Bryan Bracken

In the Internet Age, book publishers are having a harder and harder time operating  their business  in the black. Even with the growth of hardware such  as the Kindle and iPad, publishers have to  do an superior  job picking and then merchandising each book they publish.

But it seems there are  novel  types of publishers coming on the scene. The Concord Free Press is presently  publishing books and then giving them away for free. It’s not without a catch  , but it’s a fairly  modest one at that. The Concord Free Press simply asks you to give  a donation to a charity in exchange for your book. 

Another model that is quickly becoming a new  benchmark  is buying discount books online. Multiple  sites  have become popular offering books at a substantial discount .

Free books sound too good to be true? They’ve been doing it for two years and seem to be picking up steam , not dropping off the planet.

“We just ask people, one, make a voluntary donation to a charity or person in need; two, chart your donation on our website,” Stona Fitch, of The Concord Free Press says. “And three, pass the book along to someone else so that this project keeps going.”

And in those last two years, readers have given more than $140,000 to charities.

The company itself also relies on donations, and has produced  a total of four books. While this doesn’t make them a powerhouse, or even a “large” publisher, they seem to have started a revolution in the way books are produced .

“You know, we’re not saying all books should be free,” Fitch explains. “We’re just saying this is one way to put out a book.”

While Fitch has many supporters, he has just as many detractors. Hamilton Fish, former publisher of The Nation, said his first thought  was pure anger toward The Concord Free Press. 

“And Stona Fitch was waltzing around inviting people to help themselves to the books that Concord Free Press was publishing free of charge,” Fish says.

Fitch, of the Concord Free Press, says he remembers  Fish saying: “‘This is the death of publishing.’”

nonetheless Fish had to come to a reasonable  conclusion about this new model, and by and large came to the conclusion that any new model in the book business was good for the book business. The publishing industry has by and large  been a stagnant force for some years, even with the growth of new mediums, and he thinks  that this may  put  new life into the industry.

“Obviously, the big publishing houses are facing tremendous challenges,” Fish says. “Their financial viability is very much in question. We need as much innovation and independent spirit as possible.”

Again the pressures of sites offering discount text books look to add salt to a growing wound in the book industry.

“In an industry where nine out of 10 books don’t make money anyway, the real issue is: What does the reader think the book is worth?” he asks.

It looks like  The Concord Free Press puts that judgment to be made by  its readers.

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