Ebook Chapters for Sale: A Future Trend?
Just recently, McGraw-Hill Professional released “Select: eChapters in an Instant,” a collection of ebook chapters for business professionals. The publisher’s latest release would allow businessmen, who are also Kindle owners (or any ebook reading device for that matter) to purchase just the chapters of essential business information.
McGraw-Hill Professional is a top-notch publisher of finance, business, management, and other professional books that are written by well-known business leaders with extensive experience. This idea was conjured up to help the consumer get specific solutions for their business needs. The collection contains over 750 chapters from McGraw Hill Professional’s selections including reliable resources on business, investing, marketing, and Six Sigma.
Claiming that the “Select: eChapters in an Instant” collection is pinpointed for the business professional, McGraw-Hill representatives say that the consumer will have an easier time searching for information because they will only be purchasing the desired chapter. For those who want a more comprehensive reference, the full ebooks and hard-copies are still available for purchase.
The chapters will be available to the consumer through devices like the Amazon Kindle, Nook and iPhone. They can be downloaded at www.mhprofessional.com/echapters. The chapters range from $6.95 to $9.95 in price. What? That is expensive! Considering that most of the business ebooks offered by McGraw Hill Professional costs about thirty bucks in their entirety, it is evident that the publisher found a niche market that will pay by chapter.
What if the business professional decides eventually that they want more chapters? This has the potential to be an expensive habit, and obviously money would be saved in the long run if the whole book was purchased at a single time. Another point — isn’t it that one of the perks of an ereader device is its ability to search for specific text?
The consumer may buy into this recent money-making ploy, and to some extent, this makes sense when it comes to business and reference books, but hopefully we don’t see the classics or other ebooks sold by chapter. There really wouldn’t be a benefit to reading the first chapter of “A Clockwork Orange” or Act 5 of “Merchant of Venice” and then calling it a day.
For business professionals, this may be a great option, but is this a future trend for publishers to make more money off the ebook market? The niche is already headed that way with the new ebook agency model, and it looks as though it could become an expensive habit. Hopefully we don’t see this affect other book markets as it probably wasn’t the author’s vision to have their book chapters sold in an “each sold separately” manner.