What stops you from buying ebooks

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

I think there should be a way to pay the author with one click at the moment when I'm totally immersed in the book, and thinking only "what a great read". This option was impossible in the past, but is quite doable on current ereaders. Then I would only regret some authors I read are already dead and my money won't do them much good.

This is one of the strengths of the Amazon bookstore and an under-appreciated perk of choosing the Kindle. Every title has a first chapter free sample that can be downloaded via Whispernet direct to your e-reader. If while reading it you remark "what a great read!" it's only a click or two away right on the device and the whole (now paid for) title magically appears without getting up out of your chair.

[cgk]

Where is "I'm taking the books off the web for free and don't plan to spend a dime under any situation" option?


Note: *I'm* not doing that but it would be interesting to know how many are.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

This is one of the strengths of the Amazon bookstore and an under-appreciated perk of choosing the Kindle. Every title has a first chapter free sample that can be downloaded via Whispernet direct to your e-reader. If while reading it you remark "what a great read!" it's only a click or two away right on the device and the whole (now paid for) title magically appears without getting up out of your chair.

Yep, that's probably my favorite feature of the Kindle.

Saves having to write down names of books I hear about etc. I read a review or get a suggestion from a friend etc. and just log on to Amazon and send the sample to my Kindle and have it there to peruse when deciding what to read next.

[markr]

As much as I dislike DRM, I'll admit it's price that generally stops me when I go to Amazon to grab a book for my kindle. Just yesterday I went to get a book for my wife, $9.35 for the paperback, $11.35 for the kindle edition. And this is for a book over 10 years old. $9 and they would have had a sale. Frankly anything under $10 and I wouldn't even be looking at the prices.

Another thing is when I see that the US kindle version is one price and the Australian kindle version is $5 more, like it was for a novel recently, or they flat out won't sell it to me. I know it's the publishers and not Amazon forcing this on us, and I hope they realise it is costing sales.

[SameOldStory]

Originally Posted by markr

Another thing is when I see that the US kindle version is one price and the Australian kindle version is $5 more, like it was for a novel recently, or they flat out won't sell it to me. I know it's the publishers and not Amazon forcing this on us, and I hope they realise it is costing sales.

Personally, I think that they're trying both to condition us and to discourage the growth of ebook readers.

[dmaul1114]

That wouldn't shock me. Publishers have to be scared to death of e-books as piracy is so much easier than with paper books.

Much simpler to upload an e-book to a torrent site, e-mail it to friends and family etc. than to scan in a paper book, or make bootleg copies of paper books etc.

I think it's needless personally. Piracy was (and is) much more rampant in the music industry due to that being a much larger industry than books, and they've survived just fine--though the RIAA would have you believe otherwise.

Don't get me wrong, we need huge advances in ways to fight piracy as we move further into the area of digital media and less tangible product. But DRM that isn't even a speed bump for pirates while being a huge hassle for people who legitimately buy the content is not the way to go.

[Sweetpea]

What stops you from buying ebooks

My answer isn't in the list.


Geographic Restrictions is a lot worse than DRM. People are putting all DRM schemes in one pile, but there are various versions, some good, some less good, some horrible.

Social DRM (some of your information is added into the book, but you can read it on all devices): no problems there, if you really want DRM, take this one. It won't stop people from reading.

x amount of ID's can be registered: your device has an id, you enter that ID and you can download the book for that id. Mobipocket has it. You can register a few ID's for your account, and you can change the ID after x amount of time. Not good, not bad, you can update your device and still read your books.

I believe the adobe DRM works a bit like this, but it requires authentication (authorisation?) servers. Horrible idea. What if the server goes down? I can't read my book then. I've no idea how it exactly works, as I have never bought an epub book...

Naturally, the fact that there are several versions of DRM implementations out there is the worst of all.


But then GR. This will actually stop me from buying books, because I'm not even allowed to buy books! I need to lie and cheat before I can actually pay for a book.


I will still buy DRM'd books. But only if I can strip the DRM. I don't care how much a book is priced, it depends on the book, not the format and DRM. But, as I'm not allowed to buy the book, I won't. And I will go to the dark side again, when I'm done with my current to-read list, if a book I want is not available to me.

[sabredog]

Geographic restrictions (not included in poll)

If I cannot be allowed to even buy the ebook based on where I reside, nothing else applies.

[GeoffC]

DRM doesn't stop me buying a book, geo-restriction DOES.

[nikkers]

You Yanks complain about price. Your expensive books are still cheap compared to Australian and British prices . If we can buy them due to Geo restrictions.

[mike_bike_kite]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

we need huge advances in ways to fight piracy as we move further into the area of digital media and less tangible product

A fair price (~ $5) should be sufficient. If you increase the DRM technology then folks will just produce better software to remove it. I certainly wouldn't bother looking for badly formatted torrents if I could just buy the book for a fair price and in a format of my choosing. No DRM would also mean I'd own my copy. The idea of a button at the end of a book to pay the author sounds intelligent also.

[Angst]

The new agency rules have curtailed my ebook purchases far more than DRM. Having to pay a much higher price for ebooks is much more destructive to my reading than DRM. (Most) DRM I can strip.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

A fair price (~ $5) should be sufficient. If you increase the DRM technology then folks will just produce better software to remove it. I certainly wouldn't bother looking for badly formatted torrents if I could just buy the book for a fair price and in a format of my choosing. No DRM would also mean I'd own my copy. The idea of a button at the end of a book to pay the author sounds intelligent also.

But is that a fair price to the publishers? Are e-books saving them enough in printing, shipping etc. that they make the same profit?

And is it a fair price to the author if they still get 10% of the price in royalties and now the price is lower despite their effort in writing the book being the same? Your donation idea is a good one, but the majority of people never donate to anything--at least in the US per some research I saw a while back.

So while I agree that fair pricing is important, it's still a touch issue. IMO fair pricing to me means an e-book with no DRM that costs the same (or a tad less) than the cheapest print version available at the time. Withtout DRM you're buying the same thing in the same format, and the creator put the same effort into making it regardless of format you bought it in--so price should be the same.

With DRM, I agree. You don't really, truly own the file so it shouldn't cost the same as the print version.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by omk3

Isn't this entered automatically by the Smashwords converted or something? If so I wouldn't blame the book or the author. And it's just a polite(ish) request after all. I feel free to ignore it, generally, if I need to.

I believe it is auto-generated, but it's also one of the reasons I stopped publishing with Smashwords (there are others which are more to do with aesthetics and control). We all have choices to make, most of mine seem to end up with me missing out in one way or another.

[TheJohnNewton]

Even with all the options given you didn't really list my reason for not buying ebooks. I don't give a whit about sharing my books. I really don't care if a book has drm or not. What I do care about is my ability to use my book on any device of my choice now or in the future. A book I can't use is a book of no value to me. The book can have DRM if all it does is confirm I'm the person using the book. Anything beyond that is too restrictive.