Print run

Well, with textbooks, you can still estimate your potential market pretty accurately, and how much of that market you expect to capture.

You would think so. Shouldn't they be able to just look at the number of books a similar text book sold in the past and configure those numbers? Even if you have something that was previously a cornered market?
Also, I think they would have to take into account how out-of-date that previous textbook was when figuring how many of yours will sell. If the previous, (now available) textbook was written say,... 20 years ago, you would think it would be safe to say that the majority of those textbooks would be replaced.
I could be wrong though. I do not have a lot of experience in that field. Just my thoughts.

LC wrote:

Well, with textbooks, you can still estimate your potential market pretty accurately, and how much of that market you expect to capture.

Can you estimate what the ratio of print books to e-books will be?

I don't know why this turned into discussions about digital books. It was really about permissions. LC's publisher had to estimate the maximum number of sales for print, electronic and powerpoint sales. The estimate had to be high enough to ensure that the publisher would not have to request permission more than once.

This discussion seems to prove just why publishers are reluctant to give estimates to authors.

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Also, I think they would have to take into account how out-of-date that previous textbook was when figuring how many of yours will sell. If the previous, (now available) textbook was written say,... 20 years ago, you would think it would be safe to say that the majority of those textbooks would be replaced.

The competitor text has been out for ten years and is in its third edition. The author is currently working on a fourth. Successful texts go into edition after edition. My trade nonfic has been out for 20 years and is in its 6th edition. A successful text typically releases a new edition every three years, to update material and combat sales of used texts. The latter really take a bite out of profits after a few years, my royalty check for my first text was half the amount this year that it was the previous two years. Still paid for our expenses in China, though.

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This discussion seems to prove just why publishers are reluctant to give estimates to authors.

How does it prove it?

... because of the interpretation being put upon it. It would seem that before an estimate about ebooks can be made, we have to decide what is an ebook! All ebooks are digital but not all digital books are ebooks. For some reason this is causing confusion. I thought it was pretty straightforward, but apparently not.

Not all computers are electronic but everyone seems to understand when you talk about computers. No one says, "Do you mean an electronic computer?"

"Before electronic computers became commercially available, the term 'computer', in use from the mid 17th century, literally meant 'one who computes': a person performing mathematical calculations. ..."

Digital books that are printed have never been refered to by the general public as digital books. Not so with digital books that are electronic. There is even a definition for digital books that makes no mention of print-on-demand books!

Shelagh wrote:

All ebooks are digital but not all digital books are ebooks.

Only in the strictest sense of the word and not in the way we are using it now. Some ebooks are available as scanned images. Music and art books, for example. The content is not "digitized" (a cartography term), a process that converts raster data to vector data. The file itself is digital--because that's the only way to store things in a computer--but the content is imagery rather than ascii.

Shelagh wrote:

Not all computers are electronic but everyone seems to understand when you talk about computers. No one says, "Do you mean an electronic computer?"

That is because the use of computers has become mainstream. And other non-electronic computers have names of their own that are widely used and which disambiguate the meaning.

Shelagh wrote:

"Before electronic computers became commercially available, the term 'computer', in use from the mid 17th century, literally meant 'one who computes': a person performing mathematical calculations. ..."

I don't know who you quoted, but it is a misleading statement at least when taken out of context. It implies that nothing came between. Digital and analogue computers were in use during WWII for cryptography and trajectory calculations. They were called "computers" and were not commercially available.

Shelagh wrote:

Digital books that are printed have never been refered to by the general public as digital books."

And we were not discussing what the general public calls them. We were discussing what publishers and writers call them. We have lots of jargon that the public never hears. But the public neither knows nor cares whether a book was printed with digital or typeset technology. It makes a great difference to the publisher.

Shelagh wrote:

Not so with digital books that are electronic. There is even a definition for digital books that makes no mention of print-on-demand books!

As I pointed out, language morphs when people appropriate catch phrases for their own purposes.

Do you remember what "more bang for your buck" meant before it became mainstream?

I am sorry, but when you ask about 'more bang for your buck', I am not 100% sure. However, I am sure it had to do with deer and guns...lol

Nope. The expression originally referred to the services provided by prostitutes when compared with their fees. Now there's even a TV series on home remodelling that uses the expression for its title.

I'm becoming about as interested in the difference between a digital book and an electronic book as I am in the difference between a man-made crop circle and a so-called real crop circle.

I know and accept that digital and ebooks are one and the same thing. I am confident that most people who download digital books online know exactly what kind of books they are buying.


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"Before electronic computers became commercially available, the term 'computer', in use from the mid 17th century, literally meant 'one who computes': a person performing mathematical calculations. ..."

Sources:

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Digital (ebooks)

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Digital books store:

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Digital Libraries:

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Digital (as opposed to physical) book rights:

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Shelagh wrote:

I'm becoming about as interested in the difference between a digital book and an electronic book as I am in the difference between a man-made crop circle and a so-called real crop circle.

But you won't let it go. You overlooked when I agreed to yield to your interpretation and kept coming back. Some people just can't take yes for an answer.

But -- if you are putting me in a category with James, I shall have to think about that.

Hey, everyone has their own interpretation of words. I am absolutely sure that we all use similar phrases in our writings, yet they may mean completely different things. This started out as a good conversation about calculating digital sales for a fellow member. Now they seems to be some animosity stirring here.
Please, are we all here to converse about things, have friendly discussions, and use each others knowledge to better ourselves. Atleast, that is what I thought it was for when I joined.

Well, after all the sturm und drang, ph went ahead and used that art piece anyhow. Guess they got tired of me rejecting all the (lame) replacements their permissions people showed me.