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Old 08-28-2012, 10:55 AM   #1
poohbear_nc
Bah! Humbug!
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What Price Quality?

There have been quite a few threads touting and condemning Delphi Classics (http://delphiclassics.com/shop/) , an online publisher of "Complete" editions of PD authors - notable for their inclusiveness and their low pricing (typically $2 - $4 per volume). On the one hand, the volumes contain a tremendous amount of material - in addition to the author's works, they contain illustrations, contemporary reviews, biographies, etc. On the other hand, they are not perfect - they do contain scanning/OCR errors and format irregularities - that can be quite annoying whilst reading.

But - if you are irritated enough, or care enough about quality, Delphi welcomes error reports and issues free updates with corrected texts. Some members applaud this, while others condemn it as selling a knowingly defective book and expecting readers to do the work for them.

Well, compare this with Library of America, which has recently launched a couple of ebook editions. They state:

Quote:
The Library of America’s goal is to insure that its e-books are as authoritative and reliable as the print versions. To insure quality control, the entire text of each title will receive at least one round (and often several rounds) of additional proofreading to catch any formatting and typographic glitches that are unique to the e-book conversion process.
Wonderful you say! This is exactly what a publisher of ebooks should be doing!

But - look at what they are charging for these ebooks: $17.99 for one volume of Ambrose Bierce! (http://www.amazon.com/Ambrose-Bierce...libraryofamerA)
Other volumes are priced $15 - $20/each - for individual volumes of a multi-part edition.

How much are you willing to pay for proofread editions of ebooks? Are clean editions of PD authors worth $20? $2?

FWIW - I greatly admire LoA's print editions (despite the eye-numbing small font sizes) - but I cannot see myself shelling out well over $100 to acquire the complete set of works by Henry James. I paid $2.99 for the Delphi edition, and have brought errors to their attention - which have been (and will be) cheerfully corrected in their free updates.
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