Quote:
Originally Posted by gastan
Typesetting is done by compter so there is no added cost for producing an electronic file. Scanning an existing book and OCR'ing it and editing it can be done cheaply. There are member here that say they can do it in 3-4 hours with less than $1k worth of equipment. Once the file exists, it is ridiculously easy to produce an ebook in any format you desire. Ask any of many people here at MR that produce the e-books in the download forum.
|
Nothing could be further from the truth. Converting a layout into code depends on the layout being coherent and harmonious. Most of the time it looks good, but underneath the hood it's a mess.
No way does it only take 3-4 hours to OCR a book - that's pure fantasy. Even when a previous ebook version exists, converting it to a different format depends on the original being coded correctly - far too often they're a mess of adhoc styles and embedded linebreaks that ignore basic principles of typesetting and need to be refactored.
The simple fact is that a lot of commercial ebooks look like shit purely because publishers want to do it on the cheap.
Lulu's ebook conversion service starts at $99 and goes up to $299 per book for a basic conversion - that's roughly realistic.