Quote:
Originally Posted by Seli
You might be partly right, but I doubt it is as simple as that.
People are demanding not only all new books coming out as ebooks, but also the complete back-catalogue. In both cases currently the market is still relatively small, keep in mind we are still early adaptors and ebooks are still a luxury product even compared to normal books.
The publishers need to convert an immense amount of works to ebook-format. Which might be easy, but especially for older works needs quite some effort - scanning, OCR, editing (although evidence suggests this is too often skipped  ), formatting etc..
This all is an investment, which needs to be recovered. As far as I know publishers don't usually swim in money, and borrowing it in the current market might be a bit expensive as well. So it to me makes some sense that the publishers want to regain their investments in an as short as possible time to be able to keep on putting out books. If the publishers in their current form have a future is a different question, but I think they have some added value in the process of creating books I want to read. |
I accept those good points Seli. I cannot help but wonder however if there really is this demand for the whole catalogue.
Even if there were, and you may be right, it would still appear to me that these publishers are keeping their head in the sand looking for immediate coverage of such an investment when they should know full well that ebooks are not a whim or a fancy. They are the future.