View Single Post
Old 06-06-2012, 01:36 PM   #107
Elfwreck
Grand Sorcerer
Elfwreck ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Elfwreck ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Elfwreck ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Elfwreck ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Elfwreck ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Elfwreck ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Elfwreck ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Elfwreck ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Elfwreck ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Elfwreck ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Elfwreck ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Elfwreck's Avatar
 
Posts: 5,187
Karma: 25133758
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA
Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)
Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools View Post
Publishers aren't tech companies. That isn't their job. Its tech companies that "engineer" device platforms (the clue is in the word "engineer?").

The publishers job is to find, develop, and bring to market authors. That's a whole another game from creating ereading devices.
"Bring to market" includes "find what formats the market is interested in buying." They developed audiobooks, first as a niche market for the blind, and later, as tape players became ubiquitous, for the general public.

As soon as ebooks started showing up--mid-70's, project Gutenberg--they should've realized "hey, this is eventually going to be a real market for books," and started planning for it. They might not have been able to predict the Kindle explosion, but before that point, the market had been steadily growing for a decade. Predicting that someday they'd be expected to provide their entire line in e-text was not a big jump.

They don't need to be engineers to realize that people will read books on screens, and start figuring out what kinds of screens will sell which books to which people.

After all, they don't manufacture paper or ink either.
Elfwreck is offline   Reply With Quote