I’ve been a long-time e-book fan, and have read thousands of pages on my desktop computer, on the tiny screen of my old Palm m125, and on the bigger screen of my pretty new Alphasmart Dana, which, I am coming to love.
Thus far, I have limited myself to freebies from Manybooks.net and Project Gutenberg, because they are plentiful (over 100,000 titles) and free and easy to get in the formats my device can handle. But recently, my stepmother made a comment that most people probably don’t want to to read that stuff. They want the current bestsellers. So I thought I would check out some options and see what I could find.
My first stop was Fictionwise, a site I know my sister has used in the past. One of the first things I noticed was a Star Trek category. I checked it out and found that they were selling the Pocket Books novels I enjoyed as a teenager, and they were priced at a very affordable $3-4 each! I clicked for more details, and found to my disappointment that only three formats were available, all of them “secure” (i.e. DRM’d) ones.
Practical concerns, not just philosophical ones
Uh oh. Philosophical opposition to the business model notwithstanding, I had some practical concerns. My Dana came with a pre-installed e-reader version that has been specially optimized for its wider screen. I did not care to download a new program, even a free one, because I had no way of knowing (until I bought a book and it didn’t work) whether such a program would be similarly widescreen-enabled. I would be pretty angry to pay real money for a book only to find that the only way I could read it was in a tiny window that used a third of my screen! That right there is exhibit one against DRM—the vendor has no way of knowing what hardware the reader has. That’s why a non-restricted file is really the only way to go until we have a standard format.
Second wrinkle—I was sufficiently motivated to actually check the FAQ and see if my question could be answered. I found a daunting screen and a half of information on how to unlock your secure e-book, what you might be doing wrong if it isn’t working, and what trouble-shooting steps you should take before you pester Fictionwise about it. It seems they use your credit card number as the code they encrypt your purchase with. That means that if you ever change your card, you won’t be able to unlock your books again unless you have the number. I wonder how many people, when disposing of an old credit card, will have their Fictionwise secure e-books at the top of their minds and will remember to write down the number somewhere safe! I wound up clicking away from the site right there and then, without buying the Star Trek novel—or anything else.
eBabel at the public library
My second stop was the Web site of my public library. They have an e-book and audio book lending service, and I thought I would check it out.
Again, I had some concerns about the formats. I had the choice (for some titles) of Adobe Acrobat or Mobipocket, and I went with Acrobat because I was fairly sure I already had software for it on my Mac.
My first frustration was the discovery that they seem to be clinging to the print model a little too closely—many titles were unavailable because they were ‘on loan’ to other patrons. This is a meaningless distinction in the digital age. I understand that the library is obviously working on some sort of licensing system here, where they get licensed to have 3 copies or 4 copies or whatever. But why is that necessary? If you are saying that people with a valid library card can borrow the item, why should you care if 100 do so at once or if those same 100 people take turns? Either way, they are all going to read it, and really, there is no practical reason for limiting the copies. But it is what it is, so I adjusted my search to only titles which are ‘available’ and found two books I wanted to check out.
Here, I encountered my second difficulty. It seems that the knock-off reader on my computer was not good enough, I needed the genuine Acrobat Reader. Well, fine. I wasn’t happy about cluttering up my hard drive with a program I didn’t need, but it’s a free download, so I went with it. I let it download, then clicked on the book again. It told me I needed a certain plug-in, and did I want to download that? I grumbled about yet more disk-cluttering downloads, but fine, I had come this far, so I clicked okay. When I finally had everything they wanted me to have, I again clicked on the book. It turns out you actually won’t be reading these in Acrobat at all—you only need Acrobat to enable the plug-in, which is the true reader they’ll make you use. Of course, it had a tiny, pokey screen and no customization options. And of course, it could not be loaded onto my portable device.
Two useless programs—and no books
So much for e-book best-sellers. At the end of an hour or so, I had two useless programs on my hard-drive, and no books. I have to wonder just how necessary all of these shenanigans were. Is on-line piracy of almost decade-old glorified fanfic really such a problem that Pocket Books has to lock them and and in doing so, lose a sale of something they themselves don’t feel is worth more than $4? Do so many hordes of library patrons really want to read Rosie O’Donnell’s biography in a tiny, pokey little window that we have to make them download all sorts of garbage and limit them to 3 at a time? This won’t work for me. If you lie down in the DRM bed, you are going to get DRM fleas. They’ve lost me until they make this stuff a little easier.
Related: Past observations on eBabel.
What a heartfelt, eloquent essay on the DRM and eBabel problems, Ficbot! Thanks. Cool holiday gift for any editor.
Interestingly, I suspect that your most appreciative readers just might be at Fictionwise. Steve and Scott Pendergrast have long urged publishers to cut back on DRM. NonDRMed books sell much better at Fictionwise. The brothers also are hoping for meaningful e-book standards.
Once again, thanks, Ficbot, and happy holidays!
David
While I also dislike DRM, I disagree with your statement:
How would lack of DRM help here? Either way you would have to buy the book before you can tell if it works, and either way you can get a free book to test it with (unless the DRM reader _only_ reads DRM formats?)
If you haven’t checked the site already, it might be worth your while to visit http://www.manybooks.net, download a free title or two, and see which format seems to work best with your Dana. Manybooks offers a lot of free titles, and offers them in a LOT of formats. You should be able to test-drive almost any format you like, even though they won’t be DRMd.
Haven’t looked into Fictionwise’s unlock code functions, but the use of credit card number is how the EReader format handles its DRM (The other secured formats, more restrictive, want your devices registered with Adobe, or MobiPocket, etc.). At EReader.com, there’s a function that lets you reset the unlock code on the titles in your bookshelf — haven’t had occasion to change my credit card number, but if you have to do so, there’s probably a way to get that done without losing your stuff.
Bests,
–tr
Of all the DRM schemes out there, I personally find the eReader scheme best because of its use of the credit card number. Yes, you’ll need to preserve those names and numbers, but I just keep a file of them in my SplashID program and also in a memo on my Palm OS device. Since it’s not linked to a device ID or server, I can move ebooks around easily and not have to reauthorize them. It’s basically a permanent password that’s personalized to the reader, and the brilliance is that the password is information that you’d not want to give out and that you can’t easily change before each purchase.
I still would prefer DRM-free books, of course, and that’s a big reason I use Fictionwise — I get my monthly Analog and Asimov’s fix through their e-subscription service.
It is not the DRM being complained about, but present DRM relying on specific software.
Hence he won’t know if the DRM will or will not work with his software – easily checked, but the answer is probably not, if the software is not one that is being promoted via DRM booksellers (which seems to be the case).
The bigger problem and I very much see his point, that new “blessed” software may not work all that well on his device.
The ebooks might be fine on their own recommended software readers, but the display-ware might not. The currently working software probably won’t support the latest DRM works.
If the installed software is updated, the problem may disappear, but how would you know for certain, unless the ebook vendor declares the specific software as OK.
It is a minefield, that needs interloped DRM as a standard before even a path can be safely walked (a narrow one). That would help, but not cure the underlying problem.
Nick: the lack of DRM would help because it would allow me to pick a different format and/or convert the download into a different format myself, thus ensuring I have a file I can read with my hardware.
Fwiw, I did eventually get the public library download working by downloading it as a mobipocket file. BUT—Mobipocket is, as I feared, not widescreen-enabled and all I got was a tiny window in the middle of my massive screen. Mopipocket also is MUCH slower and buggier than ereader on the Dana—it crashed a few times, took ages to load, and refreshed the entire library (including the fairly substantial number of non-Mobi files erader files on my memory card) every time I either loaded the program or tried to change books. Plus, even when I opened the search to books not available now because they were ‘on loan’ I still only had 39 titles to choose from. Why the format stinginess? If I am ‘allowed’ as a patron of the library to borrow the book, why should they care if I read it in ereader instead of mobipocket? Beats me.
First of all I will never, ever support DRM and I hate p-books. That said, it’s infinitely much easier to find unencumbered e-books illegally than legally. Actually I have yet to find a single e-book I’ve looked for in any unencumbered electronic format. Authors don’t even answer when asked where I can buy their books without DRM. I really do want to pay for e-books, but authors are forcing me to get used to (and becoming good at) finding e-books through shady channels instead. Authors don’t even accept donations. It’s like they don’t want any money.
Ficbot’s article also highlights another DRM problem: if he(she?) has problems with the software, what chance would the great majority of the public have? Turning the computer on, reading email and browsing the web would probably be as much technical challenge as they could handle. And let’s not become literary snobs – without the sales of best sellers, romances and thrillers the whole publishing industry would probably collapse. Until the process becomes simple most people will just avoid it.
PS – loved the article!
Hello,
This is Steve Pendergrast, one of the founders of Fictionwise.
A major error in this article is the assertion that when your credit card number expires you can no longer read the ebooks using eReader format. You have the ability to re-encrypt your purchases using a new card.
There are plusses and minuses to every DRM technology, but most people find the eReader scheme to be one of the least intrusive methods of all, since in theory there is no limit to the number of devices you can support with it. In addition, assuming you do write down your card numbers somewhere, it is one of the only DRM schemes that would allow you to read your purchases even if the vendor you bought it from went out of business. This is not true of Mobi, LIT, or Adobe formats.
At Fictionwise, eReader format has the lowest number of customer support problems of any DRM format. Some formats have up to ten times the support cost of eReader format.
-Steve P.
Useful info, Steve, thanks. I’ve heard others, too, worry about complications from new credit cards, so it’s good to set people straight. If you can—and I’ll understand if you can’t—it would be great for you to rank the formats according to ease of support. We already know Number One. eReader deserves credit for that. I’m also curious if DRM is the number one support issue. To what extent do you have to build DRM support costs into your markup? Any way of quantifying that?
Meanwhile, once again, I’ll remind folks that Fictionwise has been one of the good companies on the DRM issue. It has told publishers that nonDRMed books tend to sell better. And it offers oodles of nonDRMed books from small publishers. I hope that someday the big guys will pay attention to Steve and Scott.
Thanks,
David
Thanks for the info, Steve! I am going to give things another try. That information was not clear to me from what was on your site.
I still maintain, however, that the process of DRM (which I know is not your fault, it is the publishers who insist upon it) hurts sales and adds a layer of needless complexity to things. And it hurts the paying customer, not the pirate! I wish the publishers would wise up to this basic fact.
The standard I always judge things by is this: would my mother figure it out without assistance? If the answer is no, it needs to be easier. We are not at ipod-level simplicity for ebooks yet.