[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

But it can. Niche market books are always more expensive than mainstream ones, and niche market books that the general public can't tell apart from public domain ones are hard to sell.
The average reader (that's me) has limited interest in classics, and no awareness of the differences between translations. (I know there's differences. I don't know what they are, or whose are better, nor do I care, for the most part.)
So offering a specific, modern translation alongside an older, public domain translation generally means the modern one won't sell, and is a waste of bandwidth.

Sure, but my point is that these ebook editions - sometimes - already exist, but then they're still not being stocked. Where there is no supply, and the only classics offered have those terrible "standard ebook" covers, that don't really promise anything enjoyable (people seem to be scared of the word), they won't sell either. (Also, just look at the unattractive, undifferentiated covers..)
The whole point of ebook stores seems to me that storage doesn't cost anything, so why not have stuff that exists already. (perhaps .01c per book)

Ebook readers are still a niche market, one that's dominated by techie geeks. Techie geeks are prone to fantasy/scifi/horror genres. Also, f/sf/h ebooks were being distributed online in text format for years before there were ebook readers, so the market for those genres was known to exist.
While the readers are getting a more mainstream foothold, they're being marketed to the "businessperson on vacation" crowd--again, not strong readers of classical literature.

Sure, but they also don't have - much of a - choice
Anyway, if there is one classic that should be appreciable for a large audience, it's a well-translated version of Don Quixote. Obviously, this book is there already, but it's priced at double the price of most of those scifi/fant etc. books.. Not much of an incentive to buy it.

Originally Posted by Jellby

"Classics" doesn't mean translated, as far as I know... unless you mean old Greek and Roman authors. But if Don Quixote is a classic, then Shakespeare is classic too, and it's not translated (into English).

Yes, but my point is specifically that these modern translations do exist. Just not in electronic form (well, a few of them do, but they're not even the obvious choices, so I don't really see the logic behind it). I Want More!

Originally Posted by Jellby

New translations or editions would be welcome. I'm very suspicious of public-domain works offered for sale at very low prices... I feel most of them are direct conversions of Project Gutenberg versions, with no care with formatting or proofreading.

Probably, but that isn't what interests me, really. It just bothers me that books that have an ebook edition aren't being offered, or only offered at some stores, but not others. That's what I don't get.
The question that interests me is: why is the supply as limited as it is. I will bet you a fortune that, if you had to choose (or read it as an assignment, either for a class or for yourself) you will find you would find, say, Mark Musa's translation of the Divine Comedy a whole lot more readable than, say, H. W. Longfellow's (even if both are probably still fairly hard to get into, because of the enormous number of allusions etc in the work, at least Musa's version offers them).