Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
How is one to measure whether they have adapted well?
|
I can think of three ways:
- Tapping into a parallel universe to see how things could have and did go differently. The optimum solution, if you (rhet.) happen to be G-d or some other entity with the power to perform the flat-out impossible.
- Glancing in the general direction of their (in)competence and deriving a "conclusion". This does depend on you (rhet.) having a modicum of common sense.
- Making an inaccurate comparison to the closest thing that bears a surface resemblance to them. Predictably enough, this is the option you chose.
Quote:
|
In my view, the most important measure is artistic. Are the books they are publishing as good as the ones in the past? I say yes. Of course, judgments here are utterly subjective. I do realize that the number of misprints in a book is objective, but it is utterly subjective how significant that is compared to quality of research and writing.
|
Did you legitimately believe by "adapting" I was referring to their ability to upload a properly proofed ebook
created from the same electronic source as the pbook??? I see we have bigger problems than I first thought.
Given that you seem to have
started off in Wonderland, I am not going to touch this with a standardized ten-foot barge pole.
Quote:
The less important, to me, measure is financial results. Book publishing is doing tremendously better there than what I think is the clearest point of comparison, newspapers. For example:
Penguin Random House Posts Record Profit for 2015
Why is it that book publishers are doing better than newspaper publishers? Maybe it's because of what Scarpad is complaining about!
|
And here we go with the inaccurate comparisons.
For the record, just because newspaper publishers are adapting even worse than book publishers, does not mean book publishers are adapting well.
Also, nice clickbait article headline there, pity the actual article itself has to spoil everything by talking about the whole "merger" thing -- and in fact specifically crediting that as the sole reason why PRH alone managed to come out ahead.
I would like to further note that your own article is consistent with the commonly held wisdom that book publishers are seeing declining ebook sales (and surely the One True Measure of successful adaptation is whether they succeed or fail at penetrating the new market -- ebooks).