出版与作家生涯2010antipope.org
Charlie Stross 谈关于出版的常见误解：电子书
Charlie Stross on Common Misconceptions About Publishing: Ebooks
导读
Charlie Stross 在这篇文章里澄清关于电子书的常见误解：电子书的成本不在纸张墨水，而在编辑、排版与营销；它也不是实体书的廉价替代品，而是改变了库存、发行和作者与读者关系的阅读形态。对写作者来说，理解电子书背后的出版经济学，能更理性地看待定价、读者期待和内容传播。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
电子书的定价依据不是省下的纸张成本，而是编辑、排版、校对这些同样存在的专业投入。
- 02
读者觉得电子书“不值”，往往是因为实体书的手感、可借阅等附加体验被低估，而不是单纯计较材质。
- 03
电子书消灭了库存成本，让绝版书和长尾书能持续销售，也让作者有机会绕开传统通路直接面对读者。
- 04
不要假设大众读者都愿意自己筛选内容：阅读是时间投资，很多人仍愿意付费请编辑和策展人把关质量。
HN 评论精选
读者声称不在乎排版设计是一种短视，设计的影响其实无处不在。
我常听重度电子书读者说：“电子书我才不在乎排版和设计！”我觉得这是一种奇特的大脑损伤或心理创伤。作为同样有这种“脑损伤”的人，这些话让我想到一个设计师：看到客观统计证据显示旧而丑的网站比自己的改版表现更好，却无视数据，花几个小时谈艺术。
patio11查看英文原文
I get this a lot from dedicated ebook readers: "I don't care about formatting and design in ebooks!" I think this is a peculiar kind of brain damage or mental scarring... As someone who shares this "brain damage", these lines puts me in the mood of a designer who, seeing objective statistical evidence that his redesign was outperformed by the older, uglier website, dismisses the metrics and rants about art for a few hours.
大众读者依然需要编辑和策展人，因为阅读的时间成本高，品质把关本身就是价值。
这里有个有趣的元讨论：内容策展人到底有没有增值？我认识的很多黑客都觉得自己更喜欢直接抓取原始内容流，然后自己筛选和格式化。这不奇怪，这就是黑客的做事方式。但假设大众也喜欢自己筛选内容，我认为是概念上的错误。即使是音乐销售这种已经很开放的市场，仍然由大厂牌和小厂牌驱动。对书来说，人们付费请别人筛选内容的动机更强：阅读是很大的时间投入——当一个人蜷起来读书，不管电子还是纸质，都希望这本书值得花时间。而且，他们很可能也希望排版漂亮、校对干净。
URSpider94查看英文原文
There is an interesting meta-discussion going on here, over whether content curators add value. Most of the hackers that I've met tend to believe that they would prefer to latch onto a raw content stream, then filter and format it to their liking. No surprise -- that is the way of hackers, after all. However, I do think that it's a conceptual mistake to assume that the public at large would like to filter their own content. Even music sales, which are pretty far down the road towards an openly accessible market, are still driven by the major and minor labels. For books, I see an even stronger incentive to keep paying others to filter our content. Reading is a big investment, time-wise -- when people curl up with a book, e- or paper, they want to know that it's going to be worth their time. And, yes, they probably want it to be nicely typeset and proofread as well.
实体书的价值在于物理体验和可借阅，电子书的优势需要时间让读者适应。
我不同意作者说人们觉得电子书不值是因为高估了纸张和油墨的成本。人们觉得电子书不如纸质书，是因为捧着一本书的实体体验，比在电脑或阅读器屏幕上读书的体验更值得。电子书有其他优势，但我们还不习惯，所以很多人觉得自己得到的东西变少了。另外，我认为作者也低估了实体书的其他价值，比如在 DRM 还是主流的情况下，至少可以把它借给别人。
MWinther查看英文原文
I don't agree that the reason people think an e-book is worth less is overvaluating the cost of paper and ink. People feel that an e-book is worth less than a paper book because the physical experience of handling a book is worth more than the experience of reading a book on a computer or e-reader screen. The e-book has other advantages, but we're not used to those and thus it feels to many people like they're getting less. Also, I believe that the author under-estimates other values inherent in a physical book, such as the ability to lend it to someone else, at least as long as DRM is the norm.
电子书的关键优势是消除库存成本，让长尾书和作者直面读者成为可能。
虽然电子书和实体书在编辑、排版、宣传上的成本可能差不多，但电子书解决了库存成本的问题——据我的作者朋友说，这部分成本相当可观。很多书每年绝版，不是因为没人买，而是因为小批量印刷和仓库囤货的成本在传统出版模式下超过了收益。我也惊讶作者似乎暗示实体印刷机的设立和维护成本基本为零。在一个作者和读者连接更直接、电子书主导的世界里，那些第六大道的豪华办公室或许也就不那么必要了。
joubert查看英文原文
Even though editorial, typesetting, and publicity costs may be comparable between ebooks and physical books, the ebook medium overcomes the problem of inventory costs, which, I understand from author friends are substantial. Many books go out of print every year because, although there are still willing buyers, the cost of producing lower volumes and keeping warehouses stocked outweighs the benefits in the traditional book publishing model. I'm also surprised the author of this piece implies (?) the cost of setting up and maintaining a physical press is basically zero. Swish offices on 6th Ave would possibly also be less necessary in an ebook-dominated world where there is a more direct line between authors and their readers (customers).
同类还值得读
写书：值得吗？
Writing a book: is it worth it?
Martin Kleppmann（《设计数据密集型应用》作者）复盘写书到底值不值：金钱回报低、耗时极长，但带来了可见度、信任和职业机会。
出版与作家生涯2020 · 642 分 · 287 评4 条写作要点编辑精选写书并不是个好主意
Writing books is not really a good idea
这篇文章讨论靠写书谋生的现实难度，评论区从版税数学、收入预期和写作目标三个角度补充了作者视角。
出版与作家生涯2021 · 577 分 · 609 评4 条写作要点编辑精选如何自助出版一本书：实用资源清单
How to self-publish a book: A handy list of resources
这是一份关于「如何自助出版一本书」的资源清单帖，涵盖从编辑、排版到 ISBN、销售渠道的实操工具与花费。
出版与作家生涯2018 · 558 分 · 88 评4 条写作要点编辑精选我自助出版一本Ruby on Rails书，赚了7万美元
How I Made $70k Self-Publishing a Book about Ruby on Rails
这是一篇 Ruby 开发者自述：他把一套 Rails 性能课程（书＋视频＋答疑）自出版，一年毛收入约 7 万美元，并总结了选题、定价、营销等经验。
出版与作家生涯2017 · 539 分 · 175 评4 条写作要点编辑精选石黑一雄警告年轻作家因“恐惧”而自我审查
Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'
石黑一雄提醒年轻作者因“恐惧”而自我审查，即这条帖子讨论的核心。
出版与作家生涯2021 · 396 分 · 641 评5 条写作要点编辑精选