[sanders]

Originally Posted by deviant

And when the store says they can't order it? What then?

Then either the store is too lazy to do so, or the book is out of print. Any book still in print which has an ISBN, can be ordered by the store.

Originally Posted by deviant

Phone up the author? That'd be a solid alternative if it wasn't for an even better one - the Internet. If authors would put their work on the net, price it at a fraction they are sold now and thus make it widely available, they'd cut down significantly on piracy.

If authors put their work on the net, they'd be publishers. Publishers and authors, but publishers still. They would then have to pay up for a cover designer, an editor, a proof reader, and a typographer. They would have to do the marketing themselves. They would probably even have to hire someone to do their website for them, lest the first 100 hits on Google are torrents of their stuff instead of their own web site. They would have to strike a deal with a credit card paying agency. They would have to take all this financial risk themselves, without a publisher paying them an advance.

I am going to do this (at least for the pbook version, using print on demand - I'm still not sure I'll publish an ebook) because I feel that although it means selling (far) fewer copies, I will get much better margins (and keep control over my own work, so I get to decide whether or not to do an ebook for example, instead of someone else).

It is very true that with the advent of the internet, the threshold for an author to self-publish is much lower. Especially if you're reasonably computer-savvy, which means you can save a lot of costs by providing your own camera-ready output, and set up your company website yourself.

Originally Posted by deviant

That's your view of things. My view is that someone is trying to rip me off and I'm not going to stand for it. How do you judge whose view is right?

I don't think the publishing industry is a rip-off. Brick-and-mortar book stores have amazing liberties (which date from the great depression) taking over half of the cover price of books, and not even taking much risk at that (since they can usually ship back unsold copies to publishers for a full refund - even if these copies are damaged and can not be sold anymore). Publishing is not a Get Rich Quick industry.

Still though - if you think you are being ripped off, in my view you should simply say "thanks but no thanks" and not take things into your own hands. If an exquisite restaurant thinks it can get away with asking $100 for an entree, you should simply not eat there if you don't think that's worth it. Of course, this gets us back into the "copying is not stealing" argument. Just out of curiosity - do you sneak into movie theaters and/or hitch free rides on trains?

Originally Posted by deviant

"Not knowing what to do" was a good excuse when DRM was an entirely new concept. Since it's no longer a new concept it should have been removed because it fails at its purpose.

So what does the publishing industry do? They feel there is no good DRM, so they'd rather not venture into ebooks at all.

Believe me: if there was a solid DRM which both publishers and consumers would both be happy with, publishers would jump into it feet first. Their biggest pain in the neck is currently the book stores with their outrageous margins. I'm sure they'd love to cut them out.