Poll on obstacles to ebook buying

[alvico]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

It's not a surprise when someone in the US doesn't understand the geo restrictions, it doesn't apply to them for the most part, but it's another thing entirely when an insider doesn't think it's important enough to include in a poll. Mobileread is an excellant place for the industry types to get a read on the customers, and the fact that Richard totally missed it is very telling...

Well said!

[vaughnmr]

Originally Posted by alvico

Well said!

Thanks, I downloaded your book after seeing your signature. It's good to see authors in here too, we need to see more of that. I've actually been turned on to some good authors in the past from posts like that, and I will definitely support them.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by asjogren

The eBook is unavailable. I cannot buy it.

Yes, this is by far the biggest impediment for me as well.

[lene1949]

Originally Posted by rhadin

I appreciate everyone's input, but admit that I am perplexed. The poll asks of the "following choices" which is the biggest obstacle to you. Should I understand from those who didn't vote because geo restrictions weren't included, that if publishers suddenly did away with geo restrictions you would have no complaints about any of the listed items? That seems to be what you are saying.

If so, then the recurring threads about DRM and price are misleading. All publishers need do is sack geo restrictions and all will be rosy in ebook world.

They are not misleading - it's very annoying, but people have a choice whether to buy or not.

With geo restrictions there's no choice... It should have been on top of the list.

[dragonbone]

Me too! Geographical restrictions. And as someone else said, if I can't buy the ebook in the first place, the price is moot.

[alvico]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

Thanks, I downloaded your book after seeing your signature. It's good to see authors in here too, we need to see more of that. I've actually been turned on to some good authors in the past from posts like that, and I will definitely support them.

Thanks for the support. I hope you enjoy Thin Blood.

Not only am I a writer, I’m also a long-time ebook reader. It’s all I read.

The issue with geographical restrictions isn’t just with the publishers. Barnes & Noble, for instance, have imposed restrictions on books that should be restriction-free. If you want buy Thin Blood from B&N and you live outside the US, you’re out of luck: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Thi...m=1&USRI=tyley

Something’s screwy somewhere.

[Pardoz]

Another vote for "This poll really needs work."

- You have two questions on DRM, when as a consumer, I really don't much care what the payload is, all I want to know is "Can I safely and easily get rid of the malicious code". If I can, I'll (consider) buying the book; if I can't, no sale, period (I was burned once, a long time ago. Never again).

- "Poor editing" will certainly put me off buying, but the question has absolutely nothing to do with whether the book is electronic, paperback, hardcover, or cuneiform baked into clay tablets, so I don't see much relevance.

- "Poor formatting", in most cases is only obvious after the book has already been purchased. Yes, I'm much less likely to buy a book I know is poorly formatted, but again this has nothing to do with the medium the book is being sold in.

- "Book is self-published" is once more irrelevant. No, I probably won't buy [random self-published book] by [author I've never heard of]; I'm also extremely unlikely to walk into a paper bookstore, close my eyes, spin in a circle, and buy the first book my finger points at. This has very little to do with who published it and rather a lot to do with who wrote it. All other things being equal, being self-published means I'm much more likely to buy a book from an author whose work I enjoy, since I know they're getting the lion's share of the purchase price, rather than pennies on the retail dollar.

This leaves "A price greater than $9.99 is more likely to put me off buying than a price between $4.99 and $9.99" and "I won't pay more than $4.99" as my only choices (I chose the first), while completely failing to address the two biggest impediments to buying an e-book:

1) The book is not legally available for sale as an e-book, in any format, at any price, anywhere.

and

2) The book is only legally available for sale in certain countries, with all the various definitions of "country" that get used.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by alvico

The issue with geographical restrictions isn’t just with the publishers. Barnes & Noble, for instance, have imposed restrictions on books that should be restriction-free.

[EowynCarter]

Book not published as e-book are on top of my list, followed by geo restrictions, then, bad editing / formating.

DRM are a mess, i only buy book because I can get rid of these.

[kennyc]

Are you going to publish the results here?

Of those choices I said DRM, but worldwide geo-restrictions are more an issue I think. for me price (over $9.99) is the second biggest issue. Third biggest issues is Publisher - If it's MacMillan, I ain't buyin'!

[JoeD]

I voted price, but really Price, DRM and geo-restrictions are equally important to me. Any one of those 3 will stop me buying a book.

As for price, I won't buy over 9.99 and will only pay 9.99 is exceptional circumstances, $4.99 would be my upper limit for impulse purchases. I still buy the odd book between $4.99 and $9.99 but it's only from known authors and rare.

[columbus]

Geo restrictions the price / DRM / formatting are totally irrelevant if I can't buy the book in English from anywhere, which living in Spain I can't.

[rhadin]

Let me once again address geo restrictions.

• First, I am not a publisher, I am an editor.
  
• Second, I live in the U.S. and have never found geo restrictions to be a problem so I didn't think of them.
  
• Third, even had I thought of geo restrictions, I would not have included it in this poll because it is not something I am interested in at this time.
  
• Fourth, the problems queried about are problems that a publisher can resolve; geo restrictions are not resolvable unilaterally by a publisher.
  
• Fifth, there seems to be a real lack of knowledge about geo restrictions on MobileRead. This is not solely a publisher problem -- geo restrictions are an primarily an author/agent problem. Authors and their agents sell rights to publishers. They rarely sell worldwide rights because few publishers are capable of distributing physical books worldwide. eBooks are not inseparable from pbooks. No publisher today is willing to purchase only pbook rights and leave the ebook market to someone else. Consequently, until authors and their agents are willing to sell worldwide rights to a single publisher, it is unlikely that geo restrictions will disappear.
  
• Sixth, the reason why authors and their agents do not sell worldwide rights is that they can get more money by selling geo-restricted rights and reselling rights to additional publishers in other geographical areas. For a single publisher to purchase worldwide rights would mean an increase in costs to the publisher. To distribute worldwide would also mean an increase in costs. An increase in costs will mean an increase in retail price.
  
• Seventh, without having purchased worldwide rights, a publisher cannot wave a magic wand and suddenly do away with geographical restrictions. OTOH, a publisher can unilaterally choose to remove DRM, have a book edited, fix formatting problems.
  
• Eighth, the poll asks specifically "which of the following" -- it does not ask "of all the possiblities that you can think of". So this is a relative poll, not an all-encompassing poll. There are lots of possibilities that are not included, such as that someone's allowance isn't big enough to allow them to purchase an ebook and that someone only reads freebies from Mobile Read.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Are you going to publish the results here?

I will probably summarize the results here, but will discuss them at my blog. I will provide a link when I do.

Originally Posted by kennyc

Third biggest issues is Publisher - If it's MacMillan, I ain't buyin'!

So another failure in the poll . It is impossible and undesirable to cover every possibility. The focu of the poll is on publisher addressable items that can be addressed unilaterally.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by rhadin

[*]Fourth, the problems queried about are problems that a publisher can resolve; geo restrictions are not resolvable unilaterally by a publisher.

Of course they are, since the extant geo restrictions on e-books were invented by publishers, and within the last year. All they have to do is stop pretending that an e-book sale happens where the recipient is, rather than where the seller is - in other words accept the status quo situation with physical books - instead of persisting in this counter-productive fantasy that buying a book from Amazon is fundamentally different than buying a book from Amazon. Problem solved.