Publishers haven't come to terms with electronic distribution because they can't conceive of a world where the Publishers aren't needed for everything related t

Publishers haven't come to terms with electronic distribution because they can't conceive of a world where the Publishers aren't needed for everything related to books. Are we better off with/without Publishers? It depends. Certainly, there is some value in having a publisher - editing, guaranteed distribution, payment, etc. - all the things that would be time-consuming and take away from the writer's first love, writing. Along with that, there are annoyances as well - dodgy DRM, outdated ideas about format, etc. It was easy when books were physical - a book was a solitary unit not easily shared. Now, not so much. An eBook can be easily shared - in theory, without DRM, the author would make the $7.99 cover price once, the book would hit P-bay and that would be it. To say that the problem is with people who don't value the author's work is an oversimplification, as well. Many people might value a work highly, but the electronic edition is easier or cheaper to get thru illicit means. There are those who say that sharing is not theft - true, to an extent. It's not so much stealing as it is just shitting on the work that an author has done. Which isn't to say that all authors are worth your time, either. Everyone has an opinion about what's good writing and what's not. Personally, I dig Terry Pratchett, but there are some who don't like his work. So to them, he's not worth the effort and expense of paying for to purchase a book. Now, you might ask yourself: self, why would you buy a book you don't like? In my case, I want reading material and there's not much way of knowing if the book is any good before I buy it (space military novels). I've gotten halfway thru a book and realized: I blew $2.99 on complete shite and that sucks. It's only halfway thru the book that I realized that the work of the author hold no value for me (and maybe a bit of negative value). However, the publisher is the one who got me - they set the price, they wrote the summary, they even sourced an attractive piece of art to cover the book. Ostensibly, they even edited it (though that's often rather spotty with self-published authors). So, a publisher still has some value to bring to even a crappy author. It's a complex problem and one not likely to be solved because no one really likes to think about how they can make their own job redundant, at least not without getting a reward for it. For publishers, it's a losing game.