[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

Yeah, I'm aware of that, so let me put a better focus on my position.
what puzzles me is that publishers don't say:
[*]Hey an ebooks server-space comsumption is not worth mentioning in comparison to the shelf space competition, thus every reseller can offer the whole actual +backshelf stuff of our authors simultaneously.

It would be nice if it were as simple as that sounds. I know folks with backlist stuff they would like to offer as ebooks, but the books date from before ebooks were even a gleam in anyone's eye, and an electronic manuscript no longer exists. A fair amount of publishing backlist is in that state, and publishers are slowly scanning, OCRing, and converting hardcopy to create the ebook files.

(A good bit of the stuff Amazon releases when they get enough clicks on the "I'd like to read this book in a Kindle edition" fits that category. There is no electronic source file, so a physical book gets sent to Hyderabad, India, when an outsourced operation scans and OCRs it, and the result becomes the Kindle edition. Proofreading and cleanup of inevitable OCR errors and formatting glitches is not done to save costs, so lots of folks complain about the quality...)

[*]No is-a-reprint-worth-it-risk-calculation so later coming/new fans will always be able to get the whole stuff / complete series (even if there will be only 18 new fans per year for a series it's still bigger than none and the series may be damn long.)

This actually leads to an additional complication.

In the old days, before ebooks and print-on-demand, the standard publishing deal was that the publisher bought a set of rights to an edition, and those rights held as long as the book was in print. If the book went out of print, the author could ask that the rights revert, and attempt to resell the book elsewhere. What does "out of print" mean when you have ebooks and print-on-demand? A publisher could potentially hold the rights forever.

Current publishing contracts take this into account, and look at levels of ebook and print on demand sales as well as sales of the original printings. If those numbers drop below a point specified in the contract, the book is considered out of print, as the low numbers are evidence the publisher is no longer actively trying to sell it. The author can ask to have the rights back, and attempt to resell it elsewhere of market it herself.

[*]Now we don't need to fear about paybacks for truckloads of books if book foobar misses absolutely bottomless bad - its just 1 file on the resellers server.

Correct. We don't. For ebooks. We do still need to worry that we guessed right on how many the book would sell, and didn't offer the sun, the moon, and the stars to get a book we thought would be a bestseller and which actually tanked. The record industry phrase "Shipped gold and returned platinum" applies to book publishing as well.

[*]Much more people may order the authors genuine language edition, who haven't bought it before, due to the shipping costs... etc.

Well, maybe. Or at least we hope so. But there are still pesky territorial rights in the way. Certain publishers will purchase the rights to offer the book in their area, and that includes the ebook rights, so you may not be allowed to purchase the native language edition because you don't live in an area where the publisher offering that edition as an ebook has the right to sell it.

ergo:embrace and promote the ebook[/I]"

what I meant ebooks are offering chances which were often too much a risk with paper.
Instead of trying to make the most of the new possibilities they seem trying to fight it.

Oh, I agree. They are turning the traditional model upside down, and everyone is peering into the crystal ball and reading the tea leaves trying to scry the future. The unknown is a scary place, and a lot of folks are doing their best to bury their heads in the sand and not deal with it.

Some won't successfully adapt and go belly up, and I expect to see more consolidation in publishing as it happens.
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Dennis