[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

You know those books *exist* because of a marketing campaign.

No. I know they exist for a variety of reasons; serendipitous browsing, recommendations on Amazon, focused searches, friends' recommendations, etc. You might want to lump this all together and call it indirect marketing, but then just about every behavior is somehow influenced by indirect marketing.

Unless you intend your future reading to be entirely limited to authors you already know, you're basing your reading choices on their advertising skills. "Certain minimal standards of competence" is fine--but plenty of non-DRM'd and self-pubbed books have standards just as high as any DRM-using publisher, and some of them are higher.

No. See above. Advertising is not the issue. The point is that self-pubbed books may or may not reach a level of basic competence, whereas with a mainstream publisher, at a minimum I have an expectation that the product has gone through an editing process and I can at least expect basic rules of grammar to be followed, words to be mostly spelled correctly, and a somewhat coherent story to be told.

Of course, there's no nice simple list of those authors and publishers. So there's also a possibility of "I can't be bothered to seek out the few self-pubbed works that are great in the midst of all the crapola slush, and I know the works published by DRM-using publishers are at least competently edited."

Fine, I can't be bothered wading through a slush pile when publishers will wade through a slush pile for me and shape a ms. into something at least marginally readable; in exchange I pay a little more and I have the annoyance of DRM. Fair trade-off, I think.

I have NO problem admitting that the vast majority of self-pub work is garbage. For myself, I'm often entertained by it, and I enjoy some of the more "experimental" styles. I don't blame others for not wanting to waste their time wading through all that--but don't pretend it's because "all the best books are released with DRM." I'd prefer people be honest and admit that their time is more valuable than their opposition to DRM.

Publishers employ vast numbers of people to do the work that you seem to think each of us should do on our own. I never said "All the best books are released with DRM," but--yes. They are. Pick a random sample of 20 mainstream published books and 20 self-published books in the same time period, and I'm a hundred percent sure that the 20 from the mainstream publishers will be better.

There's nothing wrong with saying "I don't like DRM but it's not important enough to me to limit my reading to works without it."

Yep, that's what I'm saying. I don't want to be dictated to. Am I not taking a principled stand by saying, in effect, Screw DRM, I'll read what I want.

I'm not complaining about publishers dictating what we should read. (Well, not in this thread; that's a philosophical argument that has nothing to do with DRM.) I'm complaining about DRM limiting how I read books... and have decided I won't pay to support those limitations, no matter what quality of literature is hiding behind the lock.

It's only limiting how you read because you are letting it--biting off your nose to spite your face. You are definitely letting the publishers dictate to you, and I am not.

I'm not saying those books aren't quality books; I'm saying they don't fit with my reading habits. I am saying that anybody who insists "all the books I would enjoy reading are released with DRM" has pathetic and limited tastes in literature--which is *not* the same as "it's not worth it to me to find books without DRM that I'd enjoy."

If you honestly believe that books released by mainstream DRM publishers are the only ones you would like, your tastes are very limited. If you just don't care to spend the time wading through the digital slushpile to find the indie releases that are of similar quality levels in genres and styles you'd like--that's a very reasonable choice to make.

You are making a distinction without a difference. But I guess my taste is pathetic and limited, because I am not going to waste time looking through the slush pile. If there are hidden gems, they'll eventually come to the attention of a mainstream publisher.

I am indeed. I am saying that the marketing choice of DRM is more important to me than the quality of the individual book; I do not support titles released with DRM no matter how good those book are.

Am I missing out on some good books? Undoubtedly. However, the world is full of good books I don't have time or inclination to read; I'm not shorting myself on fun or educational reading material. There are more books than I have time for; authors who want my time--and my money--can find ways to get me books in formats I'm willing to pay for.

So ... how come it's noble of you to deliberately take a stand against DRM by depriving yourself of so many books, but it's "pathetic and limited" of me to take a stand against unreadable, awful, poorly written crapola by refusing to read it and financially support the people who write it?

You miss out on some gems because of your anti-DRM stand; I theoretically miss out on some gems by my anti-self-pub stand. Frankly, I think you're missing out on more than I am.

I don't consider DRM to be "silly;" I consider it an insult to my integrity. By offering me a book only with DRM, the publisher is saying that I cannot be trusted to act ethically or within the law without technological restraints. I try to avoid doing business with people who insult me.

If you're willing to pay to be be called a potential thief in order to read a good book, this may not matter to you. Might depend on how much you want to read the book, or how personally you take an insult aimed at thousands of customers. Shrug.

I consider the inconvenience of seeking DRM-free quality works to be less troublesome than supporting an insulting practice I find unethical, at least in this case. I have nothing against people who decide in the other direction; I *do* object to people who won't admit they're supporting the DRM-based market when they purchase those books, and to people who insist that "all the good books have DRM."

The self-proclaimed authors who produce garbage insult my intelligence, and I have no recourse with them--I can get rid of the DRM easily enough, but I can't do anything to turn a rotten book into one that's worthwhile.