Tech publisher Tim O’Reilly is touting a new service where customers have the option of buying individual chapters instead of the whole book. He likens this to digital music though he concedes that “books tend to be more of an essential organic whole than albums…”
I ‘spose it’s important to try new ideas but I’m trying to imagine which of my books I would rather have just a chapter of. There aren’t many but maybe it depends on the individual.
Update: Someone in comments intelligently writes: “Do you think this will affect the way chapters are written…?”
It could work for non-fiction
“I ‘spose it’s important to try new ideas but I’m trying to imagine which of my books I would rather have just a chapter of.”
I don’t see this having much of a use with fiction books, for that very reason. But for O’Reilly’s non-fiction books, it might work. For a reference/instructional book that’s not meant to be read all the way through, but rather used to look up information as needed, this has possibilities.
With the JavaScript book in the article, I could see someone buying a chapter if, for example, they knew the basics already but wanted to learn something specific that was covered later in the book.
Re:It could work for non-fiction
Well, he does concede that some topics are better suited that others. Personally, I couldn’t do without my complete copy of “Rhino”.
Works for fiction too…
Take Turtledove’s novels which have different chapters following different protagonists….
Ender, Duke_of_URL