Quote:
Originally Posted by Sleepy
what concerns me more is this- if I own the book, I have to but it again (in the e form), is any manufacturer considering some kind of deal to entice higher ed types into the market by giving free or reduced-cost e-copies of books already owned. Especially since they are primarily for scholarly use.
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I wouldn't expect many breaks from publishers for that. Academia is probably the largest consumer of scholarly works. If publishers cut a deal to academics, that would be like giving a big price break to your largest customer demographic. Probably not so great for the bottom line.
There might be publisher-incentive to get people to "upgrade" books they already own to e-versions, but given the difficulties in verifying that sort of thing, I doubt we'll see it happen anytime soon.
From what I can see so far (which isn't a lot, I'll grant), it looks like if your field has been graced by an e-book prolific publisher, you're pretty much on your own. O'Reilly seems to be doing a great job with computer book availability, and I'm sure there are some others.. I'm curious what the journal scene is like. I had to buy some business case studies last year, and they were available in PDF only, but I wonder how other publishers are handling it.