Take a pix of your books and get free e-books?
After years of reading and posting rants about DRM and format shifting Pete and Marius (bitlit.com’s founders) decided to do something about it… They built an app that let’s you get the eBook for free or at a huge discount if you own the paper copy. The app is called BitLit and it’s available for free on Android and iOS. They’ve made deals with over 200 publishers including O’Reilly and Packt, and there are over 30,000 titles that are eligible for free / discounted ebooks if you own the paperback. Here’s how it works: First you take a shelfie (yes, a picture of your shelf) and the app will identify all the books on your shelf — hurrah now you have a complete inventory of your library! But, you’ll also get a shortlist of any books you own that are eligible for free/cheap bundled eBooks. To claim a bundled eBook you just need to write your name onto the copyright page of the book and snap a photo using the app… a few seconds later you should get an email with a download link to the eBook in ePub, PDF, and mobi formats.
via User Friendly.
Should I do this? I’m gonna bet that basically none of my books qualify. Plus there are I’d guess about 70 shelves, each of which would have to be photographed in two parts. Plus some of the books are double-shelved, so you’d see only the outer row…but as those tend to be the cheap novels, they’re probably the ones most likely to have an e-copy (as opposed to the academic books). Plus I am suspicious of the “free/cheap” line — will this mostly be a way to market to me?
No, great idea, but until there are more the books available in the scheme I’m not sure I’ll bother.
Well, maybe one test shelf, just to see…
