Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
So you have found some scientific study about Stephen King's release of an E-book chapter by chapter with no promise of it being finished? If it showed anything I would have thought it was that people do not want to pay for half a book or they want to read a book in one sitting. Or maybe something else.
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Based on articles about the "Plant" experiment, I have these
observations:
People were buying the book chapter by chapter, as they came out. As chapters came out, fewer paid,
including those who continued to download. Sure, some people dropped out of succeeding chapters, but the experiment was never about how many downloaded... just about how many downloaders paid. That indicates that downloaders wanted the book, but they believed they had paid enough after 3-4 chapters and refused to pay more, suggesting a pricing issue (the cost was a bit high, equivalent to new hardback pricing, for an e-book).
There was also the issue of the number of people who had to pay, to continue the project. Downloaders knew the project's success depended on a minimum percentage of downloaders paying per chapter, but how many of them simply stopped paying and hoped everyone else would pick up the slack? Did the site have a running count going, so non-payers would have fair warning to get their payment in? I don't know, having never seen the site. Would it have worked? I don't know that either.
But the raw numbers say it all: People downloaded, but they didn't want to pay for it, and by the established rules of the experiment, the project was halted. And I don't believe King saw an increased response after the end, with a significant number of non-payers finally ponying up and begging for him to continue. They were done. They did not respond to the voluntary payment method... they cheated, they skimped, and they lost.
I expect that to be the eventual outcome of most voluntary payment systems, even for those famous and popular out there, as long as they are looking for a significant
percentage of paying responses. If, however, the system is based on
threshold amounts of paying responses, so the only pressure is getting enough exposure to reach your critical mass and get the rent paid, those systems have a better chance of succeeding, depending on popularity. And in all cases, fair pricing will have a huge impact in any project's success or failure.