Quote:
Originally Posted by jbjb
I don't believe I underestimate anything - I have some experience in this field. I'm just talking about simple competence in data management - the sort of thing every business has to come to terms with if it wants to survive. I'll bet the finance and accountancy departments of these same publishers have more control over their data than was described by DaleDe! (They'd better, otherwise they're in some trouble).
/JB
|
I think you do underestimate. My own publisher only just started keeping pdf archive files of their own books (like in the last couple of years), and they have no usable digital version of earlier books. I know because I tried to get them. As for their financial departments, or at least their royalty departments--they're not setting any records for sharp business practices, either. (And this is a publisher that in many ways is on the cutting edge.)
People have already said this, but I want to emphasize that it's true. Most ms. files submitted by the author are never updated with final copy edits or proofreading changes. Many books are still typeset by keyboarding, rather than by converting the ms. file. (I don't know why, but it may be because of the first part--they may find it easier to type fresh than to enter changes, deal with erratic styles and formatting code in the author's ms., etc.) I know that when I correct galleys of my books, I often find typos that are not in the original file.
Understand: copy editing and proofreading are not done on computer files. They are done on paper--yes, with red pencil, or sometimes blue pencil, or even black pencil. And those corrections go back to be entered by the typesetter.
So...unless the author enters all the final changes, which is many hours of unpaid work, there really is no clean source file for an ebook. Except the PDF or the typesetter's files, neither of which is a very good source for the ebook.
Could that change? Sure. But institutional change comes slowly, costs money, probably calls for new typesetting software, and requires changing people's habits. That last may be the biggest hurdle.
As for someone's remark that costs for editing the paper book should not be carried over into the ebook, that just doesn't make sense. Of course costs for preparing the content should be amortized over all editions. Why should the ebook get a free ride? (Maybe someday, when ebooks are the standard, someone will say that the paper version shouldn't bear any of the cost for editing a book first issued as an ebook. That will be just as unreasonable.)
I suspect that most publishers figure an ebook of a hardcover should cost in the same price range as the hardcover because they don't want to undercut hardcover sales. Similarly with a paperback. I also suspect that this general thinking is erratically executed in practice, which is one reason we see such wonky ebook pricing. I'm not defending this; I'm just guessing that this is what is going on in practice.
Personally, I'd love to see all ebooks priced the way Baen does it--cheap, to sell more copies. But in the meantime, I think it's more useful to try to understand the problems than it is to demonize the publishers.