BookRiff

In a group web conference this morning, members of the Association of Canadian Publishers were taken behind the scenes to view a site demonstration of BookRiff-in-construction. In its last few days of private beta development, the software is now a bare-bones framework of a site with the potential to be an essential tool in every publisher’s belt. For now, it raises a lot of questions, and it’s our job to answer them. Here are a few of the points discussed today:

1. Pricing: How should publishers price their books and chapters on BookRiff?

BookRiff is an entirely new model for publishing, but that doesn’t mean it introduces a complex new formula of costs, revenues, and profit share for publishers to digest. In fact, that’s precisely what we’ve tried to avoid. The BookRiff business model lets publishers (and other content creators) determine their own revenues, because they set the price and receive 100% of that price each time a Riff of their content is printed. The rest of the model is just as transparent, making it easy for publishers to predict the final cost of a Riff, and then set their content costs accordingly.

Let’s take an example: A publisher wants to create a BookRiff version of a 250 pg. frontlist book with 5 pages of extra materials from the author. The book is listed at $28.95. In this case:

• The Riff  base fee, including print costs (paid by Riff purchaser) = $7.73

• Book content price = publisher’s desired price of BookRiff version, minus $7.73
• Publisher’s revenues = publisher’s book content price

So, if the publisher wanted to sell the Riff at the book list price, the content cost (and also revenue) would be $28.95 − $7.73 = $21.22

And, if that book were divided into 12 chapters, each chapter might be priced at $21.22 ÷ 12 = $1.77

The next, more complex, underlying question here is: What is the value of a Riff? The way I see it, it’s up to you: the publishers, and you: the Riff composers, and you: the buyers to decide. It’s an open market, after all: your content will speak for itself.

2. Publisher channels vs. Author channels vs. Other Creator channels: whose work is whose and how do you know?

Like the first question, there’s a simple answer and a more annoying, you-decide one. The simple response is that only copyright owners can upload their content to BookRiff, or license others to do so. Each time a BookRiff Creator, be it a publisher, an author, or another individual, makes content publicly available through their creator channel, they must claim ownership of that work. They can only do that if they have an account, set up with a credit card and a TOS agreement.

Now that copyright infringement is put aside, there’s still a question of interaction between users on BookRiff. Who creates Riffs: authors, publishers, or fans? The answer: yes, perhaps, if they’re keen, and who knows who else? It will be important for publishers to communicate with their authors to gauge interest and build plans for selling books on BookRiff. We can’t wait to see who will take the lead from there.

3. Can BookRiff users sell their Riffs of publisher’s short stories (or other chapters/ chunked content)?

Yes, anyone can sell their Riff, but no, they won’t profit from anyone else’s work. (This means fans double as enthusiastic not-for-profit booksellers: can you imagine such a thing?)

4. Will Riffs have color? Will Public Domain books be available? What about sizes? Electronic books?

BookRiff is made to evolve, and we’ve got all kinds of plans. Custom covers, full color interiors, multiple sizes and formats are just a few ways we want to make BookRiff more robust. We’d love to hear your ideas, too!

5. When can publishers have access?

Soon, very soon. (Let us know if you’re eager!)