Trotter wrote:
Have seen on Twitter that The Shaping of Middle-earth is coming out as an eBook on Apple Books on the 21st October 2019, expect it will also be available for the Kindle at about the same time

Sadly not including the USA market...

Do you have news about the publication of the volumes 10 to 12 in epub ?

Both HarperCollins and Houghton Mifflin have confirmed that the entire History of Middle-earth will be released in eBook format, but I haven't seen any firm schedules for when each volume is coming.

I guess the pandemic has delayed the publication, but I was hoping at least some dates now :(

Pandemic shouldn't affect an ebook - it's not like it's something that needs to produced, it's all digital.

You are assuming that HC already has digital, ebook formatted files for these books (that were published in the 1980s to early 1990s). That is not the case.

insurrbution wrote:

Pandemic shouldn't affect an ebook - it's not like it's something that needs to produced, it's all digital.

You're thinking too linearly; there's no reason it couldn't affect the production of ebooks.

Why can't older books simply be released as tidied up page scanned images of the original editions? Is there a particular reason why we need them re-typeset or have to use OCR technology? I don't use eBooks so not familiar with the format.

Khamûl wrote:

Why can't older books simply be released as tidied up page scanned images of the original editions? Is there a particular reason why we need them re-typeset or have to use OCR technology? I don't use eBooks so not familiar with the format.

eBooks are not scanned, they are more like a Word Document, you can index the document and search for any text and also change the font size, and this is the problem with The History of Middle-Earth books, on the early versions the formatting went to pieces if you changed the font size, this is an example from HoME 3, the line numbers do not line up properly, and it makes them much harder to release than other ebooks, more expensive to create.

Khamûl wrote:

Why can't older books simply be released as tidied up page scanned images of the original editions? Is there a particular reason why we need them re-typeset or have to use OCR technology? I don't use eBooks so not familiar with the format.

It comes down to format. The only viable format for page scans is PDF and many of the retailers would not take them. Amazon for instance would not touch a PDF of a page scan and sell it, especially as some of their more traditional readers are not very PDF friendly. It may be time consuming to produce but overall ePub/mobi (AZW3) are better formats for digital books and offer so much more than PDF.

I asked HC if I could purchase their POD files for HoME, their reply explained that they could not as those books did not meet standards for eReaders or retailer checks. I explained that I would be happy to use them as if they were traditional page scans with no warranty or further support but they were firm on their first reply.

I have been scanning pages since the late 1990s ever since I read an article about the Rocket eBook and thought it would at least sit along side traditional books in the future. It took a few years for a reader to become affordable and practical for me so in 2004 I bought my first eBook reader (the Sony Reader) and have never looked back. In 2007 I bought a Kindle and now own the Kindle Oasis and my reading has never been more enjoyable or productive. It is a remarkable and powerful reading tool and when travelling is the first thing I pack. Library loans like OneDrive, local library system etc (which by the way during COVID has been such an incredible tool) are fantastic. I still read physical books and purchase just as many as I did before eBooks, it simply offers me a wider choice.