Apart from HarperCollins giving it away online, the other big ebook news Monday morning was Jeffrey Trachtenberg‘s WSJ story on Random House selling Made to Stick by the chapter, as “customers will receive a digital link via email enabling them to download the chapter onto their computers,” but not onto any other reader devices (for now), once they’ve paid $2.99. One anonymous GalleyCat reader wasn’t terribly impressed, and sent me an email yesterday morning to complain:
“There are six chapters in the book, which will come to just about 18 dollars for the entire volume,” runs this anonymous gripe. “Will someone please tell Random House that readers can currently purchase the entire book on Amazon brand new for $16.47 and used copies are going for as low as $12.47? One can get a used book for the same amount as one would pay for four chapters.”
That’s as may be, but your argument depends on every single consumer in America being as clever as you and figuring that out, and what are the odds of that? On a more serious note, I would think the bigger problem, even setting aside the format complaints, is how they’re going to get people to the corner of the Random House website where the chapters are being sold. Oh, wait, I believe I might have just taken care of that.