People may no longer need to pay for books because advertisers, including Walt Disney Company, IKEA Group, and Heineken Group, will pay for them instead. 

This is not a charitable event but rather a new sales strategy launched a few weeks ago by bookgg.com, a Shanghai-based book selling website. Visitors can order free books by pasting advertisements on different parts of the book samples. The website will then send the print versions with personal advertising designs for free to subscribers, or for the cost of postage for orders outside Shanghai. 

The new strategy help overcome the traditional barriers of market targets, according to Liu Meng, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Shanghai Grand Wisdom Digital Communication Co. Ltd., parent company of bookgg.com. 

The website, accessed by 5,000 registered users on a busy day, has received about 8,000 subscriptions and attracted 40 to 50 advertisers since its establishment last month, Shanghai Morning Post reported on September 6. The website allows a limited quantity of free books to each user because it wants to provide the service to more visitors. 

Although the free book subscription has won favor with readers, publishers are not fully convinced on the propriety of the policy. "It is not easy to practice individual print in the current book market. Without copyright pages, book numbers, and prices, the books may be identified as pirated," the Shanghai Morning Post quoted a female Shanghai publisher surnamed Lin as saying. 

But Liu argued that every book on its website is personally designed, and it is impossible for them to register book numbers for each design. 

Some publishers, however, have expressed their willingness to cooperate. "The business model is not bad and it provides solutions for overstocked books in publishing houses," said Gu Linfan, vice president of Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing Group. "We can work together to legalize the free-book business, though the cooperation has difficulties."

(China.org.cn by Wu Jin, September 6, 2007)