Are you opposed to the DRM-stripping tools available? Buying a Kindle book and running it through Calibre seems like an easier route to take than scanning the physical book.
On the book scanning note though, do you have a special book scanner? I've never seen one outside of professional shops and turning the pages seems like a ginormous hassle.
You're right that using a flatbed scanner is simply unworkable for books.
I use a Fujitsu fi-5120C hopper-fed scanner (does both sides at once) and a QCM-8200M stack slicer. Those make short work of most books. The Fujitsu scanner software includes an OCR. I scan at 400dpi. If a page gets messed up, I use pdftk to merge in corrected scans.
I also use it to scan in small mountains of old tax records and documents I had stuffed everywhere.
The odd thing is I've come to prefer the pdf images, as they look like a book page (!). This works out great on ereaders with larger screens like the Kindle DX, or the Kobo Aura which has an HD eink display.
The regular Kindle is a bit squinty with a paperback sized PDF, but I bought some dimestore reading glasses which helps wit dat.
