Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Actually, now that I come to give the matter more thought, are you sure that 1dollarscan really would give you a scan of someone else's book, DarkScribe? Many people make marginal notes in their books; wouldn't you expect to get your scanned copy back complete with your notes, not (perhaps) someone else's?
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The OCR software will only transcribe printed text. For that low cost they couldn't possibly also proofread the book. Yes I am sure. I have got back the same book but in slightly different editions. I sent some John D. MacDonald '60s editions and got back '70s imprints of the same volumes. I doubt that they would distribute any copy unless they had received an original. It is little different to me scanning something for someone and providing them with the resulting OCR file. No law against it.
The machine they use is quite impressive. Very fast and very accurate OCR recognition. They slice the spine and a small amount of the pages off the book and feed it through an auto-feed scanner. I Have seen a video of them when they first started out. Not sure if it is on youtube or not - I had a quick look but couldn't find it. The one I saw was attached to an online news article. I was quite amazed at first, but then I worked out how they were doing it. Not scanning any edition more than once.
You need to form a club/co-op to get volume pricing (keeping it around the dollar). It is a slow process to ship, as books are heavy and if you don't want to pay a premium, you need to select a slow shipping method. Not exactly an overnight express deal.