Will Indigo’s Shortcovers Pricing Structure Be Too Confusing?
The team over at Shortcovers are riding a wave of great publicity. As the hockey-stick moment for ebooks arrives, Shortcovers is getting mentions alongside the Kindle and the iPhone. They are also getting some love from industry insiders. There were some shout outs at the TOC conference last week in NYC. And a post dedicated to Shortcovers appeared in Monday’s Publisher’s Weekly.
The PW post had some information new to me. There will be integration with their in-store kiosks and the service will be partially ad supported. In the article, Indigo’s CTO Michael Serbinis also says the service is an ‘open platform’. That statement is just plain confusing to me. Open as in non-proprietary? Platform as in software framework? Anyway I am reading the tea leaves too closely. TBD.
As I have said before price, selection, and ‘the filter problem’ are my three big questions with Shortcovers.
If Shortcovers is a service (with no file to download) then they should get their pick of the best books. There is huge pent-up demand for cheap front list out there.
The filter problem is more a function of interface design than anything else. The PW article quotes Serbinis as saying…
“Ultimately, the service is about discovery”… It emphasizes community features, like rating, tagging and sharing, and people can create lists of favorite books and even upload their own writing.
That is great and all but they need to do something really innovative here to differentiate themselves. Seriously — when is the last time you rated a movie in Netflix or IMDB? I am hoping their emphasis on community features translates to actual community. Fingers crossed.
But pricing is the hornet’s nest. I had assumed publishers would demand pricing control and Indigo would have to discount on the side (a la Kindle) but after talking to a couple people familiar with Shortcovers at TOC, I started to wonder if their pricing — based on per chapter purchases — would be too confusing. I wonder if Indigo (not the publishers) is going to screw up the pricing by making it convoluted.
To trully differentiate yourself in the ebook space you need to be easier and cheaper. The per piece pricing model may prove to be neither.
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