Shanda to Introduce New Revenue Model for E-Books
Beijing Evening News, 3/05/12
Liu Qiang, VP of Shanda Interactive's wholly owned online literature subsidiary Cloudary Corporation, revealed today that Cloudary had begun testing a free model, similar to the free viewing model offered by online video sites, allowing internet users to read advertising-supported e-books free of charge.
According to Liu, one department of Cloudary is currently involved in testing the ad-supported model, under which a portion of its book titles will be made available for free viewing. Shanda will continue to pay licensing fees to the online authors of the titles, and will rely on ad revenues as a source of profit. Recent testing data indicate "pretty good" performance for the model. Should the model take off, Liu says, Cloudary could offer more titles for free reading, and pirate e-book sites would gradually disappear of their own accord. Piracy has been a serious problem for original online literature. Cloudary filed copyright infringement suits against more than 40 websites last year, all of them successful. One of the pirate sites had monthly revenues of more than RMB 1 mln.
Keywords: business model online advertising Shanda Internet e-book online literature Cloudary Liu Qiang
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