Scribd, the popular site for sharing documents, has launched a store that could eventually grow into a serious competitor to Amazon. There’s a bit of David-and-Goliath to the battle (not that Scribd has to kill Amazon to succeed), but there are reasons to think the smaller site might become a major player: Not only does it already attract 60 million readers a month for its free content, but its accessibility and flexibility could make it a good fit for authors who don’t want to go through a traditional publisher. The most prominent example in Scribd’s beta test is Tamim Ansary, author of West of Kabul, East of New York. Ansary is a New York Times-bestselling author, but Tammy Nam, Scribd’s vice president of content and marketing, says that since his success has been in nonfiction, Ansary’s publisher didn’t want to back his novel. (By the way, I find that anecdote incredibly depressing.) Instead, Ansary is putting the book up on Scribd. And since the company gives 80 percent of the revenue to the seller, he could make a lot more money this way, even if he sells fewer copies overall. Another big launch partner is O’Reilly Media, which is […]