10-08-2012, 08:28 AM | #31 | |
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Really it boils down to they charge more because they can. If it was expensive or difficult to do it, why would there be so many 99 cent, two or three dollar ebooks? |
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10-08-2012, 08:42 AM | #32 |
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There was one magazine my husband subscribes to that switched to digital ONLY because it was substantially cheaper and they couldn't afford to keep up with the print editions, and switching to digital only, prevented them from stopping existing at all.
Last edited by spindlegirl; 10-08-2012 at 08:55 AM. |
10-08-2012, 08:47 AM | #33 |
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10-08-2012, 09:01 AM | #34 | |
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I think the answer is that the cost of digitizing and proof-reading is high, just as the cost of setting up a modern print run is high. But once you have have done it, the marginal cost (adding servers or printing more) is low. Last edited by SteveEisenberg; 10-08-2012 at 09:15 AM. |
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10-08-2012, 09:07 AM | #35 |
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I understand that. It's just that RE-production costs after each master copy has been born are negligible with e-books.
My 81 year old foster mother has a hard time navigating PG, yet it's nothing for me to send her books that I have from PG. New copy *created* that didn't exist before. Cost of posting a physical book to her - well last thing I mailed to her was a very small paperback Bible, at a cost of nearly $10. |
10-08-2012, 09:20 AM | #36 |
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While I agree that once the ebook is created, there are very minimal costs from that point on. But I'm here to tell you that getting the book into a quality ebook format isn't the "click/poof!" that many of you guys and gals seem to think it is. There is no commonly shared source document to rule them all (though I certainly hope there will be some day).
No, someone is being payed to take the original print layout's electronic version (assuming it's a newer book and has an electronic version) and converting it to HTML. And depending on what that original electronic document is, that process can be anything but a walk in the park (never mind that corrections are being made to the original throughout this entire conversion process that will have to be manually propagated to the new ebook version). Many of those print layout electronic versions are proprietary, mostly "one-way" or "final destination" formats. And if you've ever witnessed, first-hand, the differences between a shoddily produced (click/poof!) ebook and a quality-produced ebook ... then you're seeing the evidence of "costs" associated with the production of ebooks. Whether or not you feel those costs are justified or completely neglible are, of course, an altogether different and unrelated topic than whether or not there are costs. So just like not believing the "hype" from publishers concerning the costs associated with ebooks, you may also want to take with a grain of salt, the claims of industry outsiders that ebooks just magically appear on online retailers websites with absolutely no intervention by a human that would like to earn some money for his/her efforts. Someday, there might be one source from which all formats (physical and electronic) flow in some magical, button-pushy, efficient workflow, but we just ain't there yet. Last edited by DiapDealer; 10-08-2012 at 09:23 AM. |
10-08-2012, 09:28 AM | #37 |
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There is a difference between *digitizing* an existing print book from decades past and a new release. Digitizing old print books is non-trivial.
Creating a digital edition of a current release should be. Now, whether the BPHs have actually put in place the proper tools and workflows is a different story. Judging by some of the new releases coming out, the answer appears to be that 5 years after Kindle, most still have *not*. |
10-08-2012, 09:30 AM | #38 |
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Part of that is the minimal effort put forth for ebooks to begin with. How many don't even include the real covers? How often do you see a typo or misspelling that should have easily been caught, even by spellcheck?
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10-08-2012, 09:37 AM | #39 | |
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10-08-2012, 09:40 AM | #40 |
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No it doesn't. At the moment the eBook is priced to compete with the HARDBACK book. When the paperback is released, the eBook price will fall, almost certainly to less than the paperback price. It's meaningless to compare the price of an eBook to a future paperback.
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10-08-2012, 10:35 AM | #41 | ||
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I'm not sure what publishers are using to typeset current books, but Adobe InDesign has EPUB support built right into the product, so lay out the print book, then export it straight to EPUB. Getting it from EPUB to MOBI for Amazon and retaining the formatting might not be as trivial, but the EPUB should be as good as the print version on modern books, anyway. Quote:
I'm a little more understanding when there are errors in older books that were obviously OCR'd with minimal proofreading, but on modern books, I'm less tolerant of mistakes in the eBook that don't appear in the print version. |
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10-08-2012, 10:37 AM | #42 |
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I'm really precarious when it comes to this. I used to buy used books when they were cheaper. But more now I find that I don't carry my paperbacks with me everywhere. So the extra 2 or 3 bucks for the ebook is worth it for the ability to access anytime.
I still tend to buy the used paperback when it is crazy cheaper. |
10-08-2012, 10:47 AM | #43 |
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I still get the Library discard sales. Often perfectly good copies of recent hardbound books go for pennies in a "stuff a bag sale" not because they are even 'damaged' but because the library is required to buy new copies after a certain number of loans.
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10-08-2012, 10:52 AM | #44 | ||
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000729511 Quote:
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10-08-2012, 11:00 AM | #45 | |
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