One of the featured titles on the homepage of OpenBooks.com, a new online bookshop, is Pay What It’s Worth by Tara Joyce. The book, about how businesses can thrive by not setting prices, is not there by accident: it encapsulates the retailer’s business model.
Prospective buyers are told to “read first, pay later”, whereupon they can go with the recommended price of $11 or pay what they think Joyce deserves. A widget informs us that out of 71 downloads, two have been paid for. So far.
American indie publisher Last Gasp is experimenting with the same concept, partnering with pay-what-you-want site Humble Bundle. Readers who feel like paying can give their money to the publisher or to a nominated non-profit organisation.
“Pay what’s fair” is not a new idea in publishing. Fifteen years ago, Stephen King offered chapters of novel-in-progress The Plant with a guide price of $1, pledging to keep writing if three-quarters of people who downloaded the book paid for it. Less than half did, so he gave up. Faber used the idea in 2009 to promote Ben Wilson’s What Price Liberty?. Serialisation specialists the Pigeonhole launched with “pay what you want” but has now tellingly moved over to a “pay per stave” model.
Of course, “pay what’s fair” is preferable to giving away content for nothing, or pirating. But I fail to see how it could be more than a pipedream, especially in Britain, a country not known for its love of haggling or tipping.
For now, I’m going to leave the last word to Kiss’s Gene Simmons, who had the following advice for Radiohead when they used “pay what’s fair” for their 2007 album In Rainbows: “I open a store and say, ‘Come on in and pay whatever you want.’ Are you on fucking crack? Do you really believe that’s a business model that works?”
