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Originally Posted by William Moates
't replace my New York Times with the Weekly World News.
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At least the journalistic integrity would only take a small hit.
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Something missing in all that "new costs" list is electricity to run all that equipment. That's got to be a bite. Even spread out over all the books, it's a 24/7 expense, and it never stops adding up.
I tend to agree more with William about the value of Publishers than with rlauzon -- I think they do add (quite a lot of) value, both intext quality, and in being able to have some sort of expectation as a starting place. For example, I read a number of Baen's offerrings, I know what sort of quality that publisher generally turns out, I know what sorts of genre's they carry. When I see a Baen logo on a book, I know that there's a better than average possibility that I might be interested in that book, even if I've never heard of the author. It makes me more likely to take a look at the thing.
There are, of course, other ways to do the same thing, the ranking/reccomender system discussed elsewhere on M.R. for instance, but this is one we have now, and it is a help.
I do think that the present arrangement has concentrated too much control/power into the hands of the Pubs. Baen isn't a good example
here, because they seem to be more enlightened in this regard than other pubs, but just the same. I'd like to see a system that provides the services that Pubs provide, without giving them such a strangle-hold on the industry.
Compared to the readers and the authors, the Pubs are the minority, why should they have most of the power in the equation, even with the value they add? In the paper world, it makes more sense, with the investment needed to publish a book there, but in the e world, the costs aren't significantly different to publish 10 copies than they are for 1000. With a reduction in assumed risk, it seems to me that they should see a reduction in control.