Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggleton
Would you contribute to the author's collaborator? Those who made the pbook available in ebook form? Some people are at the moment purchasing ebook public domain books when "free" versions are listed as links right next to the paid version. Some think it's a branding issue, people pay for the idea of a high quality Penguin Classic.
There's not much of a need to "steal" from bookstores anymore, and as more books go digital we might not even need bookstores.
I'll try to reformulate this poll because it obviously has issues.
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I really don't see it as a "branding issue." I have something in the neighborhood of eight different editions of
Henry V on my book shelf not because I think that the play itself will somehow be altered depending on whether the cover says Penguin Classics or Cambridge University Press, but because each publication has its own set of annotations and supplemental essays.
As far as paid vs. free: If you're asking "Given the option of two identical books, would you prefer the paid one or the free one?" Yeah, I'll pick the free.
If you're asking "Given the option between a book that someone ran through an optical scanner and never bothered to proofread or a book that has been lovingly formatted with a working table of contents, which would you prefer?" Then I would select the lovingly formatted version regardless of the cost.
If you're asking "Would you be willing to make a voluntary donation for a well-formatted public domain ebook?" I would be more inclined to make a donation after downloading several books for the same reason that I donate to my local public radio station once per year and not immediately after listening to a particularly enjoyable show.
I hope you found this helpful!