Amazon and DRM changes

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by xyzzy_foo

They found a way to solve the problem.

Umm... no, they haven't. They say so themselves.

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

The only ultimate solution to Amazon's DRM changes is not to buy from Amazon.

Just a general observation/ question (?) - apart from having to get your already owned ebooks away from Amazon (if you missed the download deadline) why are people looking for such convoluted/ complicated and in the case of bookfab expensive ($72 or $90!!) solutions to the problem Amazon have created? Why not just buy elsewhere? Surely most countries have alternatives to Amazon for ebooks? - or don't they?

It seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to carry on buying from a company that clearly doesn't give a rats a*** about their customers.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Graham44

Just a general observation/ question (?) - apart from having to get your already owned ebooks away from Amazon (if you missed the download deadline) why are people looking for such convoluted/ complicated and in the case of bookfab expensive ($72 or $90!!) solutions to the problem Amazon have created? Why not just buy elsewhere? Surely most countries have alternatives to Amazon for ebooks? - or don't they?

It seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to carry on buying from a company that clearly doesn't give a rats a*** about their customers.

Kindle exclusives. They aren't sold anywhere else. In some genres there are lots of exclusives (fantasy romance, litrpg).

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Kindle exclusives. They aren't sold anywhere else. In some genres there are lots of exclusives (fantasy romance, litrpg).

I can kind of understand if you are in the middle of an exclusive to Kindle series - it would be annoying not to be able to finish. But if it was just to buy from authors that only publish on Kindle, I would personally forgo those authors - there's plenty of other authors with great stories out there you don't get to see on Kindle, but you do at smaller publishers. But I do understand that's not for everyone, still it must be annoying as a paying customer to have to bow and scrape to a company you are giving your money to!!

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Graham44

I can kind of understand if you are in the middle of an exclusive to Kindle series - it would be annoying not to be able to finish. But if it was just to buy from authors that only publish on Kindle, I would personally forgo those authors - there's plenty of other authors with great stories out there you don't get to see on Kindle, but you do at smaller publishers. But I do understand that's not for everyone, still it must be annoying as a paying customer to have to bow and scrape to a company you are giving your money to!!

Well, there are people who only read one or two genres (and in a very narrow sense - not fantasy in general, but specifically fantasy romance, for example). And if it's a genre that has many Kindle exclusives, they don't have much choice in where to buy the books they want to read.

Personally I read a variety of genres, and never even knew single-genre-folks existed before joining MR. But yeah, they do exist.

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Personally I read a variety of genres, and never even knew single-genre-folks existed before joining MR. But yeah, they do exist.

I didn't know that either! Yeah I can see that seriously narrows down your ability to buy books to essentially just Amazon.

I wonder how long it will be before Amazon decides that producing ereaders is just too much hassle and that now they have people completely locked into their platform make them read all their books online? through 'Kindle cloud/ online' or some such with no way to download books, that way they would have complete control over what you read and how you read it. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this comes to pass.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Graham44

I didn't know that either! Yeah I can see that seriously narrows down your ability to buy books to essentially just Amazon.

I wonder how long it will be before Amazon decides that producing ereaders is just too much hassle and that now they have people completely locked into their platform make them read all their books online? through 'Kindle cloud/ online' or some such with no way to download books, that way they would have complete control over what you read and how you read it. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this comes to pass.

If Amazon was to stop making/supporting their Kindles, there would be very many people jumping ship, It would not be a good business decision to do that.

[cgsmom]

Originally Posted by Graham44

I can kind of understand if you are in the middle of an exclusive to Kindle series - it would be annoying not to be able to finish. But if it was just to buy from authors that only publish on Kindle, I would personally forgo those authors - there's plenty of other authors with great stories out there you don't get to see on Kindle, but you do at smaller publishers. But I do understand that's not for everyone, still it must be annoying as a paying customer to have to bow and scrape to a company you are giving your money to!!

It is very annoying to have an author you really enjoy move to Kindle exclusive but as you say there are many authors out there. I even wrote to one of my favorite authors to tell her that I wouldn't be buying any more of her books because they are not available in other ebook stores. She did reply with "Thank you for letting me know", but it certainly did not change anything.

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by xyzzy_foo

They found a way to solve the problem.

I'd guess what they found was Sats's workaround. And for Kobo there is already Obok or DeDRM.

[hyegeek]

Originally Posted by cgsmom

It is very annoying to have an author you really enjoy move to Kindle exclusive but as you say there are many authors out there. I even wrote to one of my favorite authors to tell her that I wouldn't be buying any more of her books because they are not available in other ebook stores. She did reply with "Thank you for letting me know", but it certainly did not change anything.

Letting the authors know what you think is good. I've done the same and have had better results. Most of the ones I've talked to now sell in other stores. Be polite, express how much you enjoy their work and let them know your issue is with the abusive behavior of Amazon and not something against them.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by cgsmom

It is very annoying to have an author you really enjoy move to Kindle exclusive but as you say there are many authors out there.

For myself, I find more of the science fiction/fantasy books I read are available in Kobo Plus rather than in Kindle Unlimited thanks to companies such as Open Road Media. Several authors that my spouse loves have moved from Kindle Unlimited to Kobo Plus though there are quite a few others that have stayed with KU. Some are even doing a 1 to 2 week wide release of their new books before going Amazon exclusive.

From what I've read, Amazon does offer some advantages such as enhanced placement for being exclusive to Kindle which reduces the amount of work needed to do your own advertising. OTOH, several of the authors who have left being exclusive to Amazon have mentioned that some of Amazon's heavy handed attempts at controlling AI generated contents have hit their books dropping their income by 50-80%.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by xyzzy_foo

They found a way to solve the problem.

Then why haven't they released an update yet? It sounds more like they haven't solved the problem.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If Amazon was to stop making/supporting their Kindles, there would be very many people jumping ship, It would not be a good business decision to do that.

Amazon has made a lot of decisions that are solely for locking people into their ecosystem and not good for business in general. So that wouldn't surprise me at all. I've read the Kindle department isn't making the kind of money Amazon expects (no idea if it's actually true), so yeah, Amazon might well decide apps and the cloud reader are enough.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Amazon has made a lot of decisions that are solely for locking people to their ecosystem and not good for business in general. So that wouldn't surprise me at all. I've read the Kindle department isn't making the kind of money Amazon expects (no idea if it's actually true), so yeah, Amazon might well decide apps and the cloud reader are enough.

The devices are also sold at- or below-cost, iirc, and they make up the sales with eBook purchases. (People complaining about Kobo prices because it's Amazon subsidizing the Kindles.)

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

The devices are also sold at- or below-cost, iirc, and they make up the sales with eBook purchases. (People complaining about Kobo prices because it's Amazon subsidizing the Kindles.)

I've also read, several times, that Kindles are basically a loss leader, that they are essentially just a way to get people into the Amazon ebook ecosystem (may not be so true for the more premium Kindles). Even mega corporations like Amazon can only punish their customers so much before they start to suffer from loss of sales. Only time will tell if Amazon customers are happy to put up with these sorts of shenanigans or not.