Quote:
Originally Posted by FlorenceArt
Interesting 
I've also wondered what more the non-free versions of public domains offer. I'd be willing to pay a couple of dollars for the effort to digitize, check and publish a public domain book, but not if all they're doing is taking something offered by a community of volunteers and just slap a price tag on it. |
In the case of "scholarly" editions of classic books, such as Penguin or Oxford World Classics, you get introductory essays, explanatory footnotes, appendices with all sorts of useful information of textual variations, etc. etc. All this is well-worth paying for. Eg, the Penguin "Enhanced eBook Edition" of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" is a superb example of what you can do with an eBook.
The "unadorned" commercial versions of public domain texts are generally sold at very low prices.