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I've been reading this thread with great interest. As an author and self-publisher, the DRM issue has had a major impact on my efforts to sell.
My goal as an author and publisher is to expose the maximum number of people to my writing. Since I have no money for printing books, e-books were a natural choice for me. But I have to accept the fact that my e-book market is smaller than the print market, and even smaller because I write (mostly) Sci-Fi. So I desired to provide added incentive to buy my books.
Avoiding the use of DRM therefore became a business decision (along with low price and multiple formats) to entice readers, or maybe more specifically, to keep from driving them away. I accept the possibility of buyers swapping or even copying my books, in the hope that increased exposure to my books (even in illegal methods) may result in word-of-mouth interest in my work, and generate more legitimate sales.
That was the operating theory behind my self-publishing e-books.
Unfortunately, I have not seen large sales of my books as yet, nor have I seen much if any evidence of word-of-mouth activity, despite practicing this theory for the past year. So I cannot say how effective the theory is. Or-- maybe I can make this conclusion: The theory MAY be valid, but does not prove effective for unknown, unpopular, or just plain bad authors.
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