An E-Book Upstart With Unlikely Fans

摘要

Last year author Bob Seidensticker flagged his publisher, Berrett-Koehler, that a digitized version of his book Future Hype had been posted on a Web site called Scribd. Anyone could read or print it for free. Berrett-Koehler warned Scribd the copy was illegal, and the company quickly took it down.rnThen executives at the San Francisco publisher started checking out the site. It had a large and growing audience of readers, including many who actually went out and bought books. So last July, Berrett-Koehler began offering free excerpts on Scribd, a marketing move that led to the selections being viewed more than 325,000 times. Last month, when Scribd opened its online store, the publisher signed a deal to sell 400 elec -tronic books through the company.