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Oh! First off - please understand that we, as a company, are devoted to moving writing and reading forward in general.
So some books we would do would be print-only. Others would be electronic-only. We have published a book that I think I'd rather not personally repeat in terms of what we went through to make the da*m* thing. It's "everything" all in one volume.
I think for the purposes of saving trees and a lot of other reasons, having more flexibility in electronic texts would be fantastic. Our technology is definitely out of sync with various forms of communication/learning. I think the Kindle is absolutely a big, very important platform, and it could be a lot bigger. I know I sound sometimes as though I am "at war with Amazon" and maybe I am. The war started this spring when I entered the world of attempting to put a non-traditional (i.e. not text-only) book for sale via Kindle.
Hello.
And it's not "my problem." It's not traditional publishers' "problem." It's READERS' problem.
Right now, the Kindle is like a giant mass market paperback from "back in the day." Those small paperbacks evolved as light entertainment, able to be produced and sold very cheaply. Well right now, the cost is basically zero to Amazon for unlimited "content" but the content is worth for the most part - less than those little 25 cent trade paperbacks or "dime novels" back in the day.
That is NOT books. Books are so far from dead - if they were dead, there wouldn't be courses in "how to read a book a day" or overviews of the books read by rich entrepreneurs or those millions of texts sold.
So that is where I'm coming from. Thank you for being courteous, helpful and generous with your time and efforts, experts.
The "History of the Space" program book was very impressive and very good. I hope the author is doing great with it. It could have benefited from a pro editor, though. It was a little "heavy" in some ways/light in others. This is where a team comes in - this is the big problem with "write it yourself, pay a stranger to edit it, pay some other stranger to do a cover, slap it down and sell it and on to the next." Even for those light entertainment books.
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