5

By a TeleRead Contributor

Hello, Amazon? You already know. My publisher and I prefer that DRM not be inflicted on The Solomon Scandals. Now here are similar thoughts from Simon Haynes, author of the Hal Spacejock series, the first book of which is a free download to entice you to purchase the others. Buying details for the other three are at the end of this post. Simon and I both want to make money, and DRM is an obstacle. Coincidentally or not, Spacejock books aren’t even on the Kindle. I invite other authors and publishers to make their own anti-DRM cases here. – David Rothman.

image image A year ago I approached my publisher, Fremantle Press, about releasing ebook versions of my novels, consisting of four books in the Hal Spacejock series. We’ve had several meetings in a very nice coffee shop since then, and every time I’ve argued for two major points: No DRM, and a very low price. In December 2008 Fremantle Press agreed to both my requests

Why did I argue for DRM-free when major publishers are doing the exact opposite? And why a low price when e-books usually cost as much as a trade paperback? Read on for the answers.

DRM as one of e-books’ two major hurdles

E-books face two major hurdles before consumers take to them in big numbers: They’re too expensive, and most are encumbered with restrictive DRM. I’ll deal with price first, because it doesn’t take a whole lot of explaining: Publishers can argue that e-books and paperbacks have identical content until they’re blue in the face, but the truth is an electronic file has nowhere near the intrinsic value of the printed version. An e-book is a one-shot purchase which immediately loses all monetary value, and should be priced accordingly. Many people resell or make gifts of novels once they’ve read them, but you can’t do that with an e-book. With all this in mind, e-books should be around a quarter to a third of the price of a trade paperback. US$5 tops.

And now for DRM. When you sell someone an encrypted e-book, DVD or computer game, what you’re basically saying is: "Here’s the content you wanted, and by the way we think you’re a thief." The joke is that any thieves have already downloaded pirated copies of the same content, so you’re not inconveniencing them. No, the only people you’re annoying are your paying customers.

Why do your customers hate DRM? I can tell you it’s certainly not because they’re desperate to share everything they buy with the whole wide world. No, most hate it because they’re paying for the content but publishers aren’t letting them use it as they wish. If I buy a bag of apples I can eat them raw, bake an apple pie or slice them up and stick them on the ceiling. If I buy a DRM-locked e-book it’ll generally work with one device, or one particular piece of software, and if I want to use it with something else I’m out of luck. I’ve been using computers since 1982, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from bitter experience it’s this: file formats are thrown out more often than polystyrene packaging. Why would I spend money on dozens of ebooks when there’s an excellent chance I won’t be able to read a single one of them in five years time? Is it any wonder I only buy printed books?

As for needing protection, if I pay $4 for an e-book without DRM, my first thought is not, "Great! now I can share it with everyone," because for a lousy four bucks everyone else can go buy their own damn copy. No, my first thought is "Great! This content is MINE, and no software update, DRM failure, bankrupt publisher, lost password or broken e-book reader can take it away from me." Publishers argue that DRM prevents casual copying, but there are plenty of people who will spend hours extracting DRM-locked content just to spite these publishers. Some of these people will share the results with all and sundry, to show off their skills or to save total strangers the effort of cracking the same book. I’d argue that you’re far more likely to find previously-encrypted novels on file sharing sites than plain text e-books anyone can pick up for a few dollars.

In summary, if the two problems detailed in this article are all that is preventing worldwide acceptance of e-books, then it’s only going to take a handful of releases from a respectable publisher to test the theory. If low-cost DRM-free ebooks sell a few copies before being widely pirated until the end of time, the authors of those novels will suffer more than anyone else and DRM-free ebooks will be relegated to a footnote in the (pirated) encyclopedia of impractical theories. On the other hand, if DRM-free e-books sell up a storm, more publishers will follow suit and all readers will benefit.

Buying information: The second, third and fourth books in the Spacejock series will be around $US3.50 each, depending on prevailing AUD/USD exchange rates, and will be supplied in DRM-free formats such as text, rtf and HTML. They’ll go on sale on Monday the 9th of March from the publisher’s Web site.

Technorati Tags: ,
 
5