Quote:
Originally Posted by Sirtel
But they can't sell it for the same price they sold it during the author's lifetime. No one would buy a book in the public domain for the price of a newly released copyrighted book.
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They do here. At least the bookshop stocks them. Plenty are available on Project Gutenberg!
What you write is only true if
If it's an ebook
The ebook exists without DRM
The customer wants an ebook (paper still outsells ebooks, but only from the big publishers, Indy POD paper editions are nowhere compared to ebooks).
There are loads of PD books not yet available as ebooks, and some of these are over 100 years since author's death and in print. See Jane Austen, Brontė sisters, Antony Trollop, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, Lewis Carroll, Frank L. Baum, Stoker, Shelly and plenty of others that are sufficiently famous and popular.
Then there are books (in PD) that are rewritten and republished by big publishers such as early Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys.
Even in the 1960s there were publishers making good money repackaging PD and selling at comparable prices to new authors. No royalty payments!
This series was very successful:
https://rushcreekvintage.com/product...t-of-12-c-1963
I think all of those were PD in 1963.
I've actually re-created an extended version of the largest series by adding sequels and related PD titles as an ebook collection for some children in the wider family,