Ad-supported business models are tricky as most e-readers don’t have the abiltiy to click.

O’Reilly has also recently launched subscription plans at the individual book level, in part driven by the fact that computer books now need more constant updating as the related technologies are more rapidly updating themselves, especially the cloud versions. ‘Continuous publishing’ goes hand-in-hand with these individual book subscriptions as the old way of releasing new ‘editions’ of a book in order to drive new upgrade purchases is falling out of favour.

Another interesting trend is building a brand around the author and then adding related online services/products on top of the author’s book. Microsoft Press is experimenting with add on videos, online ‘extras’ (a la ‘DVD extras’ model), online hosted labs exercises, online seminars by the author, author speaking at conferences, author delivering an online course that uses his book etc. as ways to extend the book.

Sincerely,
Ben

Ben Watson
bwatson@microsoft.com
Director, Training Products
Microsoft Learning

disclaimer: Microsoft Press, one of the groups I manage, has a partnership with O’Reilly.