Quote:
Originally Posted by underscore
I don't get why out-of-print books are usually not republished at least in an electronic format.
No space, no business risk, very few work for the publishing company who own the rights, and the occasional money from me if i want to read a novel just published on that may 1958 number of Astounding which i don't find in ebay...
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Because the overwhelming majority of books published prior to 20 or so years ago don't exist in any digital format. It costs a considerable amount of money for a publisher to digitise a book; money which they won't spend unless there's a reasonable expectation of a return on their investment.
Added to which there's the very real issue of the fact that they may very well not have publishing rights for an ebook.
We are, though, in a pretty good position compared to where we were 10 or even 5 years ago. The major (and minor) publishers are steadily churning out their back catalogues in ebook format. I've bought a lot of "old" books in the last few years that have newly appeared as ebooks.