Outside that bit of the industry, O'Reilly (purveyors of fine technical books) offer a e-book version with many of their hardcopy products for about 10% extra.
Wave of dismay? I have no idea who those people commenting under that Media Bistro post are. Most of the people I know who actually work in publishing agree with Randy Cohen, though they might be reluctant to say so in public where their corporate masters can see.
I know one well-known SF author who downloads pirate editions of his own books, because that's the easiest way to get electronic copies with the final corrections in them.
I have heard that certain big publishers, when asked to supply corrected electronic proofs to their authors, offer to do it only in exchange for a hefty fee.
That's because the publishers don't actually own those corrected copies, because they outsource the typesetting. I guess the typesetters charge the fee, and the publishers pass it along.
I'm with you and the NYT's guy. I think it's fine. In a similar vein, I pay for cable tv but I often download some of the shows that I could watch on tv onto my computer just because it's more convenient for me to watch them on my computer most of the time than on the tv.
I'm probably technically breaking some law, but it's a stupid one.
Indeed. I bought the Dragon Age RPG, and it actually was sent (as a watermarked PDF) months before the physical copy arrived. In fact, that's the only reason I bought it (as I was playing Dragon Age at the time, and I wasn't going to buy something that wouldn't be out for months). Ended up giving the physical copy to a friend of mine, so it all worked out pretty well.
I think that content publishers everywhere should be sending Christmas cards each year to Apple, who showed that people will actually stop pirating stuff if companies put stuff up in a cheap, fast, and easily accessible format.
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I know one well-known SF author who downloads pirate editions of his own books, because that's the easiest way to get electronic copies with the final corrections in them.
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Some authors have reached the conclusion that the publishers are discouraging them from taking advantage of their ebook rights.
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I'm probably technically breaking some law, but it's a stupid one.
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I think that content publishers everywhere should be sending Christmas cards each year to Apple, who showed that people will actually stop pirating stuff if companies put stuff up in a cheap, fast, and easily accessible format.
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