But there are potential business upsides, too. Some publishers have signed on simply because they believe that consumers are buying content these days, not the vessel that it’s in. The rest of the time, they’re just really cheap deals, about 80% off what you’d pay buying the same ebook for your Kindle on Amazon, Hudson says. Or, if you’re opting for an audio book, just listen through the Shelfie app.Ībout 30% of the time a publisher will offer a free digital version of your paper book. Finally, receive an email that contains digital files compatible with the Kindle and other e-readers. If you want to claim a deal, write your name on the copyright page to prove you own it, and then upload your evidence.
Then review the deals they have for your “eligible books,” which were two out of about every 15 on my shelf. Wait as Shelfie’s in-house recognition technology reads your wrinkled old covers and identifies which books you own.
#DO I GET KINDLE BOOKS FOR FREE IF I ALREADY OWN THEM DOWNLOAD#
Here’s how it works: Download the app and take a picture of your bookshelf. Screen shot of the Selfie app identifying book titles using their in-house computer recognition software. As of Monday, Shelfie will also have audio book deals for 20,000 titles, including hits like Scholastic Audio’s Hunger Games and HarperCollins’ American Sniper by Chris Kyle.
Two years later, Shelfie has brokered deals with nearly 1,200 publishers-including industry bigwigs Macmillan and HarperCollins-and Hudson says that they now have e-book bundling deals for about 250,000 titles, which covers about 15% of the average bookshelf. “But it turns out it didn’t.”Īfter hundreds of soul-sucking cold calls and emails, Shelfie got its first publisher to sign on in 2013. That’s got to exist for books,” Hudson says of that revelation. You just put it in your computer, iTunes rips it, you’ve got it on your iPod. “You’ve got to be able the get a digital copy, like you can with a CD. His foe in the debate asserted, but could not prove, that crucial evidence was on page 750 of a paper book he owned at home. A tipsy barroom debate over the existence of free will led Shelfie founder Peter Hudson to wonder why he couldn’t get free electronic copies of the books he had already shelled out for in analog form.