>All of that is to get a professionally typeset and edited book with cover art and yadda yadda.
Give me the text and I'll add a version of Readability (same typesetting for all fiction books would be fine for me, there might be particular text features that need specially treatment occasionally I imagine). Cover art is usually pretty formulaic I can't really see most authors paying [to a graphic artist/designer] more than a days wages for subsequent covers, perhaps a week for the first one.
Presumably with an e-book reader I can set set the kerning/leading/font-size/font-weight/etc. ?
With e-books you could set 2 prices, edited and unedited, call them different names if you like. Then authors can decide how much they want to spend on editors - in some cases I'm sure they add a huge amount, probably define the work, in others not so much.
If you are a publisher, and have all the trouble to get and edited book into publication, why would you give the option of unedited book like you mention? It would be just like creating your own competition.
Market Segmentation. You can charge a really cheap price for the unedited one. It'll be the bargin basement cheap version. People who wouldn't buy the €10 one will buy a €2 one. People who can afford €10 will buy a fancy edited one and feel superior.
>It would be just like creating your own competition.
I guess director's cuts of DVDs create more overall profit? Why not the same for a book?
However, my main thought was that if the original sells better one could consider ditching a costly full-edit and simply having it sub-edited or even skip to proofreading only.
Give me the text and I'll add a version of Readability (same typesetting for all fiction books would be fine for me, there might be particular text features that need specially treatment occasionally I imagine). Cover art is usually pretty formulaic I can't really see most authors paying [to a graphic artist/designer] more than a days wages for subsequent covers, perhaps a week for the first one.
Presumably with an e-book reader I can set set the kerning/leading/font-size/font-weight/etc. ?
With e-books you could set 2 prices, edited and unedited, call them different names if you like. Then authors can decide how much they want to spend on editors - in some cases I'm sure they add a huge amount, probably define the work, in others not so much.