I just bought my first ebook today, [to wit: Robert Fagles's translation of the Odyssey] and I have to say I'm unimpressed with the number of titles on offer that interest me.
I'm currently working my way through hardcover editions of Dostoevsky's Demons and Gogol's Dead Souls, both translated by Pevear & Volokhonsky and, after looking at the 7 most-mentioned ebook stores, I've come to the conclusion that only 2 of their translations on offer as ebooks at all: War & Peace and Anna Karenina.
Most of their translations (currently in print@Everyman's Library (RandomHouse)) cannot be found at all online, and the price for the two titles that are available is atrocious (19$ for W&P and 17$ for AK).
However, these two titles are pretty much the whole extent of what's on offer by way of non-public domain (i.e., recent) translations of Russian titles that I can find on offer. Similarly for Don Quixote, both the Rutherford and Grossman (recent) translations are sold at the pback RRP, and only at a few of these stores.
Oddly, Fagles' translation of the Aeneïd is really cheap, but his translation of the Odyssey seems to be at the "normal" price, and the Iliad isn't even available in any form. Sophocles's and Euripides's tragedies (Antigone etc. and the Oresteia resp.) are similarly available at some stores, but not most; the list goes on like this.
While there are certainly Public Domain offerings of these titles to be found, for a reasonable fee (although you can obviously format those yourself as well), I would hazard a guess that most people prefer contemporary translations, especially given the trend of the past 20-30 years or so towards being somewhat more faithful to the style of the original work, rather than letting the translator's
voice outweigh the author's, so I would say that there should be more than a bit of interest in these works if they were indeed offered.
So, although I can understand how some stores might want to focus on/specialize in specific genres, I don't really see why they wouldn't want to offer books that are available as ebooks at other stores but not theirs, as, given the current total supply of ebooks available from publishers, diversity is enough of a problem as it is. It can't be that the books are that expensive to stock, so why not offer them?
Does anyone have a clue why the selection of these kinds of titles at most stores is so limited? Is it really that everyone who frequents MR only reads fantasy/scifi/horror/whatever other genre applies, or is this assumed by
evil Them? (Fictionwise, for instance, has almost no titles I'd be interested in buying, apart from Rutherford's Don Quixote, which I already own in paper, so am not interested in buying at the current price). I'm really fairly curious to hear other people's thoughts on this.
Edit: could a mod please change "ebook s" to "stores", so that the question is a bit clearer? thanks.