John: While others are challenging whether having a
free online version available is really
counterproductive, I will take a stab at explaining
how Amazon's system isn't a free online version of
your work.
They have use restricitons that only allow you to see the portion of the book near the term you searched, a couple of pages each way, if I remember correctly. In all, you can not view more than 20% of any one work and then they have an overall page number restriction, along the lines of 1000 pages per year. These figures are off the top of my head and are likely subject to change once the system is in operation.
Obviously, these are technological safe gaurds that can likely be "hacked" in some way. Not my forte, but I assume all technological safe gaurds may be defeated. At the same time, relatively few user will be hacking. To the extent the work is hacked I would refer you to the comments of others that this may not be against your financial interest.
The point is, for the average user it will be difficult to access more than a taste of your book. Now, why would you limit that taste to certain pages you select, such as the first 20%, as you suggested? By putting the whole work into the searchable database the user can taste the parts of your book most relevant to the user.
Now, I have to admit that my knowledge of this system is based purely on the article posted here earlier, which was written by someone smitten with the feature. Therefore, I look forward to other points of view on how this will really work and how it will really impact authors.
keith
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