I can go home right now and import almost any type of text document into the FREE Stanza ereader software, and using some simple settings, adjust that document, then export it to create an ebook in epub or several other formats. I can also do this with the freely available Calibre software. I can, for instance, turn a PDF of the public domain Great Expectations into a format that can be read by all of the major ebook readers (except one glaring exception), and can read it on my iPhone, in Stanza, in less than 5 minutes. But it takes the publishers a long time and a lot of money? They must be using union typesetters still. I don't think it's accurate to refer to these people as "publishers" anymore. The publishers are now you and me, and unless the guys with the fancy imprints on the spines of books get it together, people like Cory Doctorow are going to make them obsolete. Or are they already?
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Greg Cashen.
They're doing it wrong
Let me get this straight...
I can go home right now and import almost any type of text document into the FREE Stanza ereader software, and using some simple settings, adjust that document, then export it to create an ebook in epub or several other formats. I can also do this with the freely available Calibre software. I can, for instance, turn a PDF of the public domain Great Expectations into a format that can be read by all of the major ebook readers (except one glaring exception), and can read it on my iPhone, in Stanza, in less than 5 minutes. But it takes the publishers a long time and a lot of money? They must be using union typesetters still. I don't think it's accurate to refer to these people as "publishers" anymore. The publishers are now you and me, and unless the guys with the fancy imprints on the spines of books get it together, people like Cory Doctorow are going to make them obsolete. Or are they already?