How? Like, do you think a book published 100 years ago has a digital file sitting around a publishing house that might even exist anymore? Re-publishig of old books are often based on scans (the originals were literally pressed into paper by metal, not printed off hard drives), and if the books don't exist, they can't re-scan.
I own some antique Japanese books that have very few copies in existence. You couldn't get them re-printed if you want to if the physical book didn't exist anymore. For a few books, I've actually purchased incredibly high-quality scans that cost me hundreds of dollars because to produce the re-issues, people had to go to museums with high-powered cameras to photograph the pages under supervision of a curator. There's no digital file to print from the publisher. If those books were gone, there's no bringing them back.
Do you understand that many of these publishers do not have the original copy anymore, and may have gone out of business entirely? 50 years ago text was not backed up to the cloud.
> They raise the price and print more copies?
How? Like, do you think a book published 100 years ago has a digital file sitting around a publishing house that might even exist anymore? Re-publishig of old books are often based on scans (the originals were literally pressed into paper by metal, not printed off hard drives), and if the books don't exist, they can't re-scan.
I own some antique Japanese books that have very few copies in existence. You couldn't get them re-printed if you want to if the physical book didn't exist anymore. For a few books, I've actually purchased incredibly high-quality scans that cost me hundreds of dollars because to produce the re-issues, people had to go to museums with high-powered cameras to photograph the pages under supervision of a curator. There's no digital file to print from the publisher. If those books were gone, there's no bringing them back.
You are not understanding how the market works. Rarity and value do not always correlate with demand. Otherwise I have some beanie babies to sell.
I doubt that your beanie babies are very rare.
What if the book has been out of print for 50 years? This isn't a contrived scenario, most of the rare books are like this.
> What if the book has been out of print for 50 years?
Same answer? They raise the price and print more copies.
You can just print even 1 copy, just the cost per print will be higher.
In fact publishers getting some profit on the tail end of books is the best thing that could happen to authors and publishing industry.
Do you understand that many of these publishers do not have the original copy anymore, and may have gone out of business entirely? 50 years ago text was not backed up to the cloud.
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