One effect of digital books that I don't remember seeing discussed anywhere

[womzilla]

Several (many?) major publishers have mass-market paperback public domain lines. These books don't generate a lot of revenue each, since they're usually sold very inexpensively, but they also don't cost a lot to make, and they are capable of selling a great many copies each. (I don't think I'm giving away any secrets when I mention that Tor Books's 1992 edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula sold significantly more copies than Signet's novelization of the movie, Fred Saberhagen's Bram Stoker's Dracula.)

However, as reading e-books becomes more of the everyday habit of reading, what happens to these public domain lines? I can't imagine they'll go away completely, not for a very long time--but they'll definitely be hurt. It's hard to compete with free.

Comments

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Some guys who are trying to compete with free (http://beamjockey.livejournal.com/154567.html). Very badly.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

As I commented on your page, I think these are the same people who are also flooding the market with print-on-demand Wikipedia pages.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

This causes me to meditate on what "flooding the market" means.

A printed copy of the Wikipedia page on Watermelons is available, along with jillions of sister titles. So if you count by books listed for sale, the market is flooded.

But if scarcely anybody buys such books, their potential existence does not increase the total sales of the world's books by much. So that's not a flood, it's a trickle.

Do you have any inkling (does anybody?) what the actual sales are for these long-tail POD publishers? I ask because you're more hip to publishing than I.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I mean that there are such a proliferation of titles that they jam up searches on both bn.com and amazon.com, especially on more obscure searches.