On 19 Aug 2001, at 11:03, Gary Nunn wrote:
> I was at one of the local Media Play shops (they sell CDs Videos,
> books and DVDs) and the Science Fiction section continues to shrink
> smaller and smaller. And, to add insult to injury, they have now
> combined the fantasy books and that section is now "Sci-Fi & Fantasy".
> Not that there is anything wrong with fantasy, but the combined
> sections are SMALLER that the Science Fiction section was alone before
> they combined them.
Well, the established bookshops seem to be keeping
SciFi/Fantasy sections the same size (some are shuffling them to
the back of the shop, but I don't really care about that..), it's that
the small second hand bookshops are closing..all three I used to
use have closed in the last 2 years.
> Is it that people are not interested in buying Science Fiction as much
> as they used to be or is it that the publishers are not publishing as
> many? Or both?
I think MORE Sci-Fi is comming out, and some authors are writing
Sci-Si best sellers...so I doubt it's that!
> the ebooks were being sold for $14.95 each! Granted, a majority of
Eeek! Geez..I'd expect them to be cheaper becuase you don't have
printing costs...
> these expensive books were by big authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs,
Eh, some of his works are avaliable via Project Guttenburg (sp)
anyway...
> because they become hard to sell. On the positive side, they do offer
> to sell your ebook and split the price at 50/50, with the author
> retaining full ownership and rights to the content.
Interesting :)
> Unless a much better user interface is created, I don't believe that
> ebooks will become as popular as printed books.
It's more to do with screen quality...most cheap screens are lousy
to read on. My �300 17" Diamontron screen, 5BNC cable, etc. IS
easy to read from, but it's an exception - lots of PC's are sold with
cheap monitors these days.
> That possibility would not be completely out of the question. With a
> series of high speed printers, a single book could be printed and
> bound in a few minutes, including a color cover to complete the book.
Well, I have a 16PPM laser printer (A KyoceraFS-3600...medium
office laser I picked up "broken" for a song. One charge wire
replacement later, I have a great laser printer), so I'm happy to print
my own :) That should be cheaper as well...
Andy
Dawn Falcon
