Sci-Fi Publisher Tor Ditches DRM For E-Books 280
First time accepted submitter FBeans writes "'Science fiction publisher Tor UK is dropping digital rights management from its e-books alongside a similar move by its U.S. partners. ... Tor UK, Tor Books and Forge are divisions of Pan Macmillan, which said it viewed the move as an "experiment."' With experiments, come results. Now users can finally read their books across multiple devices such as Amazon's Kindle, Sony Reader, Kobo eReader and Apple's iBooks. Perhaps we will see the *increase* of sales, because the new unrestricted format outweighs the decrease caused by piracy?"
It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Informative)
Anecdotal and all, but I certainly will gravitate towards their offerings. Immediately. The very reason I don't buy any ebooks for my wife's kindle is that we can't read them on anything else. I'm certainly not reading a 400 page tome on my phone.
So I say, "Good on them, and here's some money."
(posting to remove misplaced mod, because I'm an idiot and clicked the wrong text)
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>>> I'm certainly not reading a 400 page tome on my phone
Why not?
I used to read e-books on my 8 bit computer at 320x200 resolution. In comparison reading on a hi-res phone would be a luxury.
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I doubt your 8 bit monitor was 3.5" across.
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Informative)
No, I buy media that is not DRM protected. I refrain from purchasing DRM encumbered content for the most part. I've passed on many a movie or ebook simply because of DRM.
The DRM mechanisms are frequently useless anyway. ePub drm can be stripped away instantly (I used some promotional credit to acquire a DRM encumbered epub and stripped the DRM in short order).
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Interesting)
... ePub drm can be stripped away instantly (I used some promotional credit to acquire a DRM encumbered epub and stripped the DRM in short order).
Which is illegal under DMCA (even though there is plenty of court precedence to probably favor a ruling of fair use (IANAL)). I applaud you for your willingness to be a court test case (why don't you forward the above post to the publisher of the DRM content along with your name, address, and lawyer's contact info). As for me, I'll back you up by continuing financial support for the EFF (I'm willing to bet they'd help you out with lawyers if you don't already have one, or if you already do, there will be some briefs coming in on your side), and continuing my boycott of DRM books. I don't suppose you could initiate a kickstarter program for a lawsuit not yet brought can you?
I also am thrilled by the news that Tor has joined up with the Baen philosophy, and I hope their corporate overlords allow it to progress. The fact that it is yet another sci-fi publisher which has adopted this strategy should not be lost on anyone.
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What "decrease caused by piracy"? Cracking the DRM on ebooks was trivial. There are more ebooks in open formats or PDF floating around than anyone could possibly want. All DRM did was piss off the paying customers.
The ugly truth of every industry that has bitched and moaned about "piracy" is that all the money wasted on DRM has not gotten them any money in return. The people who are going to "pirate" do it for lots of reasons. Some want a more functional copy that can be moved to other devices, or that they
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Informative)
DRM works! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm using the ultimate DRM for my latest book - I keep it all in my head and I've never even thought the whole thing through.
And it works perfectly! Not one person has an unpaid copy of it.
Success? Indeed!
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Re:DRM works! (Score:5, Funny)
The question is, does anyone have a paid copy of it? Maybe if you removed your DRM, you'd have more paying customers!
This is not the first time I've seen beheadings suggested as a way to respond to DRM.
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
For those saying you would now buy ebooks from Tor..... do you buy the Sci-Fi magazines? That is where most young authors get their start. If they die out (they lose about 1000 subscribers/year), so too does the paid outlet for future talent. And most of the mags are DRM free too:
http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/dellmagazineauthorseBooks.htm?cache [fictionwise.com]
.
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Informative)
Not really, but stripping the DRM from my Kindle ebooks just so I can convert them and put them on my epub reader is a hassle I could do without. Besides, DRM wouldn't stop me from getting pirated ebooks, if I were so inclined.
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
Too stingy yo pay for your media?
What I find hilarious is that you apparently think people who are too stingy to pay for their media will grudgingly do so anyway when piracy is made slightly more inconvenient, rather than continuing to be stingy and finding a torrent, or just not acquiring the media in question in the first place.
This is like thinking you can cure a man of his heroin addiction by putting a "No Junkies!" sign on the front of your country club.
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worse... I'm not too stingy to pay for my media, but when you add in the cost of DRM on top of that (the publisher doesn't pay for it with money it grows on trees, after all) to by media in a format that is inconvenient, when I could pay the same or less for media that is convenient, idiot's comment makes even less sense.
It's always been the case with copy protection - the people who legally buy copy protected materials are the ones who pay for the copy protection that reduces the versatility of whatever it is they bought. It's always been the people who "steal" who get unencumbered versions... it's like punishing the honest people and rewarding the ones who violate the copyright. Do they even understand basic psychology?
Honest people are honest; dishonest people are dishonest... adding DRM doesn't change that, it just hurts the honest people.
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But, where will all the coke and hooker parties be held at?
That's why right below the first sign is one that says "Coke-heads w/ escorts welcome."
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
Well that's the irony, isn't it? DRM is supposed to make piracy inconvenient so people will buy, but what it really does is make piracy more convenient than paying for the product.
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Interesting)
I will gladly pay when it's easier to buy your book than it is to get a torrent.
Torrents are *not* easy to deal with, especially for someone with average computer skills. Then half the time you end up getting a Portuguese translation or something so badly formatted you can't read it.
Good quality product at a FAIR price is what the "free market" wants... and the free market is ALWAYS good, right?
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Good quality product at a FAIR price is what the "free market" wants... and the free market is ALWAYS good, right?
Overall the (largely) free market is better than anything else.
Of course, when businesses collude to make life more difficult for consumers or defeat the purpose of competing, then it's not really "free" and I have no problem with the government getting involved. In this case, I think the government is already coming down on publishers and retailers alike when it comes to e-books. Maybe not enough.
The beauty of the free market though, even when companies that create non-necessities collude, is that you do
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me tell you about my first Kindle purchase. I paid $12 for a novel that retailed on Amazon at $13.
I read the book, thoroughly enjoyed it and told a friend a couple of days later. She responded by saying she'd love to borrow it. I had to explain that wasn't possible.
So, I saved a dollar.
The publisher saved the cost of printing a paperback book, physically transporting it to Amazon. Amazon saved having the physically store the book in a warehouse and didn't have to pay UPS to deliver it to me.
Once I had read the book, I couldn't lend it or sell it. The bits were used and might as werll be deleted. The publisher and Amazon win again, as there's no second hand market for that purchase.
I have made Kindle purchases since, but I'm much more selective. Typically I'll only do it where I need a book now, or I can be sure it's a book I won't want to share.
It's not because I'm too stingly - I'm still buying books. What I don't want is to lose the rights I have through the first sale doctrine simply because I purchased bits and bytes rather than tree pulp.
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Re:It's about time (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me tell you about my first Kindle purchase. I paid $12 for a novel that retailed on Amazon at $13.
I read the book, thoroughly enjoyed it and told a friend a couple of days later. She responded by saying she'd love to borrow it. I had to explain that wasn't possible.
So, I saved a dollar.
The publisher saved the cost of printing a paperback book, physically transporting it to Amazon. Amazon saved having the physically store the book in a warehouse and didn't have to pay UPS to deliver it to me.
Once I had read the book, I couldn't lend it or sell it. The bits were used and might as werll be deleted. The publisher and Amazon win again, as there's no second hand market for that purchase.
I have made Kindle purchases since, but I'm much more selective. Typically I'll only do it where I need a book now, or I can be sure it's a book I won't want to share.
It's not because I'm too stingly - I'm still buying books. What I don't want is to lose the rights I have through the first sale doctrine simply because I purchased bits and bytes rather than tree pulp.
Just wait a month or two after the book's release and you can buy the book (including shipping) for half the price of the eBook. And after you and your friend are done reading it, you can sell it again for a dollar or two.
I own both a Kindle and Nook, but I still buy most of my books on paper because they are cheaper.
Ebook pricing (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. I like to say that if I'm not paying less than 2/3rds the cover price, I'm not trying. My local stores(not B&N) START at 25-30% off the cover price.
As such, ebook versions are typically $2-3 MORE than what I'd pay for the paperback. As such, I only buy books that I know I'll want to keep and reread.
The publishers need to take a page from Steam's game sale model - offer sales and deals just like the brick and mortar stores do on physical product. Declare 30% off everything every so often. You'll get loads and loads of purchases then.
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
Completely agree, Albanach.
We do buy many e-books, although I'm not thrilled about it. If the physical book is anywhere close to the e-book price, it's a no-brainer.
One benefit for the family (at least) is that all of our e-readers are registered to the same accounts, which gives all of us access to all of our books.
On the subject of printing costs, I have forever heard publishers whine about printing (especially setting up a run) and shipping being a significant part of the cost of the book. Now they are claiming that's not the case at all, that those costs are minimal, that it costs nearly just as much to sell an 'e' version of the book as it does to sell a physical copy. I'm not even going to type the expletive that comes to mind, you can figure it out or come up with your own, but here's a hint: it has to do with a certain type of livestock and a certain by-product of their existence.
As for the claim that the quality of books will go down... repeat the last sentence in the above paragraph. There will still be high quality books - they will just have to start competing with self-publishers. If they have the value, people will pay.
Re:It's about time (Score:4, Informative)
E-book layout and structure is trivial compared to print if you have even minimal computer skills
I work in a publishing company, and have done the layout for countless [literally, I have no idea how many :) ] paper books, and made a heap of epubs from those Indesign sources. There are some unique challenges with ebooks, making a file that ends in .epub is easy, making a quality ebook is surprisingly hard. In one instance, a book with French grammar examples which was crossreferenced from here to next Sunday, I ended up with about 3200 links. I scripted parts of it, but still...
I would say that print and digital is about the same degree of difficulty, which is "not very difficult" if you take your time and know what you're doing. Digital just requires some additional skills, and better knowledge of the structural tools you have.
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Funny)
This is the beginning of the end of quality writing.
Awesome! Now is my chance to get published!
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well, no... as I said in a previous post on another thread, I purchase digital content from unencumbered sources. To justify: I donate on a regular basis to Project Gutenberg and the eTree audio archive (and the Moving Image Archive, both part of the whole that is the Internet Archive). Because their content is not DRM encumbered, donations are voluntary (and tax deductible), and their licensing is practically open (you can redistribute freely, as long as you nod the source), it's a trio of sources I've fou
About Time (Score:5, Insightful)
and for some reason this makes me want to purchase every Tor book they offer,
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Very laudable, and this is a great move that I hope more publishers adopt, but one side-effect of this kind of enthusiasm is that the Tor experiment will be hailed as a resounding success because of people exuberantly rushing to support the first major mover in this direction.
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Second. Baen have been selling DRM-free ebooks for years. In fact, Tor *used* to sell their books through Baen's system, but had to withdraw then, due (I'm led to believe) by pressure from their parent company.
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Actually, the cynic in me has it that Tor simply wants to keep the money for itself. I've been annoyed at times to find some sci-fi books are unavailable on Kindle/Nook/iBookstore, then I remember that they're published through Baen.
Gr
Recommendable Tor Authors (Score:5, Informative)
Amongst the ones I can personally recommend, Tor has:
1-Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn)
2-Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time)
3-Steve Erikson (Malazan)
4-Orson Scott Card (Ender)
5- George R.R. Martin (Song of Ice and Fire)
Brandonson has been itching for DRM free ebooks, and even offers a totally free ebook on his website (Warbreaker). Good to see his nagging has had some effect.
Re:About Time (Score:5, Insightful)
The implication being that DRM somehow encumbers piracy. The simple fact is it is completely ineffectual at slowing piracy down. You can find pirated copies of every piece of music, video, and publication you want despite the draconian DRM that is so prevalent in the industry.
Re:About Time (Score:5, Interesting)
The implication being that DRM somehow encumbers piracy. The simple fact is it is completely ineffectual at slowing piracy down.
That's actually wrong. It indeed slows initial piracy spreading. Numbers, sadly, are in the industry and not in academia.
You can find pirated copies of every piece of music, video, and publication you want despite the draconian DRM that is so prevalent in the industry.
That's a popular confusion about the purpose of DRM schemes. Here's the real deal: the purpose is to slow down initial piracy enough to make a profit from people who would choose the pirated, free version if they can find it. People willing to pay only $0 will pay exactly that. Fans will pay you nicely regardless of DRM. The group that DRM targets is the big crowd that can pay your price, but won't give you a dime if they can get it for free.
I recall the people behind "The Witcher" put DRM on their files and removed it after the product was delivered. Other people won't bother, but they can do it with exactly the same results in their profits. Because, indeed, DRM is not a piracy-stopper but an initial-piracy-slower.
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Simply not true anymore. That might have been the intent, but that does not work.
Movies are available on release dates (DVD, Blueray) on torrent sites. Same goes for most games (which have the crack ready the next day).
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That's actually wrong. It indeed slows initial piracy spreading. Numbers, sadly, are in the industry and not in academia.
So, where is a valid source of these numbers, specifically as it pertains to eBooks? In the case of eBook piracy, the DRM used in ePubs is so easy to break that anyone can download an app an break it. Much easier than for DRM encumbered video and audio, which are usually broken during or before their release periods. The only person that ePub DRM inconveniences is a legitimate buyer who wants to swap his books around to new devices.
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That's actually wrong. It indeed slows initial piracy spreading. Numbers, sadly, are in the industry and not in academia.
How does DRM slow down piracy when there are a multitude of programs out there to rip and strip DRM off of DVD's, Blurays, and popular eBook formats?
I've seen a number of new releases for download on the day the Bluray is available, so I could have the movie in my house even faster than Amazon can ship it to me overnight. How is the DRM on the Bluray slowing the initial piracy?
I think the industry is deceiving itself if it thinks DRM is doing anything to stop or slow piracy, all it does is make it harder f
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DRM doesn't slow down people who seek out illegal copies from pirating. What DRM does do is keep people who choose between legally borrowing a book versus buying their own copy from borrowing. Kind of like the old saying that the lock your front door only keeps out honest people.
It will be interesting to see the effect of this experiment though. My guess is that it won't make much difference, people who buy books will continue to buy them and borrow a few, people who refuse to buy DRM protected material mi
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Only one book in the AWARD WINNERS section:
http://us.macmillan.com/torforge/categories/General/torforge/Awardwinners/all/title [macmillan.com]
Plus they seem to be the ones behind those classics of American literature, the Halo series.
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Maybe, but they have the Mistborn series which is well worth the read. In fact, I just bought the series as an ebook from BN. I should wrap up reading it today or tomorrow. My 12 year old son would like to read it. Unfortunately, it is not a series flagged for lending. On top of that, if it were, I doubt my 12 year old would blow through the 2000 pages in the 2 week lending period. It was looking like I might have to purchase the series twice or hope that the local library has copies of the books avai
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Yea, only downside is who here has not read Ender's Game?
Sure thing (Score:5, Interesting)
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What are you going to get? There's so much to read and so little time, I'd appreciate some suggestions and opinions from my fellow slashdotters.
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Re:Sure thing (Score:5, Informative)
Tor has Charles Stross and Vernor Vinge.
No true geek should pass them.
I'd also look at Steven Erikson myself.
I think a lot of Windling's crew are at Tor too, for the early urban fantasy.
That's off the top of my head, with no access to my dead-tree books right now.
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I suggest anything by Neal Asher.
The Polity universe is very good (home of his earlier stuff, including the excellent Agent Cormac series and the Spatterjay series). I have just finished "The Departure" from his new series (Owner series) and it is excellent.
If you're looking for a "quick" blast into the series, then the Spatteryjay series (set in the Polity universe) is a collection of three novels (The Skinner, The Voyage of Sable Keech, Orbus) rather than the lengthier Agent Cormac run, which stands at 5
hmm (Score:2)
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Profitability is driven by two directions, revenue and cost.
For revenue, there is more confidence even in a theoretical single-device market that the media will endure.
For cost, the infrastructure to support DRM is a non-trivial expense contributing to erosion of margin. It also serves an additional limiter in terms of scale, per-copy costs have a not-quite-zero incremental cost on the publisher due to DRM.
Re:hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
I expect some karma flak now...
Hi! I program DRMs for a living, among other things. buddyglass is correct: the extra sales are going to be from the extra platforms that now can use those eBooks. The "DRM Infrastructure" is trivial for authors and publishers, I'd not dare to call it "Infrastructure" at all. Also, costs are usually insignificant: you usually protect an entire work, not individual copies.
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I don't fault anyone for making a living. Let me start there.
However, I am not sure that DRM protects a damn thing. Like it says here, the idea itself is flawed. It's also not inherently a technical idea, as the flow of technology is to allow open access to information and it goes against the grain of that. It's a technical idea borne by non-technical people.
DRM is there to protect that mythical money loss of piracy. The arguable point is that the vast majority of people that "pirate" would not or coul
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Pointless diatribe. If someone wanted to pay me to make a pointless product, I absolutely would take their money and do the very best job I could. I would make a screen door for a submarine, and make sure it fit and was easy to install.
I don't care what I'm writing, as long as I'm writing. The more pointless it is, the more fun I usually have. Whether it is effective or not is secondary to the paycheck, and usually takes a back seat to the fun. Effectiveness is a business problem, not a code problem.
Ta
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Why should I care if my eBook is multi-platform if I'm only ever going to read it on one platform?
Yes, if *you* are only going to read it on one platform, you won't care. For those people who would like the opputnity to read an e-book on multiple platforms, this is very useful. Or to phrase it a different way: yes, your choices are made based on your needs, woopty do!
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This is typical for me to use them all for ALL my Kindle reads, but I often read kindle in a combination of these:
- My Kindle touch reader.
- Kindle app on my new Android Tablet
- Kindle app on my Nexus S (especially if I get caught waiting somewhere without my reader)
- Kindle cloud on my Work desktop (I use and support Linux for a living)
- Kindle cloud on my laptop (also Linux)
- Kindle app on my work Mac
This is what the digital revolution is about. I haven't hurt the author one iota and I am using the conte
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it *is not* typical to use all those platforms. way to screw up a good point, genius.
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Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should I care if my eBook is multi-platform if I'm only ever going to read it on one platform?
Are you absolutely certain you will only use one platform, and will only buy books from one supplier for the next twenty years? You don't think within this time frame some new device will come out - similar to e.g. the iPad did - and you'll get this device and will want to have the content you already paid for available on it?
Don't you think at the speed new devices are developed these days, some company will introduce something to the market with an entirely new display technology - much better than e-ink, super-amoled and retina display together? Are you sure it will be your currently preferred vendor who'll pioneer that new device?
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Re:hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
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Don't know about you, but I'm fine with my media purchases having a usable lifespan of ~10-20 years. I don't have the expectation when purchasing physical media that it will remain usable in its current form for perpetuity. Books are somewhat of an exception to this rule, since there's no "format" to change. Then again, being physical media, books that are regularly used do tend to disintegrate over time.
In any case, time will tell whether there are enough people who feel as you do (i.e. place a large va
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"profitability will disappear if one device begins" pretty sure Kindle dominates right now. how is making your content MORE available impacting profits in a negative way?
can I [POTENTIALLY] make more money on amazon..
or amazon + everyone else?
what if the device you DO have doesn't have a contract with Tor? You'd have to wait for them to get into bed together. w/o DRM read what you want when you want on the device you want. - this is why you should care.
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Note that if the profitability of removing DRM is dependent on eBooks being more attractive because they're able to be read on multiple devices then that profitability will disappear if one device begins to dominate the market. Why should I care if my eBook is multi-platform if I'm only ever going to read it on one platform?
You would care very much if in three years time, there are much better readers for a different platform.
A Move in the Right Direction! (Score:2)
Re:A Move in the Right Direction! (Score:5, Informative)
Might be better to say "kudos to the publisher for following Baen's lead and not using DRM".
Do keep in mind that Baen's ebooks have NEVER had DRM.
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What about the price? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What about the price? (Score:5, Informative)
As an aside - games on Steam are almost always more expensive than the copy I buy with a disk from a store, with the exception of when the steam sales are on.
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Actually, once you have a typeset paper book, typically either in quark or indesign, the cost to convert it to an ebook would be trivial.
Maybe it should be, but that simply doesn't happen a lot of the time. Ebooks are frequently re-typeset, sometimes even retyped (or at least OCR'd and re-copyedited). It's ironic that Stross has come up in this context, because it was when reading one of his Laundry books on Kindle a couple of years ago that I first noticed that it had typos that aren't in the original.
I think, basically, what happens is that the publisher subcontracts the production of the book, and doesn't get the digital files back (I s
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that doesn't account for Kindle books that cost more than trade paperback.
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So you are saying that we should include the publishers in with the *AAs because they are playing the same BS game with creators.
I'd go along with that.
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The physical cost of printing and distributing a book amounts to 10-15% of the cost. Lets assume tha it's 15% and that it drops to 1% for eBooks (you still have to run the servers and deal with administration around the sales of books).
So your $10 printed book gets you $8.50 per copy to pay the author, editor, proofreaders, advertisers, etc.
So you want to move over to eBooks, and you still want to make the same kind of money.
If you just drop the price by the 14% saving and sell it at $8.60, what will that d
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I'm generally seeing much lower prices of the Kindle versions these days, at least on the ones I look at. It's all over the place though. Sometimes it's $1 less, sometimes it's as low as 50% of the printed book.
Lower is still relative, though. I was looking at an $80 technical book, and the Kindle version was $50 but... seems I can go up to $10 or so for an eBook. More than that and the resistance starts, and at $50 it seems insurmountable despite the fact that with something technical having a search funct
DRM wasn't my sticking point (Score:4, Insightful)
Pricing is - eBooks should be lower priced (although not to the pennies on the pound level, I find that argument ridiculous) and currently they rarely are.
Neal Asher books - Gridlinked as an example, his earliest Agent Cormac book, first published in 2001, now published by Tor: £7.99 on the iPad, £5.11 paperback on Amazon, £4.75 Kindle edition.
Will the removal of DRM flatten out those pricing peaks and troughs? Will the eBook version go up or down? That will determine if piracy goes up or down.
Re:DRM wasn't my sticking point (Score:5, Interesting)
It will likely mean that certain proprietary formats will slowly disappear and the pricing will get down to the 4.75 kindle edition as no one buys the iPad editions etc.
Right now some of the pricing peaks and valleys are due to the fact that some devices have fees attached to publish for them at all.
As we go further into DRM-Free, most books will probably just start coming in PDF or something similar and fancy PDF reading apps will be more abundant than they currently are, and available on more devices.
Re:DRM wasn't my sticking point (Score:4, Insightful)
PDF is to preserve presentation. This is precisely what you do NOT want on an e-reader. ePub, which is really just HTML, is designed to provide reflow for e-readers. It can be used with or without DRM.
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Good example - I just started reading it yesterday :)
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Where I'm at in the U.S., e-books are usually considerably cheaper than their hard-copy equivalents. But I've heard (I think on an earlier thread on /.) that this varies greatly not only by country, but even by region and for individual users. I save quite a bit of money each year buying e-book versions, especially with textbooks. My Kindle pretty easily paid for itself in the first year I owned it. I don't think I've ever seen a Kindle version of a book that was more expensive than the hard-copy version (h
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Gridlinked is a still a bargain at that price though, but I see your point. The bulk costs that went into it (like editing, proofreading, etc) are sunk already. I think we're meant to believe that the extra cost is down to reformatting it for eBook release.
Will Kindel versions be DRM Free? (Score:3)
Now users can finally read their books across multiple devices such as Amazon's Kindle, Sony Reader, Kobo eReader and Apple's iBooks.
It will be interesting to see if the likes of Amazon honour the publishers wishes, or whether they still insist on using DRM. This might finally damage the Kindle business model. In a similar situation, I recently purchased the new Stephen King audio book directlty from Simon & Schuster, as it is in a DRM free MP3 format. Who would buy from Audible if the same material was available elsewhere in a better format?
Good call, Tor. Now when I buy... (Score:2)
Now if we could get a decent version of Asimov's (Score:3)
Being an e-book reader and science fiction fan, I've been very disappointed in recent years with how weakly science fiction publishers have been supporting the e-formats. Of all fields, you would think science fiction would be on the CUTTING EDGE of technology. But, alas, it was only recently that Asimov's [wikipedia.org] even launched a e-book version of the magazine--and it's been plagued by poor formatting, missing illustrations, etc. Very sad when science fiction's leading magazine can featuring writing about the future, but can't seem to actually *embrace* the future.
Glad to see at least one major science fiction publisher is trying to do something with the format.
Some degree of "piracy" helps marketing (Score:2)
Several years ago, Baen Books (ahref=http://www.baen.com/rel=url2html-25847 [slashdot.org]http://www.baen.com/>) started to make some of their books available as e-books for free, with approval from the respective authors.
Reportedly, those authors actually saw an increase in sales of their paper books as a result. Maybe TOR is betting on a similar outcome (besides saving the trouble of supporting a DRM system).
doubt it will affect sales much at all (Score:2)
On the other hand, people who copy works illegally are generally not ever going to be customers. I'm guessing that DRM cost the publisher money in licensing fees, and wasn't effective at all in stopping copying, so it makes good business sense to drop it.
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It's hard for people that can barely understand what the concept of DRM is... which is a massive majority, unfortunately, which is why the fight against only gets slow traction.
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DRM is so easy to remove from ebooks that it's really not much of an inconvenience. Downloaded music DRM used to be a bit more difficult and more restrictive. And don't get me started about the ridiculousness of DRM on digital movies.
Removing DRM is illegal. Therefore, if it has DRM, I know that I could remove it, but I'm totally unwilling to do something illegal in order to read a book that I paid for. Therefore, no matter how little inconvenience, I won't buy it.
Makes me want to buy Tor (Score:2)
Seems to me Tor now has as good or better than a name as Baen.
I was already on Tor email list because I think they publish great stuff. But I only have bought from them dead tree versions in bookstores when I have seen them. Since I am overseas much this will give me an incentive to buy.
If there was a way to buy via Kindle that would be great or maybe there is a way to buy directly from Tor which would be better and ought to save me some money since no middleman?
Also I have bought from Tor books that I have
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p.s. Tor can you give me a version that works with Calibre, with beautiful artwork I can view on my Mac? I would probably read it mostly on my Kindle but would enjoy collateral like information about the author and so on.
And I wouldn't hold it against you if you want to sell me DVDs or cool comics, etc.
Consumer goodwill and consumer quality (Score:2)
Removing DRM engenders consumer goodwill because people are no longer forced to use cumbersome restraints with their ebooks. These restraints mainly penalize legal consumers, because those with intent to steal will circumvent them as a matter of course.
However, it's worth noting that not all consumers are the same. Legal consumers tend to like books which require a brain to read. If you released the Twilight series without DRM, it will be pirated more than a brainier book.
Do these guys read Slashdot?? (Score:2)
I mean, we were only talking about this yesterday!
Re:Probably No significant change in sales (Score:5, Insightful)
Disagree for two reasons. First, because of personal experience; I hit Baen's free library one day and encountered John Ringo's work. I have since bought about $200 worth of Baen books, mostly Ringo but frequently other stuff I found on their free library. A friend passed me a pirated copy of Jim Butcher's entire Dresden series; I now have the whole run purchased and sitting on my shelf. The specific method I've seen work is this;
1) DRM-free
2) Pirated/shared
3) Lands in the hands of someone who was never going to buy the books
4) Turns them into a trufan who buys some or all of the books.
On the one hand this may not be the precise method Tor is hoping for, and I agree that the /direct/ impact of being DRM-free isn't going to be worth much, but the long-term effect is of more people reading Tor books, and in my experience that means more people buying books. The second reason I disagree is that experiment after experiment shows that "piracy is not the problem, obscurity is the problem." Releasing stuff for free almost never decreases profits, and usually increases profits. Doctorow and Lessig have both explained this at length.
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It's there because most of the people in the suits are idiots. Period.
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Assuming that there is *no* change in the sales, then the worst outcome is that there is no harm and no foul... that's also neglecting the fact that they aren't paying for DRM technology any more.
Look for the other replies to this post for the better outcomes.
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Would they really be able to convince Amazon or Apple or Sony to sell the books DRM free from their marketplaces?
Who cares? Purchasers have three choices:
Which do you think Tor would rather they do? Not sure about Tor, but my publisher really likes direct sales of eBooks because the margin is higher (they get to keep the cut that the retailer usually takes). In fact, this is one of the main reasons why the music labels dropped DRM on music - it prevented the retailers controlling the channel.
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Which do you think Tor would rather they do? Not sure about Tor, but my publisher really likes direct sales of eBooks because the margin is higher (they get to keep the cut that the retailer usually takes).
I don't know how it works with Tor books, but books in DRM-free ePub format that I pay for and that get downloaded using a link in the browser will automatically show a dialog "Do you want to open this book in iBooks" on my iPad, they then get automatically imported and opened, and appear in my iTunes library as well - interestingly marked as "purchased" even though I didn't buy them through iTunes at all.
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did you want to win the "i'm a formatting nazi" award today or something.
This is a problem, but enumeration isn't necessary.