MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Frustration with Geographic Restrictions and E-Book stores in general

KevinH · 03-05-2010, 04:14 PM

Hi,

I guess you an I will just have to agree to disagree.

Converting books is simply not that hard. The bulk of the process can be automated. Epub is nothing more than html 4/xhtml, and mobi is nothing much more than html 3.2 with a couple of specific mobi tags. Converting books from almost any electronic format to something xhtml based is simply not that hard. As worst, a custom script (python or perl) can be written and used. I have done it many times and ended up with better formatted books than the originals.

So we are not talking about millions of dollars ... and we are talking about something that many authors would do themselves given the right incentive structures.

Also it is not international law, it is contract law we are talking about. Sales taxes and things like that are only an issue if you have operations in that country. Individuals can already file tax forms for sales tax on things they buy overseas (or they are supposed to!)

Your "economics" are again all based on purchasing from upstream supply chain partners and your margins on top of what you pay and again are not reflecting the changes that a new selling model would bring. So I disagree completely with your 15% margin and your "economics" model because it is based on assumptions that all other costs and therefore your basis remains the same.

Assuming you can not get an e-book in some country, then another international seller could easily go directly to the authors in question for their back catalogs and could bring them to market and not "wait" for the old school publishers to see the light.

I think you are defending an old model that even current publishers know is going away but their admitted plan is to make it rough enough and slow enough so that their operations and book stores do not suffer.

This is a bad strategic decision. They should in fact cannibalize their own sales to be the first to move to the model and then take advantage of being first.

So my guess is we will continue to disagree on most of this.

Oh well, what fun would the world be if everybody agreed on everything!!

03-05-2010, 04:14 PM	#38
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 7,645 Karma: 5433388 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	Hi, I guess you an I will just have to agree to disagree. Converting books is simply not that hard. The bulk of the process can be automated. Epub is nothing more than html 4/xhtml, and mobi is nothing much more than html 3.2 with a couple of specific mobi tags. Converting books from almost any electronic format to something xhtml based is simply not that hard. As worst, a custom script (python or perl) can be written and used. I have done it many times and ended up with better formatted books than the originals. So we are not talking about millions of dollars ... and we are talking about something that many authors would do themselves given the right incentive structures. Also it is not international law, it is contract law we are talking about. Sales taxes and things like that are only an issue if you have operations in that country. Individuals can already file tax forms for sales tax on things they buy overseas (or they are supposed to!) Your "economics" are again all based on purchasing from upstream supply chain partners and your margins on top of what you pay and again are not reflecting the changes that a new selling model would bring. So I disagree completely with your 15% margin and your "economics" model because it is based on assumptions that all other costs and therefore your basis remains the same. Assuming you can not get an e-book in some country, then another international seller could easily go directly to the authors in question for their back catalogs and could bring them to market and not "wait" for the old school publishers to see the light. I think you are defending an old model that even current publishers know is going away but their admitted plan is to make it rough enough and slow enough so that their operations and book stores do not suffer. This is a bad strategic decision. They should in fact cannibalize their own sales to be the first to move to the model and then take advantage of being first. So my guess is we will continue to disagree on most of this. Oh well, what fun would the world be if everybody agreed on everything!!