E-Reader advice

You're making the assumption that "they" have any sort of choice in the matter. The music industry didn't want to embrace digital distribution. Why would they? There's no scenario where they get as much money out of a digital product as they do out of a physical one. In the end, though, they didn't have much of a choice; it became apparent that there was a strong demand for music in a digital format available online, and the only options were to provide it or let the listeners provide it for themselves. Book publishers are now going to find themselves facing a similar choice.

In light of that I don't see how you can make a statement like yours. As Cynthetiq pointed out college students are generally rich in time and poor in money, and while digitizing a book can be time consuming if it means that you can get all your other books free it's a worthwhile trade. You're going to what, rely on the strong history of college students opposing online copyright infringement?

 

What do you mean "going to"?

I think they should just come up with agreements to have the schools pay for the textbook licenses and then pass some or all of the cost on to the students if need be. Harsh? Well, so's being a publisher in the digital age. People who make textbooks aren't doing it out of charity.

 

The physical product and its distribution are only a small fraction of the expense involved in producing textbooks. The overhead for running digital distribution, stores, databasing, etc., though likely much less expensive than traditional overhead, is not something to be overlooked as an expense.

 

Here's a quick list of one file

Here's what is happening in that arena and why it's so easy, it's $300 and time. I'm sure that if I was a college student today, I'd gather me up $300 and put one of these things together. I'd charge you $20 a book to digitize. Once I've got it, I'll sell that book over and over again to your fellow classmates, recovering my $300 in just 15 people, probably not even 1/2 of the classroom. Heck if I did it with 2 books, it's even easier to sell and my library gets bigger and bigger. I get more potential customers each book I digitize.

 

In a few short years, eBooks are projected to be a $5 billion industry in the U.S. in a book industry currently sized at $15.5 billion. Despite how many pirates there are out there rigging a side business, there will likely still be a market for digital textbooks, especially when you have Apple selling 350,000 digital textbooks in three days.

 

Of course, I don't doubt that. Our own projections are trying to move our business in that direction of electronic delivery.

There really isn't all that much savings in the publishing sector. Really publishing doesn't make the same profit margin that music did. Most books never earn out their advances and many authors never get more royalties than the advance they were given.

Right, not only do you not factor in the marketing department, accounting, you still have to pay for infrastructure costs to warehouse the digital assets. MTV spent $14M for their digital library warehouse and that only got them 7Pb, if I recall correctly. IT people aren't cheap and neither are datacenters.

 

Textbooks differ from trade books in that they require much more work and expertise on the author (often multiple) and production (editorial, design, layout) end. I've worked on many nonfiction trade books, and they're difficult enough. Compare a typical personal finance book to some of the specialized business texts out there and you'll see what I mean. It's two very different kinds of publishing.

The overall risk here is the money being siphoned out of the textbook industry, making it not worthwhile to have top-notch and relevant materials put together by leading industry professionals. The overall risk here is a degradation of valuable information meant for a quality learning environment. The overall risk here is a degradation of education itself.

I don't think it will happen. I think the money will come from somewhere. However, the real challenge is in the business models. The publishing industry is lurching and writhing on all levels right now.

 

Yes, that's very true. Many sci-fi ebooks today are remnants of the first .txt uploads onto BBS.

Press costs are the smallest portion of the costs. Really, printing in China and India is very cheap, shipping very cheap because it's by boat.

When it comes to grade schools there is something called State Adoption which means that 22 different states agree and pool their interests for publishing textbooks. Prices are guaranteed through the life of the adoption period. It is quite profitable for both sides because it reduces costs and it also guarantees sales.

Yes. I cannot begin to explain how convoluted and complexity of dealing with the education group requirements. It is very challenging because of all the contributors from authors to photographers to illustrators and contributors. Paying out royalties is a major pain in the ass.

 

I don't envy you. However, working in small press publishing has its own challenges. One being not really "paying out royalties" so much as "telling nearly your entire roster of authors that they still haven't earned out their advances."

 

Depending on the author of the text, many professors teach from texts they have contributed to or wrote entirely.

I can't verify this exact quote, but it isn't much different than doctors pushing certain drug therapies over another. I do read that this is a common practice with regards to collegiate textbooks. Also, each edition is another opportunity for the author/contributor to get another advance, so reprinting another edition with the smallest of changes guarantees a certain amount of sales each and every year and it all looks on the up and up.

 

No, because etexts are going to be the future. No doubt about it. They can do the same with little to no costs for the paper elements. They just update the etextbook version.

 

I'm not certain you're fully understanding the issue. The simple fact is that there's a demand for digital textbooks, and if the publishers don't fulfill that demand somebody else will. It's not particularly difficult to digitize a textbook -- time consuming, sure, but the necessary tools and information are readily available for anyone who wants them. This is again similar to the situation the music industry faced a decade ago. People wanted digital music, the music industry chose not to fulfill that demand. Users decided to fulfill it themselves, and a decade of losing legal battles followed. Publishers are on the cusp of facing the same dilemma; ebook readers are becoming mainstream consumer appliances now, which is creating a widespread demand for ebooks. One way or another, this demand will be filled. The publishing industry has little choice but to enter the market at the bottom level and attempt to assume a controlling position. Doing anything else is suicide.

I'm not arguing in favour of copyright infringement, but rather simple pragmatism. You can't legislate away technical issues, and every time they successfully shut down one system of sharing a new, more sophisticated version will take it's place. The appropriate response is to compete, rather than litigate.

 

The problem for everyone is not different for the music business. The format is good going forward, but what about the back catalog? Try finding some of those rare vinyl and you're not going to find an equivalent mp3 of it unless some collector ripped his collection and shared it.

The same thing goes for books. You just don't scan a book and turn it into an ebook. You also don't just take the digital PDF files and turn it into an ebook. No different than you not retypesetting Harry Potter hardcover for the trade paperback and the pocketbook version if that ever comes out. There will be people who want to read it, and will be satisfied with the photo pdf scans just like Google Books, but normal mainstream? Not interested in wonky page formatting.

There's no profit to that for most publishers because the total sales. I just saw royalties for Hunger Games, holy shit it was a lot of money. But that's VERY VERY rare. Most make money off subsidiary rights, like movies and merchandising. Look carefully at the HP movies and see that the US publisher did not get the option. What a fucked up thing that was because they missed a very important revenue stream.