail to appreciate that Google probably will help them sell more books by making them searchable. Helping people locate a book and know what's in it, he said, are key steps toward getting them to buy it. And for many books are available for sale, Google provides links to Amazon.com and other online sellers. Google does not sell books."
The much-touted new book The Long Tail, by WIRED Magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson is about a principle that underlies what Cerf explained. A book must be available for it to sell. The long tail for books means available books are not limited to those that are best sellers and good sellers. Anderson writes in his book:
This is simply the natural consequence of what's called a "power-law" distribution, a term for a curve where a small number of things occur with high amplitude (read: sales) and a large number of things occur with low amplitude. A few things will sell a lot and a lot of things will sell a little.
Google Book Search is a way to look for material in the low amplitude books, in the long tail. If the content of these books were not open for searching, the likelihood of them being found and purchased deceases as the tail gets longer and smaller.
Reuters:
Book sales get a lift from Google scan plan
Fri Oct 6, 2006 8:55 AM ET
By Jeffrey Goldfarb
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Publishers are starting to report an uptick in sales from Google Inc.'s online program that lets readers peek inside books, two years after the launch of its controversial plan to digitally scan everything in print.
Google has been enlisting publishers to voluntarily submit their books so that Web searchers can more easily find titles related to their interests, but some fear the project could lead to piracy or exploitation of their copyrighted content.
"Google Book Search has helped us turn searchers into consumers," said Colleen Scollans, the director of online sales for Oxford University Press. She declined to provide specific figures, but said that sales growth has been "significant". Scollans estimated that 1 million customers have viewed 12,000 Oxford titles using the Google program.
Google does not release data on how many people are using the service, how many books have been scanned or how many searchers have clicked through to buy books. Book search results from Google provide short page snippets and links to buy the books from online retailers or directly from publishers.
Some of the same publishers participating in the program have also united to file a lawsuit against Google alleging copyright violation over a separate plan by the Web search leader to digitize the world's libraries. Others, including News Corp.'s HarperCollins, are building their own digital repositories.
Specialty publisher Springer Science + Business reported sales growth of its backlist catalog using Google Book Search, with 99 percent of the 30,000 titles it has in the program getting viewed, including many published before 1992. "We suspect that Google really helps us sell more books," said Kim Zwollo, Springer's global director of special licensing, declining to provide specific figures because the company is privately owned.
Others, including Penguin, have been less encouraged by the results, and have found greater success from other partnerships.
AMAZON WORKS, TOO
"Our experience has been that the revenue generated from Google has been pretty modest, whereas the Amazon program has generated more book sales," Penguin Chief Executive John Makinson told Reuters at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week. Amazon.com's search tool also allows users to scan the contents of books and browse sample pages. For Penguin's books included in the U.S. "Search Inside" program, sales have increased by 7 percent. Because of the success, Pearson-owned Penguin extended the relationship to Amazon's UK site earlier this week.
Historical warfare publisher Osprey is reaping the benefits of using both Google and Amazon to boost sales. "When we looked at the first six months of stats, we saw that 30 percent of Google Book Search clicks went directly to our site, while roughly 40 percent went to Amazon," said William Shepherd, Osprey's managing director. "Our sales through the Web are steadily increasing in proportion to our total sales, and we're confident that Google Book Search will accelerate this growth."
Walter de Gruyter/Mouton-De Gruyter, a German publisher, said its encyclopaedia of fairy tales has been viewed 471 times since appearing in the program, with 44 percent of them clicking on the "buy this book" Google link. One of its many scientific titles, "Principles of Visual Anthropology", has seen about one-quarter of the 1,206 views click on "buy this book".
Arty coffee-table book publisher teNeues said its online sales have doubled over the past year, attributable primarily to a fresh marketing campaign and inclusion in Google's book search, Chief Executive Hendrik teNeues said.
Stimulating me to want to buy a book
In preparing to write this page, I decided to experiment with Google Book Search and within five minutes I was shopping to buy a book I had never heard of before.
I know that my ancestor Edward Breck came to Massachusetts in 1635. He and his family were in the party that traveled across the Atlantic from England with Richard Mather. On the Google Book Search page I entered a query for "Edward Breck." The first item on the list that Google displayed was:
"EDWARD BRECK'S LETTER ON THE QUAKERS, 1655. In the Transactions by Colonial Society of Massachusetts." The little strippet read in part: "a Sketch of Edward Breck by Dr. Edward Breck, and of Edward Breck's Letter on the Quakers, dated 17 August, 1655."
Clearly the Colonial Society of Massachusetts both had information about my ancestor, and had allowed Google to scan that material. I had never heard of Edward Breck's letter, and the thought of finding a "sketch" about the man was exciting. Without Google Search I feel sure I would never even have known to look for this family treasure.
I looked for the Society online, and sure enough they sell publications, and state:
"Surely the Colonial Society's greatest contribution to scholarship in early American history has been its many publications. Beginning in 1896, they appear under two headings: either Transactions or Collections. The Transactions contain records of the Society's activities, membership, meetings, papers either read or transmitted by title, memoranda, documents, and memoirs of deceased members. Collections consist of primary source material or the proceedings of conferences."
I am now checking to see if I can buy the volume of the Transactions that contains the information and writing from Edward Breck.
Judy Breck, October 24, 2006