[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

This only goes to show what kind of a scandal it is that the publishers can't get it right to begin with. If amateurs can simply fix the formatting errors with Kindle, I don't know why the publishers can't manage the same trick

Roger,

My meetings with publishers over ebooks revealed a surprising reluctance on their parts. It was as if they saw the future coming, and knew they'd have to jump in, but they weren't happy about it.

One good example: in a contentious meeting over pricing, they insisted on holding the line on textbook pricing. I said "You've been claiming that printing and distribution costs are part of the reason for high textbook prices. This solution drives those costs to near zero, so you should at least give the students some break if they're willing to try this." But there was absolutely no give on their line.

You're quite right: these people were the greatest experts in layout the world has ever seen. If they *wanted* to make things look good, they could have. They must have just not been all that interested. Or they were thinking "It already costs us X to do traditional layout, it'll cost us X plus Y to do e-layout as well..." So they left the 'good enough' bar really low. I have a feeling that will change pretty quickly now, since ebook sales have surpassed dead tree book sales...

I'm not sure most poets would even be able to navigate the options and settings in Calibre, or recognize the terms. But a year from now, they probably won't have to...

Thanks,

Bill