Amazon and DRM changes

[haertig]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

But the point of my message was why did you buy a Kindle to give Amazon a try'?

Because I was a bit disgusted with B&N at the time. I knew that abandoning the Nook and moving to a Paperwhite would not punish B&N, since I had already paid for the Nook. But it made me feel better to make a clean break from B&N, even though my breakaway from their company would have been totally unnoticed by them. A symbolic, but futile gesture on my part.

Plus, I liked the idea of the built-in light on the Paperwhite over the external clip-on light I had been using for my Nook. I believe my Nook model was the "Simple Touch"? Does that sound like a correct model designation? Whatever - it did not have a built in light, whatever model it was. Nothing wrong with that Nook other than the lack of a light. It was a fine device in its day. But marketed by a company I had come to distrust and dislike. And quite honestly, back then I was not very aware of alternate places to buy eBooks from. I knew of B&N and Amazon, but that's about it. And I was not knowledgeable about converting between their formats. B&N's treatment of their customers prompted me to learn about de-DRM'ing, and sometime after that, I learned about format conversion. We all have to start learning somewhere, and B&N's anti-consumer moves are what prompted me to begin my learning journey.

[stumped]

Not a nasty comment , more of a let peeve.

I wish the ku books devoted less pages to urging readers to do social media stuff, sign up, follow me on... Appeals,. And quit stuffing end of book with sample chapters of something else the same author has written.

The annoyance of seeing dedications to Tom, Eick, Harrry And anyone else the author is on first name terms with pales in comparison to the above, but is still annoying. Dedications should be hand written when you greet the author face to face after buying his book, not published to the world.

Publisher's should share some of the blame. I don't want to follow anybody on any social platform, thank you very much.
Signed. A Luddite.

It's probably the publishers who insist on appending "a riveting mystery with an amazing twist" and similar nonsense to the actual book title.

Ps as for poor writing, my comments are based on the many prime reading best sellers I have swiftly returned, having quit after 1st chapter. There may well be good writers, somewhere in the 20,000 or more books on offer, but I have no way of finding them, since Amazon's algorithmic recommendations are so awful.

[Wiggo]

Finding good selfpublished books is looking for a needle in a haystack.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by stumped

but the most recent change is to protect KU. the authors using that are too weak to strongarm anyone

if i buy some super popular best seller by a very rich author, i can get around DRM with the download and transfer trick

its the badly written books by Mr Nobodies in KU that are now locked away

FWIW, it's easy enough (for now!) to convert a KU book to a USB-downloadable book by purchasing it. KU-listed books are usually pretty cheap to buy-- no $17.99 here. We're talking $0.99-6.99 mostly. Worth it for series completion, as some 1st-in-series books are cheap and on KU for discovery. I use KU for discovery, and have found many awesome books as well as many I am glad I didn't pay individually for. It's just SUCH a grab-bag there.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by Wiggo

Finding good selfpublished books is looking for a needle in a haystack.

Eh, you just need to cheat and find midlist author backlist after rights reversion.

[Patitapetit]

Originally Posted by stumped

Not a nasty comment , more of a let peeve.

I wish the ku books devoted less pages to urging readers to do social media stuff, sign up, follow me on... Appeals,. And quit stuffing end of book with sample chapters of something else the same author has written.

The annoyance of seeing dedications to Tom, Eick, Harrry And anyone else the author is on first name terms with pales in comparison to the above, but is still annoying. Dedications should be hand written when you greet the author face to face after buying his book, not published to the world.

Publisher's should share some of the blame. I don't want to follow anybody on any social platform, thank you very much.
Signed. A Luddite.

It's probably the publishers who insist on appending "a riveting mystery with an amazing twist" and similar nonsense to the actual book title.

Ps as for poor writing, my comments are based on the many prime reading best sellers I have swiftly returned, having quit after 1st chapter. There may well be good writers, somewhere in the 20,000 or more books on offer, but I have no way of finding them, since Amazon's algorithmic recommendations are so awful.

J.K. ROWLING Harry Potter serie is in KU. If J.K. Rowling is a Mrs Nobody I dont know what is for u, Mr. or Mrs. Sucess Author

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by haertig

Because I was a bit disgusted with B&N at the time.

Yes, but you can buy books from anywhere and put them on any reader if you strip DRM, the inability to do so being what pushed you away from B&N. So no need for a new device just because you are buying books from a new store. That was my only point.

A symbolic, but futile gesture on my part.

Seeing what's happened to Nook it wasn't so futile

Plus, I liked the idea of the built-in light on the Paperwhite over the external clip-on light I had been using for my Nook. I believe my Nook model was the "Simple Touch"?

Ah, that makes sense. I bought my Nook when B&N did the revision Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight. That device having a lighted screen, page turn buttons, touchscreen and SD card slot has made that device age better than you'd figure.

I've moved on, but still have a fondness for it.

[hleo12]

Originally Posted by stumped

Not a nasty comment , more of a let peeve.

I wish the ku books devoted less pages to urging readers to do social media stuff, sign up, follow me on... Appeals,. And quit stuffing end of book with sample chapters of something else the same author has written.

The annoyance of seeing dedications to Tom, Eick, Harrry And anyone else the author is on first name terms with pales in comparison to the above, but is still annoying. Dedications should be hand written when you greet the author face to face after buying his book, not published to the world.

Publisher's should share some of the blame. I don't want to follow anybody on any social platform, thank you very much.
Signed. A Luddite.

It's probably the publishers who insist on appending "a riveting mystery with an amazing twist" and similar nonsense to the actual book title.

Ps as for poor writing, my comments are based on the many prime reading best sellers I have swiftly returned, having quit after 1st chapter. There may well be good writers, somewhere in the 20,000 or more books on offer, but I have no way of finding them, since Amazon's algorithmic recommendations are so awful.

Dedications have also existed in traditionally published books, even the long ones. So this isn't something new. Authors and publishers advertising readers to join their mailing lists also existed in physical books. Even excerpts/previews.

These days it just transitioned to social media because everything is digital. Self-publish authors don't have publishers to rely on for marketing.

Also, what's stopping someone from skipping all that fluff? It's not like it's a physical book.

There are also better ways of getting recommendations. I usually just search up the book I like on goodreads and look at the side for similar books. Or at the bottom where people categorized them into lists.

[Sirtel]

I just delete all the social media stuff, also ads, excerpts, review begging and the crap added to the title, before I load the book to my ereader. So I never see those things when reading. For me that stuff is garbage and I don't want to see it. I'm capable of finding the author's other books myself if I want to.

Usually I leave acknowledgements alone, unless they're a page or more long, then they'll go also.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Joykins

Eh, you just need to cheat and find midlist author backlist after rights reversion.

For me, that's been the best part of the transition to ebooks.

[Wiggo]

Originally Posted by Joykins

Eh, you just need to cheat and find midlist author backlist after rights reversion.

Thx for the hint, but my TBR of normal books is enough for 3 additional lives - I have been disappointed too often by self-publishing authors.
In fairness, I have to admit that with SF it was actually okay, only with F the rate was abysmal.

[ownedbycats]

Around a decade ago, I was emailing the author of a late 80s/early 90s kids' series and, since the series had been prematurely ended by the now-defunct publisher, half-jokingly suggested that if she had the rights to write the concluding book.

She did that, but actually took it a step further and actually rewrote the existing books to make them better!

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Wiggo

Thx for the hint, but my TBR of normal books is enough for 3 additional lives - I have been disappointed too often by self-publishing authors.
In fairness, I have to admit that with SF it was actually okay, only with F the rate was abysmal.

A silly amount of "romance disguised as some other genre" is something I've noticed. It's particularly silly with science fiction where the "alien" is literally just a sexy human dude (sometimes with weird-coloured skin). Sometimes they're space elves.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

A silly amount of "romance disguised as some other genre" is something I've noticed.

That, and there are no small amount of people writing fantasy who lack any sort of writing skill whatsoever. Perhaps they think fantasy is the easiest genre to write - just throw indiscriminately in whatever comes to mind, and it doesn't have to make any sense, because, you know, it's fantasy! Then again, I've also read some very good self-published fantasy authors. "Very good" being subjective, of course.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Around a decade ago, I was emailing the author of a late 80s/early 90s kids' series and, since the series had been prematurely ended by the now-defunct publisher, half-jokingly suggested that if she had the rights to write the concluding book.

She did that, but actually took it a step further and actually rewrote the existing books to make them better!

In the early 2,000's Ricardo Pinto had a unique fantasy trilogy called The Stone Dance of the Chameleon.

20 years later, he got the rights back and rewrote it as a series of seven (slimmer) volumes, self published.

David Wingrove did something similar with his Chung Kuo series.