Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
As this thread on TM might suggest, DRM is only one thing this site focuses on. It's just that DRM is so loud and clumsy that it continually draws attention to itself in the room (not quite an 800-pound gorilla, but a 300-pound drunken lout, I guess).
We do discuss other methods around here, though. I am presently using a different model entirely (low price, multiple formats, no DRM), to see how well it works... sort of an ongoing experiment in e-book workability. Others are using other models, and you could say we're all experimenting to see what works best. The field is so new, that no one method has proven itself yet, and other methods remain to be discovered or tried.
And while we're all working on that, the lout stumbles over a coffee table and draws everyone's attention back to it, ad infinitum.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
[...]For the record, I'd much prefer that any of these would work, as opposed to DRM, TM, encryption, or any other similar scheme.
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Yes, you're right of course and I've read those threads (mostly pre-registering, too). However, the general impression (i.e. not limited to this forum) I got was "I've tried everything else and there are no proper laws in place. DRM-free is my last chance." as opposed to "Let's try DRM-free, might work out". Sort of like "In der Not frisst der Teufel fliegen" ("If in need, the devil eats flies." / "Beggars can't be choosers."*).
There was never really a constructive discussion about the pros and cons but rather only throwing around anecdotal evidence.
I'm not immune to that, obviously, but I tried to make this discussion at least somewhat constructive even if that makes me obnoxious
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darqref
Another way to increase links down the long tail is to make use of recommendation features. If you (or any reader) can make a comparison between your works and another author, then you can draw shoppers down the link trail. For example, my mother listens to lots of mystery audiobooks (she's mostly blind). I don't read a lot of mystery, and I fairly regularly go looking for new authors she hasn't read yet. I pick a current author on Amazon, and check all the links on the page for other suggested authors - the "people who bought this also bought that", and particularly the "listmania". (A listmania list will be displayed on the pages of every book listed, so your books could be seen by people looking at the related books.) So, I recommend generating a couple of lists of authors and books you think are similar to yours in style or subject matter, then posting such to Amazon.
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I had something very similar to this in mind as it's how I find information on other subjects. Only difference is, I wasn't thinking of Amazon but rather a regular website (-ring) but now that you mention it, that'd be a great idea, too.
So, we have a lot of very knowledgeable people here so there should be something to harvest. Perhaps an extension to the mobileread wiki or wikipedia? You could enter a book or saga into the index, describe it and then link to other books you've read that are connected to this one, together with a reason. For instance, you enter "Malazan Book of the Fallen", add some description and then you add a reference to "A Song of Ice and Fire" with the remarks "Fantasy, ruthless, epic, non-obvious, dark (good characters die)". Or perhaps a link to some book, that has nothing in common except for "non-obvious, dark (good characters die)". Something short to give the reader an idea of which part the referenced book relates to. You can then also link to other review sites.
The Idea is, you have some book you liked, you browse to the matching entry and are presented with a number of links to similar books, qualified with remarks. A book-net so to speak. Old idea, I know, but there doesn't seem to be anything like this out there except perhaps for large forum threads on book-specific forums. Not even dedicated book review sites have a link collection.
You could even add a rating for the reference links.
*: source some site I don't recall at the moment :/