View Single Post
Old 01-18-2009, 05:41 PM   #1
random50
Connoisseur
random50 doesn't litterrandom50 doesn't litter
 
Posts: 81
Karma: 110
Join Date: Jul 2008
Device: None yet
Why are academic publishers so greedy?

I've been watching the number of available kindle books in my area (graduate mathematics) gradually grow. However, the prices are ridiculous. Hard copy books have always been expensive with publishers blaming the high costs of limited number runs (the authors themselves tend to get next to nothing). OK, fair enough, perhaps, although Dover somehow manage to publish at a fraction of the price. But how do they justify *still* charging $100+ for an old book when the production costs to them are essentially zero? It certainly has nothing to do with Kindle formatting since it's painfully apparent they have done *absolutely nothing*, not even flicking through the Kindle version themselves before publishing - in many cases, every other page contains equations which are totally unreadable in every font size.
random50 is offline   Reply With Quote