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Why I’m ‘buying’ Pat Conroy’s latest novel from Amazon’s Kindle Store, not B&N’s new e-store
August 11, 2009 | 5:07 am
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By David Rothman
Pat Conroy is among my favorite writers, and I was looking forward to buying South of Broad from the new Barnes and Noble e-store despite some warnings from early readers.
But guess what. The price is $14.99 at B&N and $9.99 at Amazon’s Kindle Store. Both companies, probably due to publisher or author requirements, have tainted the files with DRM. Granted, B&N’s DRM is far less of a burden than Amazon’s. But that’s a huge price difference. Here’s one more reason for B&N to try to work with publishers and writers to drop DRM or replace it with social DRM. Look, how about a B&N ePub Store—the e-book equivalent of Jeff Bezos’s MP3 store, which was avoiding DRM well before iTunes finally got the message. Without DRM, you can own e-books for real and play them on more devices. No need to worry about a company losing interest in e-books or going out of business.
Mystery: Just how will B&N compete with Jeff?
With Amazon’s subsidies on so many bestsellers, just how will B&N compete—especially since its software isn’t nearly as slick or easy to use? Although B&N’s software runs on more platforms than Amazon does, this advantage could evaporate in time.
Enough. Me, I’m going on a walk through the halls of my apartment complex. I’ll be toting and reading from an iPod Touch with a freshly downloaded copy of the Conroy book, in Kindle format. B&N, do you read me? If you want me to pay $14.99, work harder with writers and publishers to drop the DRM! $9.99 is bad enough just to rent an e-book. $14.99 is an outrage.
Related: David Pogue’s comparison of the B&N and Amazon stores, in the New York Times.
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Comments:
Basically, David, what you are saying is that you will rant against Amazon’s DRM and closed system but buy from Amazon anyway. What message does that send? Well, to rant recipients (your Teleread readers) it says the ranting may not be for real, just a way to attract readers. What really matters is the pocketbook. To Amazon, the message is it’s not DRM or closed system that matters, it’s price alone so all Amazon needs do is sell for less.
Seems to me that you had two options that would have supported your anti-Amazon/DRM blogs: (1) not buy the book at all and send the publisher and author an e-mail saying here is a lost sale because of DRM or (2) buy from B&N and tell the world that you’d rather pay more for a book whose DRM you can remove or that is not as onerous as Amazon’s than pay less and support Amazon’s attempts to corner the market.
Me, I chose, in this instance, the first option. No book is so must-have that I would buy into Amazon’s DRM or pay B&N’s higher price for DRM, and authors and publishers need to be repeatedly told this. If a book is a must-have book, then it is worth buying in hard copy as a permanent addition to my library, and Conroy is certainly not of that class.
Rich, each to his own. In either case, we’re talking rental. The B&N system is dependent on credit card information, which can change. Simply put, both have their faults.
As a “buyer,” I find it exceedingly rational to object to both DRM systems. The $5 is too much just to make up for B&N’s being less onerous.
Rather than just getting angry, I’ve told B&N what needs to be done–create the ePub equivalent of Amazon’s DRMless MP3 store.
“If a book is a must-have book, then it is worth buying in hard copy as a permanent addition to my library, and Conroy is certainly not of that class.”
Conroy has his faults as a writer, but I do enjoy him–even if someday I may have to rebuy “South” as a used paperback.
Thanks,
David
Methinks Mr Rothman is essentially talking competitive positioning; if B&N intends to seriously compete with Amazon they need to provide better value. Period.
If they are going to price their product 50% higher they’d better compensate by offering a better product (in one fashion or another) and one way to make it “better” in his view is less-restrictive DRM. A fair enough statement.
Absent such a “better” product, what rational consumer would willing pay a 50% premium for exactly the same product? (Don’t think there are that manny yuppies left in the current economy, are there?)
Other ways exist but they are harder to implement; if B&N were to offer their higher-priced ebooks significantly earlier than Amazon or bundled with a paperback edition or with other exclusive content they might be able to make a case for their higher prices.
But simply peddling the same product at a higher price isn’t going to get them very far. Not when some of us remember B&N used to sell ebooks once before and ditched their customers when the volume didn’t meet their expectations, remember? And those weren’t socially-DRM’ed files, either.
So their only “value-add” right now is that they’re not Amazon. Even folks who thing Amazon is the devil incarnate will have a hard time justifying a 50% premium just to make a statement that, most likely, will go unnoticed.
“We’re not Amazon” is a pretty poor substitute for a well-thought out business strategy.
Can one be drafted to compete without matching the prices? The publishers (who created Amazon-the-monster) don’t seem to think so. Not by their constant insistence that prices need to move higher. Me, I think it is hard but not impossible. But to get there, B&N will need to cater to readers’ needs, not the publishers. Otherwise they are “competing” with two hands tied behind their back.
David did the right thing.
Despite his animus towards Amazon/Bezos by giving his money to the low price seller (which this time happens to be Amazon – next time perhaps it won’t) he is signaling to the market that he won’t pay more than the “standard” DRM’ed ebook price of $9.99.
Publishers have to learn that the mass of the market will NOT spend more than a ten spot for an ebook encumbered with DRM. We, the buyers, have that power you know
Perhaps the lesson they will take away is that the market might respond to a $15.00 ebook if it is sold sans DRM in a device agnostic format.
Just curious – how many TeleRead visitors WOULD pay that 50% price difference ($10 vs. $15) for a DRM free ebook?
HG: Excellent question at the end! I hope people respond.
I myself would probably buy that Conroy book for $15 if it were DRMfree, simply because I like Conroy despite his weaknesses. But even that price is far too high.
Meanwhile people need to remember that both the Amazon and B&N versions of his latest novel are DRMed, so the question above doesn’t apply.
Remember, too, the possibility of social DRM, as a compromise. Then maybe the price of the Conroy novel would be $12.50
Thanks,
David
“I myself would probably buy that Conroy book for $15 if it were DRMfree, simply because I like Conroy despite his weaknesses. But even that price is far too high.”
How about $16.47 for a completely DRM-free, sharable, resellable, persistent version? That’s what Amazon is asking for the hardback (with free shipping if you buy another $8.53 worth of stuff at the same time).
Too high? Well, if you’re more price-sensitive, and don’t care as much about owning it, you can order it from your local library and pay $0.00.
Why is paying $9.99 or $15 for a version you can’t own more appealing in this case?
For non-fiction, yes.
For fiction, no.
I’m a regular at Baen, so for me a $15 package = 6 ebooks, no DRM.
I think Rich is exactly right. You can’t say you don’t want DRM while still buying DRM books. The company will not get a clue until you stop buying. You can whine all you want: you’re still buying, they’re still selling. And snickering the whole time.
I don’t buy DRM books, haven’t for months now. If I wanted the book that badly, I’d buy a hard copy. That’s currently the only way to get the value of the money you’re spending, unless you buy a good, low cost, drm free book.
I will not pay more for a lack of DRM either. How are you going to put chains on my purchase then charge me extra for removing them? If we consumers didn’t go for this stuff, the sellers wouldn’t be getting away with doing it. They’re selling because we’re buying. The prices are too high and the DRM is wrong. I like reading on my Cybook, but it’s not so great that I’m going to let these companies treat me like that. The DRM needs to get gone, AND the prices need to come down.
Christine said:
“How are you going to put chains on my purchase then charge me extra for removing them?”
___________________________________________________
Interesting point.
A year ago or so, some folks found out that Sony Vaio laptops were possitively choked by pre-installed crapware. Sony’s answer was to offer up an option to buy laptops with clean Windows installs, no crapware.
And then charged an extra $50 for the “service”.
Howls ensued.
The charge went away.
Shortly thereafter so did the option.
So yes, by all means; don’t buy DRM’ed content if you don’t want to. (I try not to.)
But be aware that the alternative may be zero content, not DRM-free content.
Its great to rail against insanity but railing only goes so far. Sometimes you just have to settle for what you can get; commerce is about negotiation, not dictation. Leverage only goes so far. And the big publishing houses would *love* it, if they could make ebooks go away entirely.
HeavyG asked who would pay $15 for a non-DRMed ebook vs. $10 for the same book with DRM. I would, especially for nonfiction. But the formatting at that price would have to approach that of the print version, including the ability to zoom in on illustrations, tables, and the like. I would view it as a viable alternative to my purchasing the print version in hardcover, which is what I currently do.
Fiction would be a tough sell to me. I do buy fiction in hardcover, but from a limited number of authors, wuch as David Weber and Harry Turtledove. Otherwise I buy fiction in ebook form, but only if it is DRM free.
To me DRM reduces a book’s value by 75-90% and I am unwilling to pay above $5 for a DRM-ladened book.
I don’t think David did the rigt thing because he muddied his message and simply demonstrated to Amazon that even the most vocal anti-DRMer will buy a DRMed book if the price is right. I disagree with HeavyG that this is a way to say that $9.99 is the DRM price point. Eventually, unless the publishers capitulate, Amazon will have to raise that price point. What would David have done if Amazon sold Conroy’s book at $12.99 and all other bookstores were selling it at $14.99 in ebook form? If David bought at $12.99, what would the message have been then?
Is the Teleread motto now “Do as I say, not as I do”?
Alternatively you could just not buy from Amazon at all, and get it in e form from your library (Overdrive has it in ePub).
@ felix-
There is lots of free content out there, I’m not at all worried about zero content. And if I want a best seller I can get it at my library or buy a hard copy. I’m not so enthralled with reading ebooks that I’m going to willingly be screwed around.
Where are these Sony Vaio laptops now? Unfortunately people would buy a laptop filled with crap because they don’t know that’s what they’re getting. Once they learn what’s being offered, I hope they would be smart enough to choose a different laptop.
I also wanted to add to my list of what makes an ebook valuable – formatting. The quality of what we’re being sold is ridiculously insultingly poor. That plus the DRM and price issues, multiple file formats, all these things make the ebook market a big ugly mess right now. As I said, I like reading ebooks, but not so much that I’m going to keep parting with my money for a poor quality high priced product. I’d rather go without, or choose a better alternative. And I’ve lived a long time just fine without ebooks. They have no leverage over me to force me into buying.
Hi, Christine. I’m just as anti-DRM as ever, but I liked Conroy enough to want to read him now electronically without paying a hardback price. Why, sometimes a love of words and stories can overcome an intense loathing of DRM. That said, just a fraction of the e-book files I have are DRMed. Thanks. David
@ David -
We all have to make the choices that are right for us. But when you buy a drm’d book, you’re telling the seller that they can keep on selling because you’re going to keep on buying. Your dollars speak much louder than any words against what you’re buying. Complain, complain, complain, but YOU’RE STILL BUYING. It’s all background noise, drowned out by the sound of cash registers ringing. You don’t like drm, but your position isn’t so firm that you’re willing to back it up with your dollars. Your choice to make, but let’s not pretend it’s anything other than what it is.
Christine,
When I buy a DRM’ed book I’m aware of the limitations and chance that I may not be able to keep access to the book in perpetuity. I’m fine with “renting” ebooks.
Certainly I would prefer a world where ebooks would be available in a device agnostic DRM free format. That is not the world as it currently exists.
If we follow your lead and just refuse to buy anything with DRM then what will happen?
Will publishers just give in and say “OK…you win we will start selling our goods without DRM” or is it just as likely that they will decide that shows there really is no market for ebooks?
While you may not really care about encouraging a burgeoning market for ebooks many others do. I have a few thousand print books in my home library – I really don’t have room for many more. Nowadays, I would prefer to buy the vast majority of the books I want in digital form (I would prefer to save the remaining cubic feet in my house for those books that really need to be in print form).
I think it is more important at this time to show publishers that there is indeed a market waiting for and wanting ebooks and to send a signal what a likely price point for most ebook titles should be. It seems most major publishers really want to try and establish ebook pricing at somewhere near the same price as the print book. I don’t think most buyers will accept that – DRM or sans DRM.
If we all just stay out of the ebook marketplace I think that will turn out to be about as effective as threatening to hold our breath until we turn blue. If I remember correctly that never seemed to work – our parents always won in those situations.
@ HeavyG
We can show the publishers we want non-drm ebooks by buying non-drm ebooks. And we can write letters to them telling them we want non-drm ebooks. They’d have to be pretty stupid not to get a clue. And if they don’t get a clue, that’s fine with me. There are people selling non-drm ebooks.
I would also rent a drm ebook – for a dollar or less.
Holding your breath until you turn blue doesn’t work because even if you keep holding your breath, the worst that will happen is you will pass out, at which time you’ll breathe again. It’s self defeating. It’s pointless. And it’s a bad analogy.
I can live without ebooks forever. Let them stop selling them. It’s ok with me.
There is a huge amount of free ebooks already available that I doubt are going anywhere as long as they’re in the public domain, and there are plenty of new authors willing to take advantage of the internet and give their work away to expose themselves to new readers.
If you don’t care about drm, then that’s your choice. The problem is people who say they hate drm and want it gone, but who keep on buying drm ebooks. Your money is speaking louder than any complaints you may have. You can’t keep saying you don’t want it, while PROVING you’re willing to pay for it.
I was just looking at the Simon and Schuster website. They are selling ebooks for the same price as hardcovers. Ha. There is no comparison in the value for the dollar, the hardcover is worth infinitely more than an ebook version is. But hey, if people are willing to buy, they’re willing to sell.
I sincerely doubt ebooks are going away. Publishers are just trying to figure out how much they can screw us for, I mean sell them for of course.
Maybe I missed somebody already pointing this out while scanning the comments, or in your post, but…
EReader.com is offering the Conroy and other new titles for 9.95 — while the title is DRMd, the DRM is the most customer-friendly there is, and the book can be read on any device that supports the ereader format.
Just fyi.
Bests to all,
–tr
Christine said:
“Where are these Sony Vaio laptops now? Unfortunately people would buy a laptop filled with crap because they don’t know that’s what they’re getting. Once they learn what’s being offered, I hope they would be smart enough to choose a different laptop.”
____________________________________________________
As a matter of fact, those VAIO laptops and their sucessors are still out there and still selling as well as any Sony product sells these days. And they are no different from the stuff HP and Dell peddle.
And people, so far, have simple come back for more.
The market will bear what the market will bear.
In this case the endpoint “solution”, for now, appears to be a new philosophy within Windows where the OS will now explicitly identify performance-sapping and/or crash inducing applications so people stop blaming Windows for the OEM’s crimes.
Would be nice if people boycotted laptop vendors that load their product with ad-ware but that ad- and demo-ware brings upfront money to the table so removing it costs them money. For the vendors the choice is literally selling a clean version at a higher street price, losing sales, or an infested version at a lower price. Given that most of the savvy folks know how to remove the ad-ware they go with the polluted boxes and give Apple all the room they need for their product-libel ads.
That is life in the real world, unfortunately.
The market bears what the market bears.
Sometimes the price is money, sometimes convenience, sometimes features.
Crusades can nudge the market sometimes but even crusaders have to live in the real world.
One should always be prepared for all outcomes; it may be that ebook DRM dies entirely (doubtful unless ebook libraries die with it), it may get toned down (very possible but not certain), or it could be that the market will find that the bulk of the buying public doesn’t care about DRM the way us theoreticians do.
At that point the option would be to join the black helicopter crowd prepared to live off the grid and google’s ad-supported library or make a peace with honor with the enemy.
Time will tell but a bit of pragmatism never hurts any crusade. More often it is the uncompromising true believers that hurt the cause. (See AMIGA, Commodore; OS2, IBM for examples.)
A sense of perspective can only help the cause and the final goal.
Here, I think we all agree the final goal is a pricing and distribution system that allows the ebook industry to grow and flourish and deliver something close to the full potential of the technology. And it would help to pay attention to what the market tells us cause that is the sign of things to come.
So far, the market cares about DRM… a bit.
The market cares about functionality, convenience, and reading experience a bit more.
And the market cares about pricing…a whole LOT!
That may change, but I’m thinking the pricing war needs to be settled before the DRM war gets addressed.
Christine said:
“Where are these Sony Vaio laptops now? Unfortunately people would buy a laptop filled with crap because they don’t know that’s what they’re getting. Once they learn what’s being offered, I hope they would be smart enough to choose a different laptop.”
____________________________________________________
As a matter of fact, those VAIO laptops and their sucessors are still out there and still selling as well as any Sony product sells these days. And they are no different from the stuff HP and Dell peddle.
And people, so far, have simply come back for more.
The market will bear what the market will bear.
In this case the endpoint “solution”, for now, appears to be a new philosophy within Windows where the OS will now explicitly identify performance-sapping and/or crash inducing applications so people stop blaming Windows for the OEM’s crimes.
Would be nice if people boycotted laptop vendors that load their product with ad-ware but that ad- and demo-ware brings upfront money to the table so removing it costs them money. For the vendors the choice is literally selling a clean version at a higher street price, losing sales, or an infested version at a lower price. Given that most of the savvy folks know how to remove the ad-ware they go with the polluted boxes and give Apple all the room they need for their product-libel ads.
That is life in the real world, unfortunately.
The market bears what the market bears.
Sometimes the price is money, sometimes convenience, sometimes features.
Crusades can nudge the market sometimes but even crusaders have to live in the real world.
One should always be prepared for all outcomes; it may be that ebook DRM dies entirely (doubtful unless ebook libraries die with it), it may get toned down (very possible but not certain), or it could be that the market will find that the bulk of the buying public doesn’t care about DRM the way us theoreticians do.
At that point the option would be to join the black helicopter crowd prepared to live off the grid and google’s ad-supported library or make a peace with honor with the enemy.
Time will tell but a bit of pragmatism never hurts any crusade. More often it is the uncompromising true believers that hurt the cause. (See AMIGA, Commodore; OS2, IBM for examples.)
A sense of perspective can only help the cause and the final goal.
Here, I think we all agree the final goal is a pricing and distribution system that allows the ebook industry to grow and flourish and deliver something close to the full potential of the technology. And it would help to pay attention to what the market tells us cause that is the sign of things to come.
So far, the market cares about DRM… a bit.
The market cares about functionality, convenience, and reading experience a bit more.
And the market cares about pricing…a whole LOT!
That may change, but I’m thinking the pricing war needs to be settled before the DRM war gets addressed.
“People who buy cheap and sacrifice convenience deserve neither cheapness nor convenience.”
Didn’t Ben Franklin say that? Anyway…
I, too, would have sooner paid more for an e-book presented the way I wanted it, then accept a format (and DRM) I didn’t appreciate, just to save a few bucks. IMO, you get what you pay for.
Presently there are a number of books that have been out for a year or more, but not yet in e-book formats… or (in the case of the latest Wild Cards novel) in e-books priced at hardcover price. As much as I want to read those books, I’ve refused to touch them, and I won’t until they are offered in a way that I’ll accept, reasonably priced and with No DRM. If they don’t become reasonable… they won’t get bought. Period. End of a series I’ve enjoyed for almost 2 decades now.
Because I want to be entertained, just as I want to entertain with my own novels… but not at the expense of getting ripped off.
Amazon is so fixated on the $9.99 price for ebooks that they are taking a loss on the books publishers price if it is higher. In other words, they are paying the publisher as if the book was $15 or whatever, but the reader pays the $9.99.
Amazon wants to hook as many readers as possible into the Kindle system, THEN they’ll up the price. Meanwhile, they are taking the biggest cut off the top of the book’s profit of any ebook distributor.
If they win the ebook distribution war, God help publishers and authors because they’ll own us or destroy us.
Right now, they are getting serious competition, but they are smart and have beaten the socks off of or bought anyone who has tried to top their paper or used sales so my money is on Amazon as the major player in the future.
David, have you all published a comparison of the DRM on Kindle ebooks and BN ebooks? I know that BN has a reader for several platforms that Kindle does not right now (ie Blackberry, PC, Mac), though it currently lacks a compatible ereader (hello, plastic logic).
But beyond that, are the limits imposed by the BN DRM format substantially different than Amazon’s DRM format?
Thanks.
Hi, Aaron. No matrix published–maybe we will in the future. B&N’s DRM is less restrictive, and the software runs on more devices. But as noted, I didn’t like the price gap. That said, looking back, I might well have turned to Fictionwise or eReader, at least one of which had a $10 price, as someone noted here. Thanks. David