Tor/Forge Books Announces DRM-Free E-book Store

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stonetools

The whole walled garden business is BS anyway. People are Amazon customers because they WANT to be Amazon customers, because they understand that Amazon offers a great retail experience. The format geeks and the anti DRMists who think that the chief reason that Amazon is retaining customers is through format and DRM lock-in are deluded, to put it mildly.

I've read about plenty of people thinking f maybe changing readers but end up not doing so because they would lose their libraries. This is not a joke and not something said by people who are not Amazon eBook customers. If you had a lot of eBooks in a given format and changing readers would cause you to lose access to these eBooks, you might not change. It's that simple.

It's not like owning a Sony 505 and deciding you like the nook with glowlight better and your eBooks can go with you and can make the swap without losing anything.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I am so uninterested in having to go to 87 different publisher's stores to find the books I want. Other than the Liaden books and Lois Bujold (both published by Baen) I have no idea (and couldn't care less) who publishes my other favorite authors.

For the most part I agree with this sentiment. I don't generally purchase by publisher, but by author. That said, I still frequent Baen and spend a lot of money there.

[FizzyWater]

I stopped reading at about page 2 1/2, so I hope I'm not repeating what everyone after that said...

When I first started buying ebooks (2003/2004?), a couple of the big publishers had the ability to buy books from their own sites. With the exception of S&S, none of them offered any kind of discounting.

For most ebooks, I shopped (then) at Fictionwise. Otherwise, I happily bought from S&S in the format of my (then) choice - PDB. Then they decided to stop offering PDB and I had 15 days to redownload everything and would no longer have access to my bookshelf. Luckily, the PDB ebooks (now eReader, originally Peanut Press, then Palm Digital Media) are tied to my credit card number, which I still happen to remember. Oh, and S&S started selling PDB again about a year later, but didn't reinstate any bookshelves for those of us that bought them before.

Then I got notices that Publisher B wasn't going to sell ebooks on their site anymore. Then Publisher C. Luckily, I hadn't invested in books there. But those people all lost access to their bookshelves.

I now know about Alf and his happy tools. So it's less critical to me than it used to be. But my fear about publisher sites is that they really haven't seemed all that interested in the customer. (Hasn't that really been the complaint in a lot of this, that they don't see the "reader" as their main customers?) How long will they decide to offer ebooks?

I've got a Sony reader, so I've got ebooks at Fictionwise, at Kobo, at B&N, and at Sony. Also at Smashbooks and a couple other independents that offer backlist republished books. So I don't really mind site-hopping to get to my books. But I really don't trust the big publishers (yet) to treat me like a customer.

The DRM-free stuff is a huge plus for me. And with Dropbox and other cloud services, I'm a lot more comfortable that my backups will still be around when I finally get around to reading the ebooks I bought 10 years ago, let alone this year.

But I still like feeling somewhat comfortable that my books are also on those retailers bookshelves, in case of the worst kind of computer catastrophe.

(Having said all that, I feel sadly confident that I'll be receiving that email from Fictionwise in the next year or so saying they're closing up and I need to make sure I have good copies, or too bad - but I've got books there I bought in my earliest days that aren't even offered there for sale any more that I can still re-download. So I'm not sorry they used to be my favorite place).

[nathansuchy]

But how will they stop the piracy?

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by nathansuchy

But how will they stop the piracy?

Well the real question are they stopping piracy by having drm.

I understand people's concerns about having an easier way to transfer books to their readers etc. The best way for this store would be to make a calibre plugin that buys and imports ebook into people calibre libraries. They will have an application that supports almost all the readers is available for all almost desktop OS. Plus they will acknowledge they have no problems with people format shifting etc.

[Darqref]

Originally Posted by Joykins

I'm guessing her rights reverted on the older ones, or she got them back, or Baen only had ebook rights to the omnibuses (Young Miles etc.) as I believe she self-published those versions available through the Kindle store. The next Vorkosiverse book is only offered in hardcover through Amazon, not in Kindle format.

Once more into the fray.

Baen, as it ALWAYS HAS, buys only worldwide NON-exclusive e-rights. The authors have always been able to sell their works through other venues. (I assume there are some contract details about price and maybe dates, but those are private - the non-exclusive rights thing has been public for years.) This also means they don't have any regional restrictions. There are some minor problems with some of their reprint items, where an estate was unwilling to give e-rights, but that has mostly gone away.

Most of the Baen authors didn't think the trouble of going to other venues was worth it - Lois has had most of her Vorkosiverse books available from Fictionwise for years. The prices were always just a bit higher than Baen bundles, but the royalties were higher.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've read about plenty of people thinking of maybe changing readers but end up not doing so because they would lose their libraries. This is not a joke and not something said by people who are not Amazon eBook customers.

Really? It isn't said by B&N customers as well? Or by Apple customers?

It's not like owning a Sony 505 and deciding you like the nook with glowlight better and your eBooks can go with you and can make the swap without losing anything.

But is exactly like owning a Nook and deciding you like the new Sony better, and your eBooks can't go with you.

[Lynx-lynx]

I have a Sony ereader and decided prior to purchasing any ebooks that I would not let DRM issues be a concern for me - across the major formats.

Having made that decision, and taken certain actions, I can wander freely around the web when choosing which ebooks that I want, and I only buy those books that I can download onto my hard drive.

I convert all formats into EPUB (where not already) and store all my books on Calibre, which I easily backup onto a 16GB USB stick.

So there are no problems for me.

I do hope that commonsense rules and that the publishing houses, authors and book sellers realise that DRM free is the only viable way to move forward.

NB: I only read via my Playbook now because the 7 inch screen is a perfect reading size for me.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

The Agency deals currently in place do not allow one for a books to cost less at one seller over another. Macmillan says it's "this much" and everyone who sells Macmillan titles has to sell it for that price (or not sell it at all). Therefore Tor.com can't sell the books for any less than Tor sells them on Amazon, B&N, Kobo, etc.

I think the DOJ's removal of the 'most favoured nation' clause from the settlement 3 (or however many have settled now) means that MacMillan have a very good chance of getting it dropped in their next negotiation with Amazon, that will mean they can undercut Amazon when selling direct.

Originally Posted by jgaiser

For the most part I agree with this sentiment. I don't generally purchase by publisher, but by author. That said, I still frequent Baen and spend a lot of money there.

The other thing people are forgetting when saying people won't go to a different website for their books, is that Tor is a genre publisher. If it's a genre you like then it's very handy when looking for a new book that you will probably like any book on the site (No more having to scroll past 50 pages of "Pride & Pejudice & Chickens") that is going to be more and more usefull as the Qty of self published junk increases (Not to be confused with the self published stuff that people want - but it's near impossible to tell the difference at the moment).

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

so unless the publishers refuse to sell to Amazon or any other aggregator, it's just a lot easier to go to megabooksite.com.

IN the end, its a corporate battlefield out there. You win or you die.
If the publishers think that they have to move to direct marketing and sales to customers in order to survive, then they'll do so,and if it inconveniences Kindle owners , then so be it.

It's possible that in 15 years time, we'll be buying books the way we buy airline tickets-through a Kayak stylesearch/recommendation engine that links us directly to publisher sites and which handles the sales transactions in return for a fee from the publishers

.Its possible that in 15 years there will be no BPHs-only Amazon Publishing.

Its possible that the way by then the way we buy and consume ebooks may be to put on our Google Glasses and adjust the setting to READ.

About all we do know is that change is inevitable and that corporations will act in their business self-interest

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by stonetools

IN the end, its a corporate battlefield out there. You win or you die.
If the publishers think that they have to move to direct marketing and sales to customers in order to survive, then they'll do so,and if it inconveniences Kindle owners , then so be it.

They would have been in a much better position if they had embraced ebooks and done this from the start. As it is, they have allowed Amazon to gain such dominance that they simply can't afford to cut Kindle users off, and it is going to be difficult for them to regain control.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by stonetools

IN the end, its a corporate battlefield out there. You win or you die.

Wait a minute... I thought "You win or you die" was The Game of Thrones tagline?

[ProfCrash]

I will point out, for the thousandth time, that Amazon users are not the only ones effected by this. (or is it affected?) Nook, Sony, Kobo and every other e-reader out there will be effected. While Amazon holds a strong position in the US, there are still a large number of Nook users, something like 20% if the guesstimates I have seen are correct, and 10% t0 20% of Kobo, Sony, Apple, and other users who will be effected.

The only way that Amazon is the only one effected is if the BPH say they will only sell in EPUB and I am not sure that type of a move is in their best interest because that would isolate 60-70% of the market and that strikes me as a bad, bad idea.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Wait a minute... I thought "You win or you die" was The Game of Thrones tagline?

It is. Great artists steal.

I think the quote is apt.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

They would have been in a much better position if they had embraced ebooks and done this from the start. As it is, they have allowed Amazon to gain such dominance that they simply can't afford to cut Kindle users off, and it is going to be difficult for them to regain control.

Life can be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. (Can you id that quote?)

The publishers could not have foreseen the explosive rise of ebooks-largely because the rise was engineered, not by publishers but by tech companies.

Shatzkin (my guru!) puts it this way:

And that takes me back to the book business cork bobbing in the larger digital device stream. There was no ebook business to speak of until Amazon delivered the Kindle device, put massive muscle behind selling it, and used the ability they had then to sacrifice margin to create a powerful commercial proposition that was the catalyst to create the market. There was no serious competition for Amazon until Barnes & Noble’s new management delivered the Nook with an equally powerful commitment to establishing it, using their presence in stores to introduce ebook reading to new audiences and, with further innovation of the devices, contributing to the explosive growth of reading in digital formats.

There was no restraint on Amazon’s ability to use their deep pockets to discount publishers’ content in pursuit of their own market share growth until Apple’s new device, the iPad, created a whole new sales model that forced price stability in the marketplace and, at the same time, handed publishers a new capability to maximize revenue and to use price as a marketing tool.

There was no effective way to introduce book readers to the convenience of digital reading without the investment in a dedicated device until the iPad put the capability into millions of hands that didn’t know they wanted it.

There was no great motivation for ebook retailers to introduce interoperability across devices until many ebook device owners also became iPhone and iPad owners.

We note that all these changes in the marketplace were created by others, not by publishers. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, or even a new thing. Publishers also didn’t spring for the investment that created superstores and then Amazon in the 1990s, all of which increased their sales. A publisher’s role is to use the channels that are available to get books into the hands of readers.

LINK

Going forward, publishers may just have to create new channels to get books to readers, in order to avoid being disintermediated. That's where we are at.