For months, publishers have debated the merits of giving free content to readers. At the eBook summit today, two publishing experts debated the future of paying for content.
Lisa Holton from Fourth Story Media pushed for the micropayments and virtual goods in her reading community: “We are experimenting to see whether people will pay a teeny little bit to go further into the community. We’re not used to thinking in terms of 25-cent [transactions] but in the long term if [maybe] you can build in these revenue seeds.”
Holton handled some major children’s titles during her career. At Scholastic, she managed the publication of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” by J.K. Rowling. Before joining Scholastic, Holton ran the Disney Global Children’s Books division at The Walt Disney Company. She made Twitter waves when she took a shot at Amazon’s Kindle while talking about her audience: “My audience right now, they’re not reading on a Kindle, so I don’t care.”
Andrew Malkin is VP of book content at Zinio Digital has spent 20 years in senior marketing and sales positions in publishing, working at companies that included HarperCollins, Random House and Ingram. He spoke about an interesting trend in eBooks: “We recently launched books and categories like crafts, cooking, those sold above $10–we’re pleased to see what people will pay for illustrated content.”