All publishers, but especially our friends at Harlequin, which has a snazzy Web site and is trying hard to win a female audience over to E, should read a post in the Natuschan blog.
Ugh…e-books is a Natuschan headline, from Nath in Montreal, who describes herself as “an old-fashioned girl” who dislikes change. But a crazy Luddite? Absolutely not.
Very rational tech-hater
Given the Gothic-level horrors that beset her when she tried to read Harlequin books with Adobe software, she’s a very rational tech-hater.
Nath, an eager buyer of romances on paper, tried to tame Adobe’s Digital Rights Management when she found that the book she wanted was not immediately available in paper.
She bought a PDF of Dear Santa while thinking she could read it on any computer. Alas, however, she struck out on her machine at work (and no, I won’t interrogate Nath about whether or not she enjoys romance novels during lunch hour or at more dangerous times).
Adobe’s virtual Dobermans vs. Harlequin’s e-revenue
The book apparently needed to be read on a different Adobe product—Digital Editions or something else with the right DRM du jour. But her company wouldn’t let her install software on a computer at her job.
At home, when Nath finally did try Digital Editions after e-mailing Dear Santa to herself, she still did not succeed without her share of further pain. Adobe’s virtual Dobermans, you see, apparently wanted her to rely on the computer to which she’d originally downloaded the novel.
Behold! Yet another example of DRM as a sales toxin! Good luck, Harlequin, in turning Nath into a regular buyer of e-books. What a shame considering that she just might be open to conversion despite her protest that she’s “old-fashioned.” If nothing else, think of the advantages that E has over P in this era of global marketing and distribution. Her frustrations really should be your frustrations.
“‘Why I don’t buy e-books”
Edited slightly for punctuation, here’s more from Nath: “So I went back to my account on e-Harlequin and downloaded Dear Santa and it works. Problem is? Well I’ve already downloaded Yours, Mine…or Ours twice at work because I didn’t understand at first that I needed Adobe Digital Editions. Seems like two is the limit of download, and seriously, I’m not about to buy the e-book a second time!
“So there it is, why I don’t buy e-books—because the freaking technology keep changing. Oh, I mean evolving, grrrrr. All I wanted was to read a PDF file. Well now, I can’t even do so. Next time, I’ll be waiting for the shipping.”
Of course, DRM per se isn’t the same as a core format for e-books. But it might as well be. Proprietary DRM is bad enough; now imagine the hassles when companies such as Adobe change the rules in mid-game and bewilder customers like Nath.
Even .epub, the International Digital Publishing Forum‘s new e-book format standard, won’t solve the Adobe DRM problems if e-book sellers use it in the future with proprietary “protection.” That means Nath may need other software or even hardware to read books with competing DRM systems. So far the IDPF has yet to come up with an interoperable DRM scheme even though it’s on the agenda, and some techies wonder if in fact one may be possible. Remember, DRM relies on secrecy to one extent or another.
Time to change The System, Malle—not just point readers to Customer Service
Do technology companies and big houses like Harlequins truly grasp the extent of the crisis here—that is, all the e-sales that DRM and proprietary formats are costing? E-books sales are just one or two percent of the tens of billions spent globally on p-books. But publishers still don’t understand the extent to which DRM and other eBabel are in the way of mass adoption. Malle Vallik, Harlequin’s director of digital content and interactivity, who justifiably prides herself on keeping in close touch with customers, responded to Nath in a less-than-satisfactory way:
“Contact customer service and they will unlock your account and give you more downloads. If you bought from the eHarlequin.com eBookstore then the email address is eBooks_ecare@harlequin.ca
“While I agree that multiple formats are challenging, at least I know our customer service is awesome.”
Multiple formats? Indeed. Regardless of what techies might say, ordinary mortals see different DRM systems as different formats. They’re the same thing to civilians. Malle’s initial answer and her second post didn’t bother to sufficiently distinguish the DRM issue from the format one. No wonder people are confused.
Looking at the whole picture: DRM as just one form of eBabel
Let’s look at the whole picture, then, from a customer perspective, and extend this discussion to core formats, such as Adobe vs. Mobipocket, Kindle, Microsoft Reader and the other eBabelers.
Isn’t it telling that another commenter recommended that Nath buy books in Microsoft Reader format, because, among other things, the right conversion programs can turn it into different formats? Never mind that this would violate the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act and equivalents in other countries if the files were encrypted. I doubt Harlequin would want customers to do that. Simply put, the e-book industry needs to tear down the Tower of eBabel for real—and act much faster than it has. In a successful campaign for a seat on the IDPF board, Malle said: “The IDPF needs to establish technical standards, but just as importantly it needs to envision the future and be the leader in spearheading all aspects of digital publishing, including the needs of readers, publishers and writers.” Great, Malle! I’m glad you won. But standards are a “must” for the rest to follow.
The real cure: The common .epub format and no DRM or social DRM
In place of the eBabel Tower, customers like Nath need a truly common format with interoperable DRM or, better, no DRM or social DRM. For those who don’t know, social DRM involves inserting names and other customer-specific information into books to make them less attractive as fodder for file-sharing networks. Readers would read, “This book is for the exclusive use of…” You can even use sophisticated forms of digital watermarking to accompany the use of names.
Social DRM would mean that the same file in a common format like the IDPF’s .epub would work on many, many different kinds of machines, reducing customer hassles and Harlequin’s costs.
None other than Adobe e-booker Bill McCoy talked up social DRM more than a year ago as an alternative to the usual DRM, but frustratingly, Adobe and major publishers so far have yet to follow through on this excellent idea, which Bill based on a small technical publisher‘s successes with such an approach. In fact, eReader is a bit in that territory already, through the encryption of customer’s credit card information and use of it as identifying data. eReader approach is hardly perfect, but far superior to the sales-toxic approach that Adobe’s usual DRM uses.
Ironically Adobe and Mobipocket and others using traditional DRM are actually punishing legitimate customers, whose devices come with restrictions that pirated books don’t. And, yes, if a book is sufficiently popular, people will reproduce it, typing it out from the screen if need be. What are you going to do, Malle? Require that your customers wear eyeglasses with DRM built in?
Some hope from Harlequin—and my friendly suggestions for Malle
I had the same experience with a PDF that I purchased. Once only. Never again will I purchase an ebook in PDF format.
My first choice is always to purchase ebooks without DRM. If I have to purchase a DRM-infested ebook, we all know which formats can be “dealt with”, so that they can be read more easily.
I have bought a few e-books and gotten quite a few from authors as well. I do not have an e-book reader and have gotten all of mine in pdf and have not had any issues. However, I have never ordered books from Harlequin. And now am wary to do so.
Kris: In fairness to Harlequin keep in mind that Adobe is the real problem here. I just hope Harlequin will encourage people to try alternatives. Meanwhile you might be able to simplify things with Adobe if you download to the computer you’ll be using to read the book. But that can be a hassle for people with different machines. Adobe has rules that even I can’t recall. I wonder if all the Adobe people can, either—all the more reason for Adobe to stop focusing so much on DRMed books. Thanks. David