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Old 06-11-2013, 01:18 PM   #37
RHWright
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Posts: 219
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Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: North Carolina
Device: NOOK ST, Nexus 7
I think it's less a question of would you pay extra for an (essentially) error-free copy and more would you pay a premium for a publisher's works that you knew were a good, well-edited product? In other words, how much value do you place on that factor?

Admittedly, I find few errors in the books I buy, a professionally published ebook should be free of most obvious errors, and it's tough to single out the well-edited factor in isolation from other purchasing factors (author, genre, title, etc.)

So look it like this: You could get most PD works for free. Say, Tale of Two Cities, for example. What would you pay for a not-free copy of that to a publisher you knew did a good clean edit on that and (maybe) threw in some explanatory notes and other material?

If I'm willing to pay a few dollars for that, does it not then make sense that for a non-PD backlist title I might be willing to pay slightly more for a publisher to do a better copyediting job on it?

Wanting older books super cheap (and, yes, I consider anything less than $5 "super cheap") is fine, but it means that publishers have to look at the economies of doing so. That often means poor OCR and outsourced copyediting that is (sometimes) of lower quality. But if it means paying $7.99 - $9.99 for a back list title that is well edited, I don't have many problems with that.

I question backlist titles that are $12.99 or more (I'm looking at you, Dune), but that seems more like a greedy publisher taking advantage of fans.
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