“Spotify for books”: Great for readers, but not for authors and publishers

I am a fan of Spotify, the music service that streams millions of tracks for free over the Internet. As a listener, I love the ability to find old favorites or discover new artists. Having to put up with occasional ads is not much different than listening to radio. If I had more disposable income, I would pay the $5 monthly fee for Spotify Premium — which does away with the ads and lets you download music to portable devices, such as iPods and mobile phones.

Would I be interested in a Spotify for books? There are such services popping up, like Bookboard for kids books and 24symbols in the U.K. for adult readers. Amazon also offers free downloads for some ebooks.

As a reader, free books are very appealing. I already use the library to borrow books, and the idea of getting free ebooks on my iPad or Kindle is attractive.

But as an author and publisher (The In 30 Minutes catalogue includes Online Content Marketing In 30 Minutes , Dropbox In 30 Minutes , Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes , and Excel Basics In 30 Minutes ) I’m very concerned about any model that ...

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Published on March 04, 2013 06:25 Tags: amazon, free, in-30-minutes, kdp-select, spotify
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