Quote:
Originally Posted by nguirado
I looked for an electronic copy of World Without Men. Had to buy a used copy. I wonder why publishers don't do this. Scanning can't be that expensive.
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Depends. There is an expense. You need more than just scanning, as
no OCR software is perfect. A human being has to proofread the scanned material to catch errors. And after you have clean copy, someone needs to do the markup to create a decent ebook edition.
How likely a publisher is to do this will depend on the title. The basic question is "If we do this, will enough people buy it to cover the costs and make us some money?" If they think there's a big enough market, they may decide to. But if they do it at all, you can expect first priority to go to titles that they
know are popular because they have been consistent back list sellers. For something like "World Without Men" (I think you are talking about the old Charles Eric Maine title?) I suspect they don't see a market.
I expect this to ease in coming years. Ebooks are now an important enough factor in the marketplace that some publishers are digitizing their back catalog. More may follow.
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Dennis