[Hitch]

Hi, all:

There's a lot I'd love to reply to in this thread, but we're at "that time of year," and I'm so slammed I don't have time to breathe, much less write long posts. We had another 40 books walk in the door today, that have to be done by the 20th...and on top of what's already here, all having arrived even later than usual this year, that's really pushing our buttons.

@Tex:

I would never accept someone else's INDD file, and I don't know anyone, you excepted, it seems, who will. If I'm getting an INDD file from another designer, it means that s/he doesn't know how to make an ePUB from it, which means that 5 hours in, we're still going to be trying to figure out what "char-override 66" means, in the CSS. Moreover, we almost never do get all the INDD files when we do get a submission; the images are missing, the fonts are missing, you name it. It's always a mess, and it's always a file that's laid out in ways that aren't supported in ebooks. I simply gave up and won't take them any longer. Believe it or not, it's FASTER for us to OCR it with Abbyy and export it using our custom clips, than it is to slum through 60, 70, 100 "character override styles" and figure out what the designer MEANT to say. Not to mention, regexing everything into submission. Pah on that.

Wordperfect? Sure. Fine. But still, the point is, like the old joke, you can't get there from here. Even with MathML, you can't output the content (the equations) in any textual way that can be supported. Back to images, and thence we are no forrader, as they say.

Nobody in India is getting $0.50-$5.00 page for a scanned book. Not for the scanning. They'll get closer to $0.50 for the completed book, per page. That's in ePUB and MOBI formats, both. That pricing includes the scanning (if needed), OCR, A/B compare, html output, ePUB creation, MOBI creation. It can get up to $1/page, but generally, that's where it tops out, and the Indians are now being underpriced by the Chinese, FWIW.

With regard to "PDF's" and how great they are: sure, on a massive tablet like the iPad, they're great, although I find trying to page through them really annoying no matter what reader I'm using. However, they are anything but great on smaller tablets, even the larger Kindle tablets or the Mini-Pad. Then, they suck, because you are constantly pinch-zooming them and trying to read them and scrolling around, etc. So, it's different horses for different courses. Believe me, we do a LOT of technical work (we did an 1800 page Medical Textbook that I often discuss with a lot of cursewords), and I'd be the first to agree that some things should stay in a print-layout, to facilitate perfect vertical and horizontal alignment. Unfortunately, or fortunately, take your pick, many people, like you, want their books portable. The only sellers for PDF are basically small bookstores online, Smashwords (and you can't even sell your original PDF there, mind you--it's a Calibre-conversion-created PDF), and your own websites. As many people who've sold from their own website will tell you, unless you're O'Reilly, that dog doesn't hunt.

And speaking thereof: yeah, he offers multi-book format packages, and I don't think I know a soul who's bought one. Not a single person. They cost the earth.

I'm not opposed to using PDF's for technical books; I'm really not. And I turn business away all the time that walks in the door with a big, technical book that I do not think will convert well. Ditto some cookbooks, kids' books, etc. But that market's appetite is whetted for portable books that can be sold on larger retailers, like Amazon. As long as Amazon, B&N and iBooks won't sell PDF's, I just don't see that working, from a commercial standpoint.

And, lastly, making a print-layout PDF isn't a finger-snap. Even for plain fiction, it takes time to do correctly. Doing a full-bore, print layout for a highly technical book will cost a LOT of money, and the publisher has to feel that the result of that expenditure will be worth it. The average print layout house that will take that type of work (we don't, not for print), starts pricing at ~$5/page, (250 words) and then goes UP from there, adding for each element (each formulae, each equation), every blockquote, each pullquote, etc. When you start talking about 300 page texts, it can really add up. Hell, even Createspace, which is subsidized by Amazon and which can run at a loss, charges $679 to start a book with a "custom complex interior" and then adds $25/pop for each "table or chart." Start doing that math, add the cost of creating QUALITY ebooks on top of that, versus sales price, and royalty...and there you go. You're talking thousands in print layout costs--without even starting on the ebook versions. Publishing is a business, and the numbers have to make sense to the publishers.

That's all I have time for...I know I had a bunch of other things, but...like the Rabbit in AoW, I gotta go.

Hitch