Author Ben Wilson to Test Radiohead E-Book Model

On April 27, historian Ben Wilson will follow the lead of a rock band, releasing his book, “What Price Liberty?,” as a pay-what-you-like e-book.

For six weeks, Wilson will offer the book on a website where readers can pay as much or as little as they like for the book. Following that introductory period, the book will retail for £14.99, the Guardian reports. In 2007, Radiohead declared success after a similar experiment after 38 percent of their fans paid an average price of £2.90 for the pay-what-you-like download of “In Rainbows”–topping the record charts when the physical copy of the album was sold at regular prices in stores.

Here’s more from Wilson’s interview: “On a personal level, it could be quite shocking … or it could be quite gratifying. Writers don’t usually have that sense of immediacy, that sense of what people are paying for their work.” (Via Edward Champion)

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