Quote:
Originally Posted by Ankh
On the cost of the book.
Paperbacks are frequently printed on a very cheap paper, and if readers were that sensitive to the quality, everybody would be buying hardcovers printed on glossy paper.
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1. Cheap paper, unless it is overly translucent, has little to nothing to do with typographic quality. Not unlike the price or quality of the eBook reading device has nothing to do with typographic quality so long as it does not actively hinder it (by a screen too small for reasonable book reading, for example).
2. Glossy paper is the wrong choice for all but a certain subset of books--no matter how much money you have to spend.
3. It is so UTTERLY trivial to create a beautifully typeset book targeted at a specific device (assuming said device has any merit as an eBook reader [i.e.: its display is sufficiently large]). There need not be a cost difference between a quality PDF targeted at an eBook device and an multi-device capable but lower quality ePub. You just need the eBook provider/publisher to give a damn.. and they don't yet.
Probably because the eBook (device using) market is so limited that an unknown publisher can more easily give away more free (non-eBook device) PDFs in 4 months than an eBook device dedicated website can give away their free (eBook device only format) versions of the same book over a year and a half.
- Ahi