Electronic vs. hardcopy publishing

[KAREN RONDESTVEDT]

People interested in the relative economics of electronic vs. hardcopy pub-
lishing might want to take a look at the following article:

        Clark, Tom. "On the Cost Differences between Publishing a Book in
        Paper and in the Electronic Medium." Library Resources & Technical
        Services 39, no. 1 (Jan. 1995), 23-28.

The abstract: "The processes an author's manuscript must go through to become
a book, in paper and in electronic form, are compared. From the author's manu-
script to publisher to printer to distributor, the common and unique features
of the two processes ar noted and compared. Definitions of paper book and
electronic book are proposed. Graphics, art and hypertext features are exluded
from the study and distribution by floppy disk is chosen over network distri-
bution to achieve an even, apples-to-apples comparison between the two pub-
lishing processes. Publishing electronic books is substantially cheaper than
publishing paper books on a per-book basis. The cost savings are realized by
the subprocesses of the publication process that can be eliminated for the
electronic medium and by the comparatively small space on a computer disk onto
which the equivalent paper book can fit."

Karen Rondestvedt
Slavic Bibliographer
University of Pittsburgh Library System
rondest at vms.cis.pitt.edu