Frustration with Geographic Restrictions and E-Book stores in general

[Blue Tyson]

Kali,

We've also seen people in the publishing industry throw more than a few fits when people download stuff even when they can't actually buy it, too. ;-)

[drplokta]

The only fix for this problem is a change in the law, but luckily it's an easy change in the law. Regional rights for a book must mean the right to sell the book from a server located in the region, not to a customer located in the region, the same as it is for paper books. Problem solved.

[Nakor]

Think of the chain effects of that.

International licences will lose a lot of their value if the international publishers cannot get exclusive rights to publish ebooks in their region. For that matter it means local publishers can't either -- the only way to get exclusive local rights to publish the ebook at all would be to get worldwide exclusive rights for publishing the ebook. One of two things happens:

1) The local publisher signs for those exclusive worldwide ebook rights in addition to exclusive local physical distribution, but as they don't really have the expertise to advertise internationally, refuse to pay more (or much more) than they would have for local exclusive rights. (After all, their primary interest is physical sales -- they're not going to up their price for the tiny percentage of sales international ebook sales would accrue.) Because international publishers can now not get ebook rights at all, they may not be willing to pay as much.

2) The local publisher does not get exclusive ebook rights worldwide. As they are now losing the exclusivity that they had on local ebooks (because an international publisher who also gets ebook rights can distribute in their region), their price drops.

That's a rather loose explaination, but that's where the problem lies. I'm sure there's a solution somewhere, but I'm also sure I don't know it.

[fastesthamster]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

• Because the cost is not zero. It can cost quite a bit of money to convert a book into epub, mobi or other formats.

[CITATION NEEDED]

I think that's bull.

[K-Thom]

International licences will lose a lot of their value if the international publishers cannot get exclusive rights to publish ebooks in their region.

Thats fine with me as long as we are talking about a localized language conversion. But there is no reason why I as a German reader am not allowed to buy an English edition from a US-publisher.

The German publisher won't lose any sales simply because he doesn't offer the English eBook version. Neither the printed one, btw.

I think that's bull.

If you're referring to the costs of converting books into eBooks: I've earned money that way. I've paid money that way. That means it does indeed cause some costs.

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I've noticed that lots of MR readers throw a fit when a publisher does something they don't think fits the contract such as proclaim they hold ebook rights when it wasn't specified in the contract -- but then turn right around and blast publishers for actually abiding by the contracts, by not violating the stipulations to sell outside their region. Go figure....

It's fair to say that they are being reasonable in abiding by their contracts, but I think that there is a reasonable frustration in the fact that I can buy a pbook from Amazon.com and import it easily, but not an ebook. I don't mind paying the VAT. The problem is the different definition of the point of sale for p- and e-books.

The key fact that the industry hasn't got its head around is that geography doesn't map well to the internet - it's web is world-wide, not local. So a deal to publish an e-book in, say, the UK only doesn't make a lot of sense.

In the meantime, they could at least allow a sale to happen local to the vendor which is then shipped, with duty.

[fastesthamster]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

If you're referring to the costs of converting books into eBooks: I've earned money that way. I've paid money that way. That means it does indeed cause some costs.

Nope, converting one digital format to another.

If someone's paying you to convert one format to another, well.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

No they don't, but they're not really meant to benefit consumers.

Right, it's the same thing that region coding on DVD's and DRM and the like are for. It's to give the corporation power over everyone, author, artist and customer alike. They want to tell *YOU* what you will do, think, buy, say, etc. Trust me, I run into this all the time in the tech world. Concern for the customer has pretty much gone out the window, and it's totally reached a point where it's for the corporation by the corporation, and nothing else.

[K-Thom]

Nope, converting one digital format to another.

If someone's paying you to convert one format to another, well.

Not for converting one format to another. But for convertig the basic file into different "convertible" files.

Basic files are in DOC (if I'm lucky). They will be converted via RTF to HTML (and no, you don't never ever use Word to "save as" HTML!), which is done with an old version of Arachnophilia.

The source code HTML file will be checked, formatted and revised thoroughly in Dreamweaver, which may take some time. Then this file is formatted for the EPUB version. That file then is altered to fit the MOBI/Kindle version.

The DOC file then gets some formatting to be converted to PDF.

It's not the conversion itself people pay you for. It's for the work of creating files which can be converted to fit the publishers' needs.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

Thats fine with me as long as we are talking about a localized language conversion. But there is no reason why I as a German reader am not allowed to buy an English edition from a US-publisher.

The German publisher won't lose any sales simply because he doesn't offer the English eBook version. Neither the printed one, btw.

That is what I have been saying. But they would have to rework all their contracts. My guess is that will be the first step toward more openess. For a country like Taiwan where I live it makes even less sense, for most books there is no version in any language available. Only major best sellers get translated into Chinese. And unlike Europe, taxes would not be a problem either. Most US sellers would probably shy away from "officially" selling to EU customers because then they would be asked to set up a system for collecting and forwarding the 19% VAT. The way it happens now they can pretend they don't know it if someone slips through the cracks.

[the_callant]

The whole structure appears to derived from bricks and mortar bookstores. It doesn't mean it is the best model for ebooks. Perhaps, the ebook rights should be awarded globally by language and / or format.
As for taxation, this is an issue which is not unique to ebooks, and governments are either looking at this, or, have some scheme already in place to handle it. I notice that if I buy downloadable software, some form of tax is usually added to the final price.
The whole matter revolves around a marketing structure and model that doesn't fit the way the world is now.

[Direct Ebooks]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

Not for converting one format to another. But for convertig the basic file into different "convertible" files.

Basic files are in DOC (if I'm lucky). They will be converted via RTF to HTML (and no, you don't never ever use Word to "save as" HTML!), which is done with an old version of Arachnophilia.

The source code HTML file will be checked, formatted and revised thoroughly in Dreamweaver, which may take some time. Then this file is formatted for the EPUB version. That file then is altered to fit the MOBI/Kindle version.

The DOC file then gets some formatting to be converted to PDF.

It's not the conversion itself people pay you for. It's for the work of creating files which can be converted to fit the publishers' needs.

We usually get the file in pdf and have to go back to xml. its also true to say that it could be done in house but results are generally much better when outsourced to quality partners or indivduals.
There certainly is cost associated, boith in time, effort and money.

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by Direct Ebooks

We usually get the file in pdf and have to go back to xml. its also true to say that it could be done in house but results are generally much better when outsourced to quality partners or indivduals.
There certainly is cost associated, boith in time, effort and money.

Then the publishing world is way behind the times. In academic journal publishing, they have been asking for electronic copies (not pdfs) for journal articles and figures, tables, etc, for more than than the last 15 years.

So I do not believe that there are no existing electronic formats for most books published over that time period. I also do not believe that that much work is required to reformat them (yes! you can actually do a save to html from Word and then run Tidy in clean mode to fix the majority of the html issues created by Word). Yes there are other programs that will read in Word files and output html.

Even if that cost is $800 per book (one full person day fully costed at $100/hr) it is insignificant when split over the number of units sold.

I would guess that many authors, would also be very very happy to convert their out of print work to ebook formats themselves if they could be promised space on the server and a reasonable split of the take.

It is funny how all publishers want to talk price and not cost, isn't it.

[fastesthamster]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Then the publishing world is way behind the times. In academic journal publishing, they have been asking for electronic copies (not pdfs) for journal articles and figures, tables, etc, for more than than the last 15 years.

So I do not believe that there are no existing electronic formats for most books published over that time period. I also do not believe that that much work is required to reformat them (yes! you can actually do a save to html from Word and then run Tidy in clean mode to fix the majority of the html issues created by Word). Yes there are other programs that will read in Word files and output html.

Even if that cost is $800 per book (one full person day fully costed at $100/hr) it is insignificant when split over the number of units sold.

I would guess that many authors, would also be very very happy to convert their out of print work to ebook formats themselves if they could be promised space on the server and a reasonable split of the take.

It is funny how all publishers want to talk price and not cost, isn't it.

Exactly. Let's talk about the large publishing houses for a moment. They will have typeset everything for the print edition. They could then have a program that converts their inhouse format to mobi, epub, whatever. This would have to be set up once. After that, the marginal cost is zero.

[K-Thom]

Then the publishing world is way behind the times.

It is. It definitely is ...

So I do not believe that there are no existing electronic formats for most books published over that time period.

Sure, PDF optimized for print, which is the least favorite format you'd use to create an ePub or Kindle eBook. You won't believe how many publishers (or authors) simply deleted any DOC or RTF after the PDF was created. So silly ...

Yes there are other programs that will read in Word files and output html.

Sure, there are. But it is still your craft and your very own two eyes which get the job done. Never rely on software when you can do better yourself.

Even if that cost is $800 per book (one full person day fully costed at $100/hr) it is insignificant when split over the number of units sold.

Definitely right. But still $800 (in your example). Quite some money for small press publishers if they want to offer their whole product line. Not for the big companies, agreed.