That's sort of the thing. It's like a filk CD: printing costs around $1,400 to $3,000, but the odds are good that the person doing the production has already paid more than that in studio and mixing fees, and has simply eaten that cost preparatory to reaching the "physical product" stage. If I didn't make "real" CDs, I'd still be $3,000 to $7,000 out of pocket, depending on the expense of the product, and would need to be able to make it back if I ever wanted to record another album. I could probably justify pricing the MP3 downloads at $10, rather than the standard $15, but I couldn't go much lower.
Yes, eventually the music would have made back enough money to be effectively something I could give away...but I'm an independent. If I were a business, I'd need to be able to make back my money and show a profit in order to justify making another album.
As for typesetting and layout, maybe you don't see the need, but a lot of people do. When I open an electronic file, I don't want to tinker, I want to read my virtual book. Typesetting it isn't my job.
Books in Project Gutenberg have already gone through typesetting and layout. That's why you see things like "italics" and "consistent use of various forms of punctuation." All the things you said "just" about—paragraph markers, bold, italics, underline, blockquote, and maybe smallcaps—fall under that umbrella. Yes, the author can do some of those...but no, the author is not going to be consistent or perfect.
no subject
Yes, eventually the music would have made back enough money to be effectively something I could give away...but I'm an independent. If I were a business, I'd need to be able to make back my money and show a profit in order to justify making another album.
As for typesetting and layout, maybe you don't see the need, but a lot of people do. When I open an electronic file, I don't want to tinker, I want to read my virtual book. Typesetting it isn't my job.
Books in Project Gutenberg have already gone through typesetting and layout. That's why you see things like "italics" and "consistent use of various forms of punctuation." All the things you said "just" about—paragraph markers, bold, italics, underline, blockquote, and maybe smallcaps—fall under that umbrella. Yes, the author can do some of those...but no, the author is not going to be consistent or perfect.