Online Publishing Law

In what appears to be a publishing first for a major trade book publisher, Random House has begun to sell online, for $2.99 each, six chapters and the epilogue of its published nonfiction book “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.” The book, which was published last year, has been a steady seller and already has 220,000 hardcovers in print. The book studies the fact that some ideas have continuing currency, while others seem to disappear. The test, therefore, is an effort to determine whether popular nonfiction books can be exploited in previously untried ways. As there are many books whose individual chapters would be of special interest to certain consumers, many publishers will be interested in the results of Random House’s test.