Publisher/Bookshop Why do some occult publishers avoid ebooks

[subspeciez]

I appreciate that Scarlet Imprint has ebooks and includes them with purchased hardcovers. I love to have a physical copy and some of my books are quite limited and expensive, so having an ebook for my kindle really puts my mind at ease. I’d totally be willing to pay extra for the ebook too, it just seems most other occult publishing houses don’t offer an ebook.
Why do you think this is?

 

[Jk666]

I’d totally be willing to pay extra for the ebook too, it just seems most other occult publishing houses don’t offer an ebook.
Why do you think this is?

Piracy of digital works

 

[hungry_ghost]

People still scan the hardcopies.

 

[Jk666]

People still scan the hardcopies.

Yeah but less. You have to make an effort. no method is fool proof.

probably making pages larger than A4 would make them harder to scan

 

[hungry_ghost]

Idk, back in the day you could find everything on scribed.

I don't fuck with pdfs anymore though. If I want a book I buy it.

 

[DiLoco_DelEted]

I appreciate that Scarlet Imprint has ebooks and includes them with purchased hardcovers. I love to have a physical copy and some of my books are quite limited and expensive, so having an ebook for my kindle really puts my mind at ease. I’d totally be willing to pay extra for the ebook too, it just seems most other occult publishing houses don’t offer an ebook.
Why do you think this is?

I remember scouring books for recommended titles or in bibliography.
Came across interesting sites, yet not individual publishers. Seems like more money.

 

[DiLoco_DelEted]

Yeah but less. You have to make an effort. no method is fool proof.

probably making pages larger than A4 would make them harder to scan

That's true. Libraries and other stores still have xerox machines. Sometimes you get people's old books through a library. Sometimes you get scanned notes.

 

[subspeciez]

Just let us pay goddamnit!

 

[DiLoco_DelEted]

Nephelim Press was a fair publisher it seems.

 

[SkullTraill]

1. Afraid of piracy
2. Some people believe that the physical book can hold magickal power and/or be a conduit for it
3. Stuck in the past

Honestly it frustrates me to no end, as someone who collects and shares ebooks, that publishers in this day and age still choose to exclusively publish physical books. The world of software has proved that piracy of software only served to increase popularity and draw attention. It's basically free advertising. Sometimes to the detriment of genuinely free books/software (think windows vs linux).

It's not even that much of a loss, because I'd argue that most people who pirate are people who would never buy the actual physical book anyway. Like for me, there's maybe 3-5 books that I would genuinely buy physical copies of that do not have digital copies. The rest of them, I'll download a pirated copy, and then for a good 50+ of them that impress me, I'll buy the kindle version anyway, but I'd never buy a physical book. If I love a book enough to buy a physical copy, it's clearly good enough that I would not pirate it.

Just like software, books fall into one of these categories for me:

1. I love it so much I buy physical right away
2. I pirate it first, and then if I love it, I buy it
3. I pirate it first, don't love it, and never buy it... but do you think I would ever have bought a physical copy of that? No. And if I did out of desperation, I'd feel cheated, and never buy from that author/publisher again
4. I have no interest in it, will not pirate, will not buy

 

[subspeciez]

My thoughts exactly

 

[league_ma_balls]

i agree Piracy and physical copies hold power. there is a certain energy from them. e books dont hold that

 

[subspeciez]

i agree Piracy and physical copies hold power. there is a certain energy from them. e books dont hold that

I agree, but I also don’t want to fuck up my expensive ass books lol

 

[league_ma_balls]

I agree, but I also don’t want to fuck up my expensive ass books lol

i so agree

 

[Sage]

most other occult publishing houses don’t offer an ebook.
Why do you think this is?

Aside the already stated piracy issues, I also think that there might be cases of said publishing houses seeing it as unfair to them that someone pays the price of one book and gets two(even if one of them is just 1s and 0s).

Or sometimes it is the case of them knowing that most people will go for the cheaper and easier to recieve option that is the digital book, while only few will buy the physical(usually much more expensive) edition.

Harder to make much money that way, even more so in the niche of occult books.

Believe it or not, but there are greedy publishers out there that think only about how much they can "demand", rather than spreading knowledge and being paid for that.

 

[Öwnchef]

Obviously go for self-publishing. Split a book down to several small volumes. E.g. the book has 250 pages. Cut it down to 10 x 25. Make them like 50 cents each. Also sell a complete set containg them all.

• You can read in it for low money.
• Pirates never have the whole set, just parts.

Plus keep working on your book! Let readers subscribe to get updates for free. Use their address to sell new books directly.

... to be continued

 

[The God-King]

I appreciate that Scarlet Imprint has ebooks and includes them with purchased hardcovers. I love to have a physical copy and some of my books are quite limited and expensive, so having an ebook for my kindle really puts my mind at ease. I’d totally be willing to pay extra for the ebook too, it just seems most other occult publishing houses don’t offer an ebook.
Why do you think this is?

I think it's due to piracy as others have said. But a couple of publishers do offer ebooks. Scarlet Imprint as you mentioned, is one, as is Hadean Press.

 

[tranmut3]

just wanted to add my 2 cents.its a pain in the a$$ not being able to get ebooks, even from major publishers.
i'm happy to pay for them. i have a kindle and its easy to find pdf's of everything, but pdf's come out not so great on the kindle - the other day i was looking on amazon for gareth knights stuff on ebook - only a couple of very minor works are available, his biggies are all only available on paperback / hardback. it does suck.