mettafuture wrote:retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Mettafuture,
Ah, but if A2I rely on donations (either from users, or self-supported by the owner), it's really not much different to other mechanisms for distributing the Dhamma, is it?
I can't even find the donations page on Access To Insight. Maybe they're not even asking for donations, which makes them all the better, and makes me want to give to them even more.
In other words, there is always a cost involved... whether it be borne by the recipient or the giver.
Rendering a translation of a Pali text into English costs more time than it does money. And to save on printing costs, they could distribute the books electronically.
Wisdom Publications, who print Bhikkhu Bodhi's translations are a not for profit entity... what you are paying for when you buy the book, is the cost of printing,
Ebooks can eliminate this step. And, as I pointed out above, all of the Nikayas are already available in epub and kindle format. Why not put those online for half or a third of the cost of the hardcovers?
research
Research by who? The monks who translate the texts? Are they making money from Wisdom Publications?
typesetting, editing
Access To Insight is typeset and edited by 1 man and a handful of volunteers.
If Wisdom Publications needed help with typesetting and editing, I would gladly donate my services, free of charge. I'm sure others would be open to doing the same.
distribution etc.
For the heavy hardcovers, sure, but epub and kindle books can be hosted on mediafire for free.
and providing a humble income to those involved in the production of the book so they can put food on the table and pay their bills.
I understand this point, but something doesn't feel right about seeing a set of the Buddha's discourses with a $60 price tag stamped on it. This doesn't seem very
Buddhist to me.
In this instance, no one is skimming profit out of the Dhamma, so what is there to complain about?
By all means, donate to Access To Insight, it would certainly be a meritorious deed, but do not over-simplify the economics involved to the point where you're dismissing those who are doing good service to the Dhamma via other media.
I'm not dismissing anything. It does costs a lot to print and distribute heavy books. What I'm wondering about is why the electronic versions cost almost as much as the hardcovers.