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A novel way to boost e-book sales and reduce piracy
January 7, 2010 | 1:01 pm
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By Paul Biba
Another editorial worth reading, this time from Nico Vreeland of Chamber Four. Nico discusses his experience with two Android apps, i Music and TV.com and how both of them get the model wrong. He then looks at book pirating and comes up with a novel solution for when you buy e-books.
… You buy a book, you get 48 hours to try it out. DRM is stringent, and only lets you keep the book (or album, or movie) on whatever device you downloaded it on. If you delete in those first 48 hours, you get your money back. If you keep it, the DRM comes off and you pay for it. You can only delete a given book once; the second time you can’t get a refund.
This isn’t my idea, this is how the Android app store works: automatic refunds for apps you don’t want. And it works very, very well because it takes the sting out of buyer’s remorse.
This wouldn’t require publishers to honestly market books (and hence uproot the entire industry), it wouldn’t require people to prove they didn’t like something, and it would lead to many, many more books sold. It’s a simple, technological solution to a complex problem.
In fact, it’s so simple and easy, I doubt publishers will ever get on board. Just like CBS rejecting online TV distribution, publishers are prioritizing short-term returns over the long-term health of their industry, and that’s a recipe for a slow death every time.
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Comments:
I think this works with small applications. You can’t really test in any other way than with the full version.
I don’t think it works with books, where it’s perfectly possible to download a free sample (of the first few chapters, or even up to half the book, as at Smashwords), and tell whether it’s something you want.
There’s no such thing as “stringent” DRM; it’s not technically possible. DRM is just snake-oil sold to publishers in order to lock them in to specific platforms.
In any case, 48 hours is plenty long enough to read a book.
Would be more useful if there was a link to the original editorial in there somewhere…
Here is a link to the post by Nico Vreeland at Chamber Four: The Problem of Providing Digital Content; Or, How to Solve Publishing’s Problem.
The game publisher and aggregator Big Fish allows potential purchasers to download and play applications for one hour without fee. After purchase the time limit is lifted. Games are encumbered with DRM but they can be downloaded and played on multiple machines.
The argument that “DRM can be hacked, therefore it’s no good” really needs to go sit beside “Locks can be picked, so don’t bother,” and leave the discussion to the serious arguments.
It is true that there is no such thing as completely stringent DRM, but it doesn’t follow that DRM is just snake-oil. There is a middle ground, where DRM is as effective, and as transparent, as the “PRM” (Physical Rights Management, if you will permit a small conceit) presented by a bound book. Since the invention of the bandsaw and the scanner (to say nothing of the modern, high-speed, page-turning autoscanners), the physical nature of a bound book has not been enough to stop professional piracy, but I don’t think the pros are the biggest problem. I think the bigger piracy problem is the casual “loaning” of books to friends and family. Consider that every such “loan” is actually a new copy, and that such new copies are then subject to “loans” of their own.
And for the record, I think the largest single problem facing fiction publishing today is the assumption, almost inherent in the nature of modern life, that fiction, movies, TV shows, etc, are all supposed to be free. Most of these forms of entertainment can support themselves by selling advertising and merchandise tie-ins, but when fiction is free, no one will be able to devote a full-time life to the creation of it, leaving the field to the fanfic authors and other hobbyists, whose output is spotty at best and seldom reaches greatness.
As for the almost irrelevant fact that 48 hours is plenty to read most books, simply make it shorter, or better yet, pass out free, and freely distributable, samples, then require some form of payment, and some form of DRM, on the full version.
Levi
I can read the average genre novel in an evening without trying hard, most people I know can read one in under two evenings. That’s less than 48 hours so authors and publishers wouldn’t be paid in most cases.
A book isn’t music, nor is it software which are reuse. One media’s smart idea is another’s stupid one.
Be good for those of us they currently refuse to sell books to, as lots more of them would be available for free I would think, like this.
Get, crack DRM, have good copy, return dodgy DRM version?
There is a word for publishers that don’t provide excerpts for books and tables of contents though, certainly, and that word is stupid.
As Marilynn points out, this would likely be a big loser, as their best customers are those that read the most and fastest – and most of the time they wouldn’t need to pay. Now some books they wouldn’t get to on time in 48 hours, and some they’d like and want to keep of course. That’s a chunk of no-pay that was pay.
All this is solved by providing excerpts–ones bigger than a sparrow’s ringhole that are 153 words of copyright declaration. Preferably without technology limiting locked up flash paranoia that only a subset of your users will find works.
Marilynne’s point is key. If you buy an application (say, PhotoShop), you expect to work with it for months or years. So, you pay a fortune and get the app. A free trial is really a sucker’s bet because the longer you spend, the more hooked you are. A book, though, is an evening’s entertainment. 48 hours and it’s done.
I like the thinking…we need to experiment with different approaches. We also have to keep in mind that books (and movies) tend to be a different experience than applications or games.
Rob Preece
Publisher
Hi,
I’m glad you guys found that idea interesting.
I don’t think the length of the trial makes much of a difference. It could be 24 hours, 12, even 6 for quicker reads. For people that would abuse the system, it would be almost as easy to read the book at Barnes & Noble, or check it out from the library.
One key aspect of this idea is that it’s a change of mindset on the part of the publishing industry. It would be publishers trying to make sure readers are happy with their purchases, rather than tricking them with flap copy and marketing.
For readers (for me, at least), it’s a more appealing way to try out a book (rather than skimming the first chapter). For publishers, it makes a lot of sense, because it (a) encourages people to buy books since they can return them, and (b) requires an active opt-out–i.e. if readers do nothing, they pay for the book, which I think is fair in this case.
I know it would work on me.
Nico,
No, because for most people they won’t ever have a Barnes and Noble, and are not likely to get any given book in their library. It is really never easier to get it from any bookshop or library, unless of course you basically live right next to them.