Quote:
Originally Posted by Calenorn
I can't understand why companies like Amazon and B&N allow poorly executed self-published e-books to be sold on their sites. Many titles are public domain works offered for free. I don't see how anyone makes any money off those, and if they are giving the company a reputation for selling poor quality products that's bad news for the vendor. The whole thing seems like it's completely out of control.  |
Amazon and B&N offer free public domain books for the same reasons that casinos give out free drinks: to keep you from going elsewhere. They could decline to carry free public domain books, but the result of that is that people would go to other sources for books, and the more they do that, the more likely that they will continue to get books from other sources.
By offering free public domain books, they keep you within their store, and the more you are in their store, the more likely you are to spend money there.
Offering a vast range of books, which may or may not be good, certainly hasn't harmed Amazon. Perhaps there is a market for an e-bookstore where the books are vetted, but choice seems to have won out.