Comments on: Technical ebooks: some publishers don’t get it http://blog.nkadesign.com/2009/technical-ebooks-some-publishers-dont-get-it/ The Internets of Renaud Bompuis, lambda programmer in awe-inspiring Hong Kong! Tue, 24 Feb 2015 08:16:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=267 By: Tony Toewshttp://blog.nkadesign.com/2009/technical-ebooks-some-publishers-dont-get-it/comment-page-1/#comment-11897 Sun, 14 Feb 2010 06:51:15 +0000 http://blog.nkadesign.com/?p=435#comment-11897 I find it very hard to believe that the cost of producing an Ebook is at all close to the physical cost of printing and distributing a book. If so the ecommerce site is making huge profits. Hire some competent programmers and build a solution in a month or two.

P.S. I;m a software developer but I’m not at all intersted in this kind of work.

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By: Renaudhttp://blog.nkadesign.com/2009/technical-ebooks-some-publishers-dont-get-it/comment-page-1/#comment-10279 Wed, 25 Mar 2009 05:38:30 +0000 http://blog.nkadesign.com/?p=435#comment-10279 @Jim: Thanks for taking the time to reply. I’m surprised at the cost of ebook production. It doesn’t seem right that you, as a publisher, suffer such high prices that you end-up passing to your customers.
I don’t see where the value is for us at all.
Ebook production costs should be marginal compared to classic manufacturing costs, there is nothing that really justifies them.

I have to go back to the basic premise here: I don’t understand the value of such a crippled, high-cost offering.

Checking some popular torrent sites would show that the book is there, available to download for free.

As a result:
– the DRM failed as an anti-piracy measure
– the DRM removes some of our fair-use rights – the DRM alienates otherwise faithful customers
– the DRM forces higher selling prices
In short, the DRM is a liability.

I really appreciate you stopping by and taking the time to respond to my post.
I like Wrox books but I’m afraid you lost me on the DRM ebook thing and I’ll have to vote with my money.

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By: Jim Minatelhttp://blog.nkadesign.com/2009/technical-ebooks-some-publishers-dont-get-it/comment-page-1/#comment-10276 Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:45:01 +0000 http://blog.nkadesign.com/?p=435#comment-10276 You make some really valid points and I’ll agree, our e-book solution isn’t perfect. A couple of minor corrections I’d point out: ebooks aren’t free to produce: we use a 3rd party e-book ecommerce solution and the per unit charge is roughly the same as the per unit cost of printing a book. I hope we can lower that charge soon and then have more flexible e-book pricing

The social DRM watermark solution is something we are trying too. Right now, it’s not something ready to scale to all ebook sales rather than the Wrox Blox and Chapters on Demand we are trying it with. And it also isn’t something that ebook resellers can use. Yes, I can see it as the future solution for ebook PDF sales, but we’re not quite ready yet.

And yes, we’re frustrated too by the lack of an Adobe solution for Linux.

You can contact support to get re-download licenses if needed for when you’ve changed OS’s, PCs, etc.

I’m not sure I understand the need for copying and pasting from the ebook. I’d welcome seeing more on this. It seems the limited copy/paste rights now should fit most needs.

Thanks for sharing this, hopefully you’ll find we continue to improve.

Jim Minatel Associate Publisher – Wiley Technology Publishing/Wrox Press

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