3 ms·

All of that is to get a professionally typeset and edited book with cover art and yadda yadda. I am less certain than you / the publishers are that the market

All of that is to get a professionally typeset and edited book with cover art and yadda yadda. I am less certain than you / the publishers are that the market really gives a damn about all that. For most readers, a plain epub may be good enough. Is that expensive effort necessary? Or does it have the nature of gilt hand-illustrated drop caps: something that the market learns to live without in return for a radical reduction in price.

pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>All of that is to get a professionally typeset and edited book with cover art and yadda yadda. Give me the text and I'll add a version of Readability (same typesetting for all fiction books would be fine for me, there might be particular text features that need specially treatment occasionally I imagine). Cover art is usually pretty formulaic I can't really see most authors paying [to a graphic artist/designer] more than a days wages for subsequent covers, perhaps a week for the first one. Presumably with an e-book reader I can set set the kerning/leading/font-size/font-weight/etc. ? With e-books you could set 2 prices, edited and unedited, call them different names if you like. Then authors can decide how much they want to spend on editors - in some cases I'm sure they add a huge amount, probably define the work, in others not so much.
- coliveira 16y ago
  If you are a publisher, and have all the trouble to get and edited book into publication, why would you give the option of unedited book like you mention? It would be just like creating your own competition.
  - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
    >It would be just like creating your own competition. I guess director's cuts of DVDs create more overall profit? Why not the same for a book? However, my main thought was that if the original sells better one could consider ditching a costly full-edit and simply having it sub-edited or even skip to proofreading only.
  - rmc 16y ago
    Market Segmentation. You can charge a really cheap price for the unedited one. It'll be the bargin basement cheap version. People who wouldn't buy the €10 one will buy a €2 one. People who can afford €10 will buy a fancy edited one and feel superior.
slashclee 16y ago
I think you seriously overestimate the competence of the “professionals” doing the typesetting on ebooks. Most of the ones I've paid for are shockingly awful. This includes ebooks like the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, Ender's Game, or more modern titles such as Freakonomics/Superfreakonomics, or even classics like the Count of Monte Cristo or the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, from a variety of sources, including the Kindle store, B&N's Nook store, and random independent ebook vendors like Books On Board and Fictionwise. I've seen every error you can imagine, from the wrong table graphic being used to pathetic OCR errors or just plain typos. And the cover art, at least on most of the ebooks I've purchased, is nonexistent or extremely unimpressive. As a consumer, I certainly don't feel like ebooks are worth the prices being charged.

pbhjpbhj 16y ago

>All of that is to get a professionally typeset and edited book with cover art and yadda yadda. Give me the text and I'll add a version of Readability (same typesetting for all fiction books would be fine for me, there might be particular text features that need specially treatment occasionally I imagine). Cover art is usually pretty formulaic I can't really see most authors paying [to a graphic artist/designer] more than a days wages for subsequent covers, perhaps a week for the first one. Presumably with an e-book reader I can set set the kerning/leading/font-size/font-weight/etc. ? With e-books you could set 2 prices, edited and unedited, call them different names if you like. Then authors can decide how much they want to spend on editors - in some cases I'm sure they add a huge amount, probably define the work, in others not so much.

coliveira 16y ago
If you are a publisher, and have all the trouble to get and edited book into publication, why would you give the option of unedited book like you mention? It would be just like creating your own competition.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >It would be just like creating your own competition. I guess director's cuts of DVDs create more overall profit? Why not the same for a book? However, my main thought was that if the original sells better one could consider ditching a costly full-edit and simply having it sub-edited or even skip to proofreading only.
- rmc 16y ago
  Market Segmentation. You can charge a really cheap price for the unedited one. It'll be the bargin basement cheap version. People who wouldn't buy the €10 one will buy a €2 one. People who can afford €10 will buy a fancy edited one and feel superior.

slashclee 16y ago

I think you seriously overestimate the competence of the “professionals” doing the typesetting on ebooks. Most of the ones I've paid for are shockingly awful. This includes ebooks like the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, Ender's Game, or more modern titles such as Freakonomics/Superfreakonomics, or even classics like the Count of Monte Cristo or the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, from a variety of sources, including the Kindle store, B&N's Nook store, and random independent ebook vendors like Books On Board and Fictionwise. I've seen every error you can imagine, from the wrong table graphic being used to pathetic OCR errors or just plain typos. And the cover art, at least on most of the ebooks I've purchased, is nonexistent or extremely unimpressive. As a consumer, I certainly don't feel like ebooks are worth the prices being charged.