Deseret Book is Giving Books away for Free.
Just wanted to note an interesting new marketing strategy from Deseret Book.
Here you can download a complete PDF of the books for free. Personally, I probably would never read most of these, but I was pleased to see Bruce Chadwick and Brent Top’s book here, as I like Dr. Chadwick’s studies, but would never have paid for this book. (As an aside, I’ve always loved the church’s policy of giving away their books for free via the web. (I wish the Boy Scouts did the same). Deseret Book, however, is not the church, but is a for-profit business. I can only assume they are doing this for marketing purposes.)
So what do you think? Will “the power of Free” help Deseret Book increase it’s market share?
Most authors like people to read their books whether they earn any money or not. The idea that they will pay for future books from them is a bonus.
Ideally, this should be done for all out of print books, which fortunately what Google Books is doing. Of course there is some extensive controversy, not to mention a court case and a pending settlement over the opt out procedure Google wants to use.
Imagine if Deseret Book said, we are going to put all of our out of print books up online for free, or for negligible cost, and if any of the authors of those books don’t like that, please contact us.
The problem is individual copyrights last something like 95 years after the death of the author in the U.S., and normally doing that takes explicit permission from each author / copyright holder, something I assume Deseret Book has done here.
All those legal considerations aside, I think it is a great idea, and I hope they put up more, especially classic works in LDS theology and the like.
Comment by Mark D. — October 21, 2009 @ 1:36 pm
For A “negligible fee” DB already has Gospellink, So I am assuming they’ve already worked out the copyright stuff.
Comment by Matt W. — October 21, 2009 @ 2:06 pm
Matt W: Deseret Book or its parent operation acquired the rights to all sorts of Gospel Link type reference material (some rather more extensive than what is in currently in Gospel Link) when they acquired Infobases a few years back.
That is how they became the monopoly provider in the field. Infobases included the Journal of Discourses, for example, and I understand that has been dropped, and I can’t imagine it was dropped other than at the prompting of the Church, which is the ultimate owner of DB of course.
Comment by Mark D. — October 21, 2009 @ 7:17 pm
AS far as I can see, JoD is still there.
Comment by Matt W. — October 21, 2009 @ 8:58 pm
I am glad to hear that. Once upon a time Infobases had it, Deseret Book had it, then Infobases was acquired and I didn’t see the Journal of Discourses in the GospelLink product – certainly not in the one I purchased. Great news – very useful source.
Comment by Mark D. — October 21, 2009 @ 11:37 pm
I mean Gospel Link originally *didn’t* have it.
Comment by Mark D. — October 21, 2009 @ 11:38 pm
I am very happy to see this. I think providing free material is a great move, both as a marketing effort but also because there are people who should have access to material who can’t afford it, and I am glad that they now can.
Comment by m&m — October 22, 2009 @ 11:21 pm