Tor, a MacMillan imprint going DRM free

[bgalbrecht]

If I had a choice between Tor being DRM-free vs. Tor allowing retailers to discount their ebooks so that they are priced at or below the retailer's discounted price for Tor paperbacks, I'd rather have discounts.

I wonder if DRM-free + discounting will be the death-knell for the retailers with painful ebook stores, like Sony.

[tamzilla]

Originally Posted by abookreader

hmmmmm - Macmillan tests selling to Kindle users outside of Amazon?

That was my first thought too. If the DOJ wins the price fixing suit and Macmillan has to ditch the agency model, Macmillan might just stop selling through Amazon. Maybe they are contemplating the Pottermore model and want to test it out using Tor.

[stonetools]

Interesting. I don't think its a coincidence that Macmillan (who led the agency charge against Amazon) is trying this gambit.
If it can get its authors on board, Macmillan might want to do a Pottermore and go DRM free all the way, regardless of the DOJ lawsuit.

[AnemicOak]

This is great and all, but I hope they're going to be doing something different with the pricing too.

[tubemonkey]

Consumers have the final say in this power play. Pity they won't exercise it.

[leebase]

<happy dance> I may go buy a Tor book just to reward them.

Lee

[Elfwreck]

I wonder where they'd sell them that it's clear they're DRM-free. Will they put them through Webscriptions? Amazon and B&N don't label non-DRM'd books, and I don't think the iBookstore allows them at all.

[afa]

Just saw this on a news feed. Way to go, Tor!

[ProfCrash]

I believe I read that Amazon was back to labelling DRM free books. Something about usage on simultanious devices. I don't know the exact wording.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I wonder where they'd sell them that it's clear they're DRM-free. Will they put them through Webscriptions? Amazon and B&N don't label non-DRM'd books, and I don't think the iBookstore allows them at all.

Kobo clearly states whether or not a book has DRM directly on the product page where the Download Options are.

Amazon has reinstated the "Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited" secret codephrase in the main store after removing it for ~ 2 months.

B&N and iTunes are mystery meat as far as DRM-free notices goes, but apparently you can now have DRM-free books in the iTunes store as some people have reported that using some stripping tools on their freebie iBooks results in learning that some of them never had DRM in the first place (there may be some indication on the Get Info within iTunes after "purchase").

Maybe Tor will start putting them through the Baen store again, though probably just a limited selection for which they have worldwide rights, since Baen doesn't do geo-restrictions as far as I can tell.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

And that higher resolution goes away when converted to Mobi and placed on a KIndle. So why should I buy and convert and EPUb?

Not to mention, 99% of the books I read do not have images so I could care less about image quality.

Not always so. Sometimes the images n the Mobipocket are not as high a resolution as the format allows and converting from the ePub can in some cases end up with better images. It works in most cases with covers.

[ProfCrash]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Not always so. Sometimes the images n the Mobipocket are not as high a resolution as the format allows and converting from the ePub can in some cases end up with better images. It works in most cases with covers.

Cool. (shrugs) I still don't care. I don't buy the book for the cover and I don't care what the cover looks like on my e-reader. I get that this is important for some folks, it is not important for me.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by gweeks

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/04/tor...to-go-drm-free

I've had my eye an a few of their books, but since I'm unwilling to buy books with DRM on them I've gotten them from the library instead. Hopefully they actually go through with it. Tor tried to go with Baen Webscriptions years ago and had it nixed by their MacMillan overlords.

Greg Weeks

Tor doesn't allow their eBooks to be borrowed via Overdrive. What library are you using that has Tor's eBooks?

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by ATimson

There is one reason not to buy from Amazon: if you buy an ePub elsewhere, you'll get higher-resolution images and (unless the publisher is using KF8 already) better styles & any custom fonts the publisher used.

I read fiction and narrative non-fiction, so in most cases, this will not be worth the additional time of converting the book and the disadvantage of not having it in my Amazon archive.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Tor doesn't allow their eBooks to be borrowed via Overdrive. What library are you using that has Tor's eBooks?

I read that as "I borrowed paper editions from the library."