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E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

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Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#101

Post by TheCoelacanth »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #31
dgacmu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's entirely dependant upon volume. According to [0], the average US non-fiction book will sell under 3,000 copies in its lifetime. For the proceeds from that to pay the author, editor, and marketing... Well, that's not a lot of copies to amortize those salaries across. The numbers are obviously very different for a New York times best seller, where physical goods costs will represent a larger fraction of the cost.…

Coincidentally, it costs between $2000 and $4000 to print and market a book. So, what, say $1 per book pays for that. The rest pays the author. But wait! Authors only get a buck or two royalty per book. So why do they cost so much? Use your imagination.

The author's cut, the publisher's cut and the cost of printing the book are each about 10% of the gross[1]. The rest goes to the retailer.

[1] https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/03/why-i-d...

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#102

Post by mellosouls »

eyegor wrote: post #36
mellosouls wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are reading on a proper* e-reader, eyestrain shouldn't be an issue. *ie classic Kindle with e-ink or similar, not a tablet like iPad/Android equivalent or the annoyingly named Amazon "Kindle" Fire etc. Not great for tech manuals, admittedly

Actually if you're willing to pay for it, you can buy 10+" eink screens with wacom digitizers on top (drawing pen support). They're quite good for tech papers and manuals because they're a similar size to real paper, no eye strain, you can draw notes directly on them, and ofc you can cram tons of papers/textbooks/manuals into something that weighs next to nothing. Edit: if you're curious, look into the likebook mimas…

Thanks - I have the Kindle DX, but it's slowness and general lack of flexibility is a significant negative that doesn't really balance out its superior page experience compared to a tablet. This is much more of a thing with tech manuals where reading is far less sequential than fiction or articles.

I'm aware of the new breed of large readers but haven't been able to try any, and I'm concerned they won't be powerful or sturdy enough compared to the fragile, sloooow DX to justify the outlay. I don't have much use for notes.

I realise the DX is a dinosaur though compared to the new ones you are talking about, and would love to be pleasantly surprised by a quantum leap...

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#103

Post by mellosouls »

PretzelFisch wrote: post #42
mellosouls wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are reading on a proper* e-reader, eyestrain shouldn't be an issue. *ie classic Kindle with e-ink or similar, not a tablet like iPad/Android equivalent or the annoyingly named Amazon "Kindle" Fire etc. Not great for tech manuals, admittedly

The Kindle dx worked pretty well for tech books and manuals. It's been sad to see no replacement for that sized device.

Thanks - I've since related my experiences with the DX elsewhere in this thread, and as another poster has pointed out there is a new breed of large e-readers; I haven't used any of them though, I share your regret at the relative lack of progress, at least until recently.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#104

Post by lonelappde »

shantly wrote: post #70
fragmede wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video piracy's gone down specifically due to Netflix. As each brand stops allowing Neflix to host their content, and as long as income remains to flat for a large portion of America, I'm expecting video piracy to make a comeback as soon as people remember it exists. Subscribing to HBO, CBS, Disney, and whoever else, on top of Netflix, will soon become cost prohibitive. Doing without isn't a consideration, so illegal…

It's more about the convenience than the price, for me. I'd pay $30, maybe $40, per month for access to basically anything I want to watch (past that I may as well buy as I watch, and even at $40 I'd have to do the math to make sure it's sensible). It's having to keep up with several subscriptions, having to figure out where something is when I want to watch it, inconveniences like logging in on a new device, expired…

Google Search deep-links from approximately every supported movie to the steaming provider that supports it. Just as easy as Popcorn Time.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#105

Post by hrktb »

orbifold wrote: post #54
hrktb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a consumer, a physical thing inherently has more value than a digital one because it keeps the value after I buy it. I can lend the book to someone legally after I'm done with it. I can sell it, trade it, or donate to a library. For me this was true ten years ago. The tides have shifted. Now a physical copy means: it will degrade faster than my devices (think books for children). It will take physical place, we’ll…

Physical books last at least ~50 years. That is longer than any physical computer lasts and longer than any of the companies that offer cloud services (IBM doesn't offer e-Books yet) have existed. There is a good chance that some of them will go bankrupt over this time.

> ~50 years

That’s very carefully handled books.

My kids books are in no shape in a matter of months. Then adults also spill, grease, and tear their books. I had to buy some cheap second hand copies for a series with no digital release and they’re gross, I made them grossier, and they’re going to the trash bin after me (there’s no shortage of them in the world).

My amazon account is outlasting most physical books I bought in these in the last decade (I also hate amazon kindle’s lack of book organization, biting me hard at the number of books I have, but that’s another topic)

PS: for people going through 3~4 books a week, storing books for 50 years is a nightmare.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#106

Post by Freak_NL »

fragmede wrote: post #60
Freak_NL wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People seem to instinctively feel that an e-book shouldn't cost as much as a real book. A paperback edition of a book often has multiple owners throughout its — sometimes considerable — lifespan. That's simply part of the deal, and it always has been. E-books lack the ability to share, sell, and pass it on. That's fine, but the market won't bear nearly the same price as a paper book that can do all those things. An e…

Video piracy's gone down specifically due to Netflix. As each brand stops allowing Neflix to host their content, and as long as income remains to flat for a large portion of America, I'm expecting video piracy to make a comeback as soon as people remember it exists. Subscribing to HBO, CBS, Disney, and whoever else, on top of Netflix, will soon become cost prohibitive. Doing without isn't a consideration, so illegal…

It'll be interesting to see what happens. I do wonder if the threat of persecution isn't too high for piracy to become a significant market changing factor again though.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#107

Post by hrktb »

ForHackernews wrote: post #79
someguydave wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is why you should get your e-books as drm-free local files

And store those files where? Do you own any working digital media from 1969? I know my carefully curated collection of 5.25" floppy discs are all corrupt and unreadable today.

I’d argue we have countless of digitized books, photographs and movies from way before 1969 that we wouldn’t get access to in physical form.

They might not be our individual personal copies, but they’re there, actually accessible.

To your point, I am strongly for enforcing DRM clearing after the copyright expires or the entity owning them goes under (it should be required by law IMO). I also think collectively we have a fighting chance to preserve copies as long as they’re free of DRM.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#108

Post by johnchristopher »

falcolas wrote: post #90
johnchristopher wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The value provided by a physical map of a book is knowing how far along you are in the book No, it provides more. Actually your brain maps physical properties of the book to actual content, creating an overlay map over the story or the content (and our brain is really good at mentally mapping things). This is that map that is being used to know where in the book a particular piece of information is. Reading on e-re…

> your brain maps physical properties of the book to actual content Any resources detailing this? It's the first I've heard of it. > Besides, no e-reader today can let your riffle through pages as fast as paper book. True, though the iPad is actually somewhat faster than a physical book, in my experience. > you have to wait for visual feedback (screen refreshing). At least in my experience, the time required to flip…

> > your brain maps physical properties of the book to actual content

> Any resources detailing this? It's the first I've heard of it.

The link to the guardian article in my previous post has more details and a link to the original study.

> I simply can't agree with this. A well indexed ebook is easy to follow cross references in (such as footnotes), you can do an actual search on the content, and the lack of weight is something that can't be understated.

> A specific example: I went through the "Physically Based Rendering" book a few years back. I simply can't understate how painful it was to deal with the physical book. It was the size of a large text book (it was a large textbook), heavy enough it never left my desk. More specifically, it was always flat on the desk, making it difficult to read.

Apple to oranges. The book you describe is 1200 pages of technical snippets that is largely used as a reference index. It's the perfect example where e-reader outclasses paper book, such is the case for dictionaries and encyclopaedia. I'd even venture to say that a laptop or an iPad would be better than an e-reader considering how important diagrams are in this example.

> Even the authors recognized this, providing a digital copy of most of the code so you wouldn't spend all day typing code.

Providing code for CS book was already common in the 90's when CD-ROM were bundled with books.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#109

Post by rini17 »

moate wrote: post #51
Hitton wrote: post #6

Usually I'm against restrictions like this, but this doesn't seem that bad. It's only for ebooks and for first 8 weeks, with people waiting years for the next book of their favourite author, waiting 2 more months when they are not willing to buy that book is nothing.

The book is being bought. The libraries aren't getting these books for free. If you, private citizen Hitton, want to buy this book the day it's released and then lend it out to every single person you know, you're able to do this. Why shouldn't the library? Also, there are lending limits on e-books from libraries. It's not as if the library can buy the e-book and then lend it out simultaneously to 20,000 people. They…

The limit of 1 (one) copy per library described in article seems fully reasonable to you?

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#110

Post by lstamour »

lonelappde wrote: post #104
shantly wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more about the convenience than the price, for me. I'd pay $30, maybe $40, per month for access to basically anything I want to watch (past that I may as well buy as I watch, and even at $40 I'd have to do the math to make sure it's sensible). It's having to keep up with several subscriptions, having to figure out where something is when I want to watch it, inconveniences like logging in on a new device, expired…

Google Search deep-links from approximately every supported movie to the steaming provider that supports it. Just as easy as Popcorn Time.

If you’re in the US. There’s significantly less support for niche, specialist streaming sites as well as non-US, country-specific listings. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve clicked a Google result for a movie on Netflix only to have it be for a different country or currently unavailable...
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