4 ms·

> Text was invented 5000 years ago. The only innovation is HOW Amazon is recreating text versions of the orignal books. Sounds like an innovation to me. When A

> Text was invented 5000 years ago. The only innovation is HOW Amazon is recreating text versions of the orignal books. Sounds like an innovation to me. When Amazon is going to do text-to-speech on normal books they are even going to put more pressure on the publishing business.

Ensorceled 7y ago
Inventing a new type of printing press doesn't give you the right to print copies of books without a copyright license. This is an innovative printing press. But I'm pretty sure you understood my original point.
- lowdose 7y ago
  I understand your point of view but I have a different opinion. It is ridiculous to expect people to pay the same price for a digital book as the printed version. The distribution costs are not only a fraction, the business risk in publishing was originally ending up with an obsolete stock of books. Publishers are profiting as much as Amazon from these new printing presses. Sounds like an industry with a business model begging for disruption. Would be awesome if I was able to actually lend out ebooks to friends with a similar restriction as with a physical book. That's innovation, adding value to the customers experience and securing business survival.
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    From what I understand from someone in the industry, the digital version does take non-insignificant effort to format and meta-tag the literature according to the ebook formatting appropriately. Furthermore, the risk for the publishing company still exists, because editing, marketing, formatting, and cover-creation is still something that ebooks need and still costs money to produce. In other words, the idea that digital books should cost significantly less than a printed book doesn't account that digital books require similar amounts of effort and labor, plus additional formatting labor. "Sounds like an industry with a business model begging for disruption." This already exists in the form of wattpad and other self-publishing mediums. There are plenty of authors who make a living off of these mediums. But it's a different ball game and requires someone to manage their author career like a business, not as a traditional writer. (hiring an editor, a cover-producer, and doing one's own marketing) Thus, it's not really something that authors are generally enamored by.

Ensorceled 7y ago

Inventing a new type of printing press doesn't give you the right to print copies of books without a copyright license. This is an innovative printing press. But I'm pretty sure you understood my original point.

lowdose 7y ago
I understand your point of view but I have a different opinion. It is ridiculous to expect people to pay the same price for a digital book as the printed version. The distribution costs are not only a fraction, the business risk in publishing was originally ending up with an obsolete stock of books. Publishers are profiting as much as Amazon from these new printing presses. Sounds like an industry with a business model begging for disruption. Would be awesome if I was able to actually lend out ebooks to friends with a similar restriction as with a physical book. That's innovation, adding value to the customers experience and securing business survival.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  From what I understand from someone in the industry, the digital version does take non-insignificant effort to format and meta-tag the literature according to the ebook formatting appropriately. Furthermore, the risk for the publishing company still exists, because editing, marketing, formatting, and cover-creation is still something that ebooks need and still costs money to produce. In other words, the idea that digital books should cost significantly less than a printed book doesn't account that digital books require similar amounts of effort and labor, plus additional formatting labor. "Sounds like an industry with a business model begging for disruption." This already exists in the form of wattpad and other self-publishing mediums. There are plenty of authors who make a living off of these mediums. But it's a different ball game and requires someone to manage their author career like a business, not as a traditional writer. (hiring an editor, a cover-producer, and doing one's own marketing) Thus, it's not really something that authors are generally enamored by.