Aside from the physical book distribution, publishers DO serve a valuable purpose for authors: Editing, cover art, formatting and promotion.
If you read a lot of ebooks (like I do), these things are not trivial. It is easy for people to self-publish, but most books really do need other sets of eyes.
Also, I've seen a lot of self-published books where the font sizes or line spacing is off, chapters aren't linked in the TOC, etc etc.
eBooks *should* be cheaper, but there is a lot of pre-production that goes into just the digital copy. Or at least there is on quality content. It's what happens to that PDF *after* all that I don't want to pay for: Printing, shipping, storage, re-shipping, re-storage and destruction of un-purchased Dead Tree Books.
If you browse around on their store a bit, you'll also find them charging $5 for public domain works... Why?
Amazon's Kindle store has all the public domain stuff too, and some you pay for (usually the paid ones have better formatting, chapter tags, etc), but all can be had for $0 or $0.01.
Also, B&N are artificially inflating the number of titles they have... 700,000? 500,000 are public domain, available through Google and Gutenberg.
The Kindle store has far and away the greater number of "modern" books you might actually be looking for (and aren't free somewhere else).
I use Facebook, and Twitter, and a couple other more targeted social apps (like goodreads.com). I like them. I don't like them enough to pay for them.
I suspect I'm not alone in this. If those places started charging, I just wouldn't use them anymore and go back to maintaining my own website more often, and email to keep in touch with friends and family.
In a meeting with several other people is one thing.. No one is likely to notice a few moments spent checking your email.
It's something else entirely to be doing it in any kind of one-on-one situation. That's when it's rude. If you're having lunch with someone, you really should be giving them most of your attention.
The thing is, when the iPhone 3G came out, they DID let people with iPhone 1.0 upgrade for the subsidized price. All we had to was re-up for another two years. Not such a hardship.
So why, this time around, will AT&T not let me upgrade at the cheaper price in exchange for another 1+ years on my contract?
Because not all of us want to have 5 million CDs cluttering up their homes, for no audio gain.
I'm sorry, but iTunes' AAC format, and even MP3 have *no noticeable* loss of quality over CDs. Get over it and stop imagining "quality" when there isn't any.
Also... I refuse to buy an entire CD when there's only one or two decent songs on it.
I'm disappointed that there are no (so far) cheaper songs on iTunes. I agree that the $1.29 might be just enough to drive people to the "free" alternatives. .99 is nothing, $1.29 starts to actually look like money :/ Perception is everything in the sales business.
However, what they *should* do is now remove the charge for making a ringtone from these "premium" priced songs. That might almost be worth the higher price... saving .70 on the ringtone.
Authors don't take any pay cut from Kindle versions. Amazon is selling most of them at a loss. The publishers set the same price for Kindle version that they do for print versions, and Amazon has to pay.
Before spouting nonsense, take a look at a Kindle book on Amazon... See that "Digital List Price"? That's the price on which the royalty is based... See how it's the same as the print price?
TTS is *vastly* different than an audiobook. If you'd ever listened to them both, you'd know that. People who like audiobooks aren't going to be satisfied with TTS.
See, I'm not sure violated is better than dead. I don't want to be treated like a potential criminal when I haven't done a damn thing.
Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? These days we're all treated with suspicion, and it's made us worse as a society.
I'm willing to accept a higher amout of risk to reduce my aggravation and increase the respect I'm given when travelling.
It's just another case of "punishing" the 99.9% of people who travel on the off-chance of catching that 0.01% of people who actually mean us harm and manage to get to the security checkpoint.
On the post: Newspaper Publishes Totally Made Up List Of 'Disorders' Associated With Text Messaging
On the post: Newspapers Having Trouble Reporting On Their Own Paywalls
Er...
On the post: Dungeons And Dragons Players Revolt, Storm Super Rewards Castle
To clarify
No it doesn't. Mounts no longer take up bag space.
There is really NO in-game benefit to the paid mount, none whatsoever.
Well, except it looks neat...
On the post: This Is What's Wrong With eBooks: Amazon Loses $2 On Every eBook Sold
Publishers...
If you read a lot of ebooks (like I do), these things are not trivial. It is easy for people to self-publish, but most books really do need other sets of eyes.
Also, I've seen a lot of self-published books where the font sizes or line spacing is off, chapters aren't linked in the TOC, etc etc.
eBooks *should* be cheaper, but there is a lot of pre-production that goes into just the digital copy. Or at least there is on quality content. It's what happens to that PDF *after* all that I don't want to pay for: Printing, shipping, storage, re-shipping, re-storage and destruction of un-purchased Dead Tree Books.
On the post: B&N Claims It Must DRM Public Domain Books To Protect The Copyright On Them
It's worse than that...
Amazon's Kindle store has all the public domain stuff too, and some you pay for (usually the paid ones have better formatting, chapter tags, etc), but all can be had for $0 or $0.01.
Also, B&N are artificially inflating the number of titles they have... 700,000? 500,000 are public domain, available through Google and Gutenberg.
The Kindle store has far and away the greater number of "modern" books you might actually be looking for (and aren't free somewhere else).
Just say "NO" to B&N's ebook store.
On the post: What Would Happen If Social Networking Sites Charged
See...
I suspect I'm not alone in this. If those places started charging, I just wouldn't use them anymore and go back to maintaining my own website more often, and email to keep in touch with friends and family.
On the post: In Defense Of Mobile E-Mail 'Addiction'
Rude..
It's something else entirely to be doing it in any kind of one-on-one situation. That's when it's rude. If you're having lunch with someone, you really should be giving them most of your attention.
On the post: iPhone Owners Discover, Lo and Behold, It's Just Another Cell Phone
Well...
So why, this time around, will AT&T not let me upgrade at the cheaper price in exchange for another 1+ years on my contract?
On the post: Looking For The $0.69 Songs On iTunes
Re: Well...
I'm sorry, but iTunes' AAC format, and even MP3 have *no noticeable* loss of quality over CDs. Get over it and stop imagining "quality" when there isn't any.
Also... I refuse to buy an entire CD when there's only one or two decent songs on it.
I'm disappointed that there are no (so far) cheaper songs on iTunes. I agree that the $1.29 might be just enough to drive people to the "free" alternatives. .99 is nothing, $1.29 starts to actually look like money :/ Perception is everything in the sales business.
However, what they *should* do is now remove the charge for making a ringtone from these "premium" priced songs. That might almost be worth the higher price... saving .70 on the ringtone.
On the post: Protests Against The Authors Guild For Forcing Amazon To Disable Kindle TTS
No!
Authors don't take any pay cut from Kindle versions. Amazon is selling most of them at a loss. The publishers set the same price for Kindle version that they do for print versions, and Amazon has to pay.
Before spouting nonsense, take a look at a Kindle book on Amazon... See that "Digital List Price"? That's the price on which the royalty is based... See how it's the same as the print price?
TTS is *vastly* different than an audiobook. If you'd ever listened to them both, you'd know that. People who like audiobooks aren't going to be satisfied with TTS.
On the post: Is It Even Possible To Ban Someone From Using A Computer?
Wow..
Why not simply just put her in jail if she's such a risk? That pretty much ensures she won't be using a computer..
On the post: Super Bowl Intellectual Property Insanity: No Big Screen Super Bowl Parties, Trademarking 19-0
@Ignore It
On the post: TSA Inspections Are Still A Farce
@17
See, I'm not sure violated is better than dead. I don't want to be treated like a potential criminal when I haven't done a damn thing.
Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? These days we're all treated with suspicion, and it's made us worse as a society.
I'm willing to accept a higher amout of risk to reduce my aggravation and increase the respect I'm given when travelling.
It's just another case of "punishing" the 99.9% of people who travel on the off-chance of catching that 0.01% of people who actually mean us harm and manage to get to the security checkpoint.
On the post: Comcast And Theaters Disagree On How Best To Not Interest Movie Watchers
Re: the perfect theater
http://www.beartooththeatre.net/index2.html
It might not fulfill requirement 5, but it's got another payoff: Tickets are only $3.
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