E-book Sales Are Exploding And Hurting Paperbacks, Publishers Say

[mldavis2]

There are some good points made here.

@tompe - rotten food is not the same content as fresh food (chemically oxidized, etc.) so I don't understand your analogy.

@tompe - many people do not spell well, however virtually all text editors today contain spell-checking so it's mainly correctly spelled context errors that creep in. As an author (I'm not), I would expect any author with any degree of self-respect to engage at least a friend, if not an editor, to proof-read my work before risking public censure for sloppiness. No argument, just thinking out loud ...

@Elfwreck is spot-on regarding both the advantages of pBooks (most of which I never need or use) and the comments regarding the difference between "artsy" printed content vs. just plain text. Since most books, aside from coffee-table display hardcover books, are simple text, the comment doesn't fit most high volume, high profit pop novels. Anything that is re-published as a paperback is most likely not jazzed up with fancy fonts and formatting wizardry.

It is claimed that my Kindle3 can hold up to 3,000 books. I have no intention of testing that, but many books do contain drawings, photos and the like (Huckleberry Finn comes to mind). I suspect much future editing and storage will be in some generic format that can be sent directly and without editing to any device capable of displaying text (PC's, eReaders, tablets, smart phones, etc.).

If my little Kindle can hold a couple thousand books with illustrations, storage for the entire inventory of major publishers should be no problem at all. Having spent many hours working as a volunteer for Project Gutenberg/Distributed Proofreaders, I have a good feel for the capabilities of OCR readers and universally accessible formatting conventions. It's not a problem. In addition, most of the text editors @Elfwreck mentioned have inter-convertible formats. For pop novel publishing, RTF is universally readable by everything from browsers to Microsoft products to Open Office. There are always conversion tools available if there is a need.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by mldavis2

Since most books, aside from coffee-table display hardcover books, are simple text, the comment doesn't fit most high volume, high profit pop novels. Anything that is re-published as a paperback is most likely not jazzed up with fancy fonts and formatting wizardry.

Chart/image-heavy books are also better in print (which, I agree, is not pop fiction, although even the maps inside the covers of fantasy novels often don't translate well to e-formats). The majority of MMPBs convert very well to ebooks.

It is claimed that my Kindle3 can hold up to 3,000 books.

That's assuming basic text books; number of books with more than a cover picture is much lower. But yes, a substantial amount.

If my little Kindle can hold a couple thousand books with illustrations, storage for the entire inventory of major publishers should be no problem at all.

It isn't--now. Ten years ago, it was. And the software has been in such constant flux that nobody's ever sure how much is worth keeping. Also, deleting files as soon as a contract has run its course avoids legal liability for those files. Companies have a reason *not* to keep digital content forever.

For pop novel publishing, RTF is universally readable by everything from browsers to Microsoft products to Open Office. There are always conversion tools available if there is a need.

RTF needs additional work before it's ready for either print or e-publishing. They'd presumably want to keep the print-ready PDF as well, and any e-formats they released. XML is probably the best format for long-term storage, but for that to be useful, they need a semantic markup system that they consistently apply.

I don't know the publishing industry; I do know the litigation support industry that scans legal documents & does e-discovery. The lack of standardization is almost terrifying. I suspect publishing is similar: while they're all likely to use RTF at some point in the production process, it may not be what the final proofed version is. (These days, I'd expect the final version to be in InDesign--and converting from InDestign to RTF for storage can lose a lot of the ID formatting. Proofing in ID is better for print; you can see what your changes do to the page layout. Proofing in RTF doesn't allow that.) Also, RTF gets huge with extensive formatting and multiple fonts, which if it's feeding somehow to ePub, can be a problem.

And whatever a publisher's processes, they were developed in direct competition with other publishers; they don't *want* to come up with an across-the-industry system that gives nobody any advantages. They don't want to use universal semantic markup; they want a version that won't be useful to their competitors if their systems are hacked, or, more likely, an ex-employee walks away with a flash drive full of ebooks.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by mldavis2

There are some good points made here.

@tompe - rotten food is not the same content as fresh food (chemically oxidized, etc.) so I don't understand your analogy.

And a text with a lot of spelling mistakes is not the same as the text with correct spelling.

@tompe - many people do not spell well, however virtually all text editors today contain spell-checking so it's mainly correctly spelled context errors that creep in. As an author (I'm not), I would expect any author with any degree of self-respect to engage at least a friend, if not an editor, to proof-read my work before risking public censure for sloppiness. No argument, just thinking out loud ...

Some authors write in longhand. And some authors are dyslectic. And the editor fixes this. What I objected to was the opinion that you could not be an author selling a lot of books if you could not spell.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

Yes, dammit! The scroll makers should have been protected from all this technology.

Stories reached their apex of meaning and vibrancy in the days of stone and clay tablets.

you just can't portray a truely three dimensional story using a two dimensional media.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Stories reached their apex of meaning and vibrancy in the days of stone and clay tablets.

you just can't portray a truely three dimensional story using a two dimensional media.

Look at it this way, if one of you ancestors was a Sumerian clay tablet maker and you have kept a few as family heirlooms over these few thousand years you would probably have a nice nest egg by now.

[DrDln]

Fiction ebook sales have exploded and are selling more than printed version, I believe. Nonfiction ebooks are not selling much yet. The main problem is formatting due to tables and graphs. They will pickup soon as the formatting and ereader software improves. I have formatted my books and are fine, but takes much longer.

I, as a nonfiction author, am waiting for it to pickup soon. And they will.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Look at it this way, if one of you ancestors was a Sumerian clay tablet maker and you have kept a few as family heirlooms over these few thousand years you would probably have a nice nest egg by now.

Probably take that long to tap out a tome like War and Peace

[tony8832]

time changes. doesn't it?