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Originally Posted by RDaneel54
Are they idiots?
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No, just run by the bean-counters rather than people who got into publishing because they wanted to, and worked their way up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RDaneel54
I'm not thrilled with the amount of editing and proofing errors in the big six e-books. I know the reasons, I just can't imagine why anyone would deliberately sell crap and think customers will keep flocking to their doors.
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The only
real reason for this is that the bean-counters can get a non-native speaker (or a computer programmer) to 'edit/proofread' for far less than a native speaker. They know nothing about editing or proofreading, and care less - all that matters is that it looks good on the balance sheet. The one good thing about this situation is that most readers (who once would probably have given little thought to this) now see how vital editing and proofreading are, and how annoying the lack of them can be. It's something I'm noticing more and more of in Amazon reviews (and not for self-published books either!), basically boiling down to 'great book, but it needed an editor'.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BWinmill
M Even though their needs are different, they are working under the same laws and university libraries have been dealing with electronic books and periodicals on a large scale for a much longer time. Some of the problems that public libraries are facing now sound very similar to the problems that university libraries were facing 15 years ago.
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You're quite right. Academic journals have been available for years as online-only versions, through the publishers, the university libraries, and even mainstream libraries. I'm not entirely sure why it seems to be so difficult to use the same model (and indeed software) for fiction books.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dkperez
And, (I have no idea whether it's Overdrive or publishers doing) the prices for ebooks is significantly HIGHER than the library pays for hard cover books.
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I doubt it's the publishers; again, referring to the already established model for journals, there's usually at least a 10% discount for anyone choosing to take an e-version only, even though these are also produced as print versions.