Is DRM necessary? Should publishers be concerned about piracy?

[doctorow]

Steve, glad to see you here. Have you tried to get in contact with Neil Gaiman? He seems to have quite some experience with publishing books online (with and without DRM) vs. offering them in bookstores. And he is a very nice guy to talk with. I am still hoping for him to join us here one day

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

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.

Right. If no one knows who you are, or if your works don't appeal to the people who read eBooks, then doing everything else right isn't going to help you (I'll avoid the "plain bad author" part for now 8-) ).

I just checked out your web site and it looks to me that you have done everything right. In addition to a nice, clean, simple site, the eBooks are done right: no DRM, good price, many formats, excerpts, plus a little free content to "get us hooked".

The only suggestions I have is:
1. You might want to support RTF as another format. This format retains the formatting, but is easy to convert to every reader that I can think of.
2. Popularize your site more. Maybe a podcast of one of your stories (ala Podiobooks).

[Bob Russell]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

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.... 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.

I do think it's an uphill climb for unknown authors. Don't know what it is that gets over that hump, but maybe it's a lot of little things that accumulate like a snowball effect. But it's definitely not the "bad author" issue -- I really enjoyed the books of yours that I read. I hope people will read the free one like I did, and then get hooked enough to try another.

It does seem like getting known is the biggest challenge, so I can understand how various authors are giving away some books. It will be interesting to see how many continue that approach after getting popular.

But, at any rate, I admire your stance against DRM. I hope that you do find success and can be another example of how even popular writers can continue to be successful even without DRM lockdown.

[doctorow]

As books go online, publishers run for cover.

"We are facing all the same risks as the music industry," said Olaf Ernst, worldwide director of e-books for Springer, a German scientific publisher. "But if our reaction is like theirs was, we will have problems."

At the Frankfurt Book Fair, which ended Sunday, Springer introduced its pathbreaking system for managing digital rights for the scientific and professional literature that it puts out. Put simply, Springer's clients - mostly university libraries - will be able to access for a single fee more than 10,000 titles with minimal restrictions on sharing.

But the Springer model, as Ernst freely admitted, offers little guidance for how to manage the intellectual property issues surrounding best- selling novels and self-help books, which his company does not publish.

And further down:

"Once we can be assured that there will be security for our authors, then we can move forward," said Arnoud de Kemp, spokesman for the digital publishing working group of the German Association of Publishers and Booksellers.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Guys,
No, I've never tried to get in touch with Neil, but I was peripherally aware of his online publishing. I'll have to check into that further.

I'm open to considering other formats, although I'd like to be able to limit myself to the most popular, and not too many besides. I've also considered making the books available in HTML, which allows purchasers to resave them into a number of preferred formats.

And yeah, lack of popularity or reknown is, I think, what's killing me. I'd hoped word-of-mouth would help solve that--the passive marketing method--but it didn't. Active marketing efforts are next, when I work out how to pay for them!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by doctorow

"We are facing all the same risks as the music industry," said Olaf Ernst, worldwide director of e-books for Springer, a German scientific publisher. "But if our reaction is like theirs was, we will have problems."

So, at least they recognize the problem. However...

Originally Posted by doctorow

"Once we can be assured that there will be security for our authors, then we can move forward," said Arnoud de Kemp, spokesman for the digital publishing working group of the German Association of Publishers and Booksellers.

That just sounds like they are thinking the same way the music industry is... they're not taking into account the new business model e-books represent, and the need to think "outside the box." They may not emulate the music industry, but if all they're concerned about is profit loss, they'll just make new mistakes.

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Guys,
No, I've never tried to get in touch with Neil, but I was peripherally aware of his online publishing. I'll have to check into that further.

If you get in touch with him, please mention MR. I am a huge fan of his and it'd be an honor to see him online here.

[pdam]

Hi Steve
A slightly less high profile writer who has had some success that may be of interest to you is David Moody http://www.djmoody.co.uk
He publishes his e-books without DRM on a shareware like gig - his first e-book title (i think), Autumn, was popular enough through word of mouth to create demand for a print run (an interesting case of non-DRM ebooks actually creating demand for treeware!)

[k2r]

Just a short thought I'm missing in this discussion:
I think that a level of personalization of the eBook is important. At least for me.
The books I bought from PragmaticProgrammers are personalized PDF. That simply means that the footer on every page says "Prepared exclusively for: My Name". It's like an exlibri. I can generate an up-to-date version of my book in a few minutes visiting their website and providing some data to identify me.

Of course I know that I could anonymize my book in a matter of minutes but since they didn't put any effort in keeping me from doing so it would feel like a very dishonorable move.

And I feel good reading on every page that I purchased these books and supported excellent authors.

Of course, there might be a lot of people who wouldn't feel bad about removing this line and sharing these books for free (as it wasn't intended), but the authors wouldn't get their money anyways.

The "prepared exclusively" line is a means of appreciation and I'd really like to have something similar if I donated for CC-licensed work.

k2r

[Bob Russell]

Personalization.. I agree that is exactly the sort of thing that is needed! Something that provides a little speed bump to make a little bit of trouble to make copies, but doesn't impose the severe restrictions.

If your name is on an e-book, you really aren't going to edit it out and pass it on. If you give it to a family member or close friend you will only do that if you really trust them not to pass it further. After all, your name is on it.

More importantly, people who are willing to buy their e-books (the vast majority), and who gravitate to the easiest solution (also a vast majority) will now gravitate to a purchase of the non-DRM'd legal version, as opposed to a pirated copy. If people have a reasonable alternative, they will gravitate to the legal version -- unless DRM or exorbitant pricing or a purchase process full of hassles pushes them away.

Once DRM is on a file, many people will look for a way, any way, to get around it, and they won't consider it wrong. But if they have a convenient and reasonable way to get legal content that doesn't have onerous DRM restrictions, they will buy the legal version.

Of course this doesn't address publisher's fears (they don't have the same faith in people, as should be expected as they bear the risk, not us), or their desire to strengthen copyright law, or even their desire to have more control over how content is used. The logical solutions to this issue have to win over a lot of legal, political and practical inhibitors.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by pdam

Hi Steve
A slightly less high profile writer who has had some success that may be of interest to you is David Moody http://www.djmoody.co.uk
He publishes his e-books without DRM on a shareware like gig - his first e-book title (i think), Autumn, was popular enough through word of mouth to create demand for a print run (an interesting case of non-DRM ebooks actually creating demand for treeware!)

How about that? His genre of choice may have helped, I'd guess, but that's pretty impressive in itself!

I was recently advised to consider having my books printed (overseas, to save money), but I haven't heard the same desire from potential readers for p-books yet. If I did it, it would probably be as free promotional material to send to friends, publishers and agents.