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Originally Posted by Mare of Earth
Interesting set of numbers you have there. Thank you for posting the information!
Another aspect of the ebook vs. pbook industry - what is the cost difference between physically printing and shipping out a book vs. formatting and hosting webspace with merchant accounts for an ebook?
Mare
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The cost of hosting an ebook on a server is relatively cheap and is largely independent of the number of books you host. Formatting the book, well, that should more or less be the same as it is for the paper book.
Ultimately, there are ridiculous amounts of waste in the paper book industry. Print runs are often much higher than expected sales (Since the more shelf space they can occupy with the book, the more likely they are to sell copies), books get shipped to the store and back to the publisher (and if the publisher needs more copies later, back to the store again) and then are sold to book stores as remaindered stock. The book keeping must be a night mare (Since money changes hands at each transaction).
Honestly, I don't know of another industry where waste is so casually accepted. Frankly, I am surprised Greenpeace and the Sierra Club have not focused in on them for the needless destruction of trees to print paper that will never be read from.
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Bill