Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
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.
______
Dennis
|
Based on what I was told about the production costs on my E-reads titles, some of which were created by the above method, it probably costs $500-$1000 to do the scanning, the OCR, the proofing and correcting, the markup, the cover, and all the other ancillary costs to produce an ebook for professional distribution. (Depending on the length of the book and probably other factors.)
Now consider what Dennis said about considering whether they'll make a profit. This assumes the publisher has the ebook rights to begin with. I got personally involved in the creation of my own backlist ebooks. Many writers don't have the interest, the knowledge, or the time. I think that's changing.