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If publishers would only realise the goldmine they are sitting on.
Walt Disney, at one stage, were struggling financially – the only outlet they had for their movies were the cinemas and the numbers of cinema ticket sales were falling. They had always refused to put their back calalogue onto DVD or VHS because they were afraid of piracy. However, after some new-thinking they decided to release one or two titles on media available for consumers' home viewing. They were astounded by the excellent response. Well, after this they never looked backed and their fortunes turned around completely. I understand that these days most of their back catalogue has been released.
What I am saying is, why don't book publishers do the same?
Barnes & Noble estimates there are more than 1 million copyrighted titles out of print, with 90,000 titles disappearing each year.
There would be no need to hear the words "out of print" ever again if only they would convert their back catalogue titles to ebooks. A fair and low price for these would bring in more than having them sitting in the archives earning nothing. And what would it cost? Zero paper costs, zero printing costs and zero transport costs etc.
I wish some bright new business entrepreneur would realise the golden opportunity awaiting to be grasped and buy up loads of these out of print copyright works.
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