Readers pay by the page.

• Author: Swartz, Nikki
• Position: UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis

Amazon.com customers can now purchase books by the page. With its new "Amazon Pages" service, Amazon lets customers buy portions of a book for online viewing. A second program, "Amazon Upgrade," will offer full online access when a traditional text is purchased.

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According to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the cost for most books would be a few cents per page for Amazon Pages, although readers would likely be charged more for specialized reference works. Under Amazon Upgrade, anybody purchasing a paper book could also look at the entire text online, at any time, for a "small" additional charge, he said. For instance, a $20 book might cost an extra $1.99.

Bezos said copyright holders would decide whether the pages could be printed or downloaded.

The Associated Press reports that, unlike Google's book-scanning plan, which has angered publishers, the Amazon plan has received praise from the same group.

"The Amazon programs are the way copyright is supposed to work," said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, which has sued Google. "You provide access to readers and some compensation flows back to rights holders. It seems like a positive development."

Several book publishers voiced their support of Amazon Pages...