E-book subscription site Scribd has been making changes to its catalog to help maintain its business model, which pays publishers a retail-like model for books every time they are read.
The company revealed last week that it is cutting down the number of romance and erotica titles available in its all-you-can-read subscription service. Trip Adler, Scribd CEO, told Wired, “In general, the model has worked well, but in some genres, particularly the romance genre, it hasn’t worked out with a huge number of titles.”
Mark Coker, the CEO of Smashwords, a massive self-publishing site which supplies many romance titles to Scribd lamented the decision. In a blog post, Coker suggested that Scribd adopt a tiered pricing model to support these avid romance readers.
In the meantime, Scribd is continuing to expand its list. This week, Scribd revealed that it has doubled its inventory of Macmillan titles from 1,000 to 2,000 books in the catalog.