More on TechnologyTell: Gadget News | Apple News
Formats and DRM: Some major publishers starting to issue e-books only in Amazon’s ‘protected’ formats?
November 3, 2008 | 4:26 pm
|
By a TeleRead Contributor
Moderator’s note: Amazon owns both the Kindle and Mobipocket formats. If major publishers are starting to use only Amazon’s proprietary formats—just Mobi for nonAmazon retail?—this is a disturbing trend. I’d welcome thoughts from a publisher or retailer. The informative essay below is from Sue Kleiman. Thanks, Sue! – D.R., 1:25 a.m., Nov. 4.
I regularly read the blog at teleread.com, but I haven’t noticed any recent comments about this…
I’ve bought most of my hundreds of e-books from eReader and Fictionwise. I always buy the e-books in the eReader format if it’s available, because the DRM is much less of a problem for me than Microsoft Lit or Mobipocket. I don’t have to register each new reading device (Pocket PC) at some Big Brother police site and redownload all of my books every time I upgrade. I can also share the e-books with my husband.
I know there’s still no guarantee that I’ll be able to read the books forever, but it’s the best I can do.
There seems to be a recent trend by mainstream publishers to only issue their e-books in Mobipocket format. I visit the Fictionwise site every Monday morning to check out the new books, and lately, in my categories of choice, mystery and mainstream, almost all of the new secure-format books are only available in Mobipocket form. This week there are 37 new books in those categories, and only one is available in anything except Mobipocket!
Random House has just published a new Bryant and May book by Christopher Fowler. All of the previous books in the series (also published by Random House) have been available in the eReader format, but the new one is only in Mobipocket. The FAQ section of their site still says that they support all formats, but it no longer seems to be true.
I emailed a question about this to Fictionwise, and just got a generic non-answer. I also e-mailed Random House, but don’t really expect a response. I thought maybe someone involved with TeleRead might have some insight into this. I don’t really want to turn into a criminal at my advanced age, but now that I’m addicted to e-books, I’m not sure what I might do to get them in unlocked form.
Thanks for listening,
Sue Kleiman
Note: We cherish reader contributions, not just comments on our own posts. Send your writings to co-editor Paul Biba. – D.R.
|
Related Posts:
Previous
SUBSCRIBE TO RSS
Comments:
I’ve noticed that, too. Mobipocket is not easy to read on the iPhone, and I really like ereader for the iPhone.
When I see mobi format only, I tend to pass it over.
My guess is the mobi only bit is an Amazon exclusivity period, it would explain lots.
I noticed that, too, and got a little miffed. But…
After having converted my book into 9 different formats, my publisher made the comment that there was little to tweak from the .prc/.mobi to the .awz (Kindle) format (because Kindle uses Mobipocket).
It made me wonder if those publishers view it as a twofer (onto the ebook distributor sites AND Amazon in one format), be able to say they issue it in e-format, and forget the rest.
I have noticed that FictionWise seems to now have fewer formats available for new ebooks than other stores. For example, Books on Board has The Victoria Vanishes by Christopher Fowler in Adobe, LIT and two MOBI versions (one from OverDrive and the other from MobiPocket). The extra formats seem to be from OverDrive, which so far as I can tell FictionWise does not use. BoB had earlier Fowler titles in eReader format, but not this one.
Sue, if you’ll forgive the gratuitous plug, I invite you to check out Smashwords. We publish multi-format, DRM free ebooks from independent (self-published) authors. We currently publish over 100 titles, and most are available in PDF, .RTF, .txt, .mobi and PDB. A few days ago we added support for epub and LRF (Sony Reader). Most of our books are also available for online sampling and reading via our HTML and Javascript readers. Many of our authors make 50% or more of their book available as a free online sample so you can try before you buy. We don’t offer the selection of a Fictionwise or Amazon, but we’re adding new authors and titles each week so I invite you to bookmark us and browse our catalog.
Happy reading!
Mark
This issue is discussed in this Mobileread thread. It seems that Fictionwise is at the mercy of what formats its distributors choose to offer it.
My advice?
Wait a few days before purchasing. I’d purchased the new Michael Connelly, THE BRASS VERDICT, on the date of release at Fictionwise, but didn’t download it immediately. It was MobiPocket only, and I figured that the publisher had played along with Amazon/Kindle/MobiPocket and dropped eReader format. A few days later, Fictionwise showed an eReader edition available. Since I hadn’t downloaded the MobiPocket edition yet, FW let me trade it in for the eReader version. (Customer service at FW, by the way, has always been fast and friendly.) It’s not often that eReader versions show up a few days later, but sometimes…
Bests to all,
–tr
I can echo the posters words almost exactly, having purchased hundreds of ebooks, mostly in eReader format, but never in Mobipocket format (DRM linked to hardware footprint is madness).
New books by C.J.Sansom, Reginald Hill and others are only available in Mobipocket format at Fictionwise. If Steve from Fictionwise reads this thread, please lean on the publishers! These are lost sales! Waily, waily, waily!
I did not buy the new Kelley Armstrong because it was only in Mobipocket. Lost sale! Lost sale! If I were an author, I would be very alarmed over this trend.
To my surprise, I actually did get a reply from Random House –
Thank you for contacting Random House and for your interest in our publications.
We are not the distributor of the e-book or downloadable audio format of any of our publications. When we release an eBook it is done in a “generic” format. It is then up to the individual retailers to convert the generic file into the items they wish to offer to their customers. As with any retail store, online retailers such as iTunes and Audible are responsible for selecting the products that they wish to offer to their customers. If none of our suggested suppliers carries it, we regret that we are not able to direct you elsewhere. All of our known suppliers are featured on our website. You should contact your preferred retailer(s) and request that they add the title/format to their offerings.
Random House Consumer Services
I just read the article on Mobileread that Chris Meadows mentioned. It talks about distributors being a middle layer between the publishers and the retailers. Is this true, and who are they? I can’t believe that the publishers allow another entity to decide what formats should be released.
Well, I got Ms. Armstrong’s business manager’s contact information off her author website, and have written her a letter directing her to this article. I plainly outlined the issue, pointing out that this author’s previous works all are available in eReader and urging their business team to take an active interest in this problem as there are readers (with money) out there who are legitimately concerned. And they should be concerned too—authors are losing money on this! Anyway, I will update you on any replies. I am feeling a little crusader-ish about this one! I’ll push until they answer me.
The only distributers I am aware of are mobipocket and OverDrive, see http://www.overdrive.com/products/contentreserve.asp
As I mentioned above, BoB uses both of these and sometimes you can get the same MOBI ebook from OD or PX at BoB.
There must be other distributors, because OD does not provide the eReader format and Fictionwise does not seem to use OverDrive at all.
This is what I go through every Monday morning at Fictionwise as well. I’ll go through and select new and pre-order books for purchase. After I move them to my cart, I’ll realize that the majority are not in ereader format, so I’ll move them to my wish list in the hopes that ereader format will be available in the not distance future. I’ve saved a substantial sum of money over the last several months due to the lack of format choice.
I’ve thought about writing to publishers etc in the hopes that someone will listen, but everyone seems to want to say that the format choice decision is not up to them. Who then?
So my money & I have been going to Baen more. They may not sell ereader format but they do sell a non-DRM’d rtf format that even I can convert. Maybe I need to convince Baen to carry more genres than science fiction and fantasy, although the Barflys may revolt.
It’s too bad that breaking encryption on Mobipocket books so you can read them on your iPhone or iPod Touch using Bookshelf is illegal.
Incredibly easy…but illegal.
And eReader, MS Reader, etc
And another one! New JD Robb book, previous all available in eReader, new one only in mobi! I am incensed. It is like they don’t *want* our money. Can anyone with greater investigative skills than me dig up who we can write to over this?
Just checked Fictionwise’s new releases page — a number of books that showed only MobiPocket on Monday are showing eReader editions now. (Sorry, ficbot, but I don’t see the Robb marked as eReader yet.)
Take a look if there were titles you passed up the other day….
Bests,
–tr
Thanks, Tony. I received a reply from Kelley Armstrong’s assistant. Noting earth-shattering—as I expected, she said the authors have no say in what editions are released where and in what formats, but she is ‘of course concerned’ by my news and will look into it. I am hoping that some of my letter-writing and blogging (I wrote about this on my own blog) will net me either some actual information on what’s going on, or the name of a contact person who actually *is* responsible. In either case, of course I will share the news here.
Thanks, Tony. Being too impatient to stand on principle, I’d already bought several of the ones I wanted in the dreaded Mobipocket format. In the coming weeks I’ll try to restrain myself, at least for a few days, to see if the ereader versions appear. I wonder if it just happens that way, or if it’s a deliberate attempt to give the advantage to the Mobipocket edition. It still seems strange that nobody seems to know anything about the elusive middeleman between the publishers and retailers.
Good for you. Bad for publishers.
It’s not like they can afford the loss right now, is it? You’d think they’d get a clue.