The quest for no-DRM commercial books

[ynorsa]

I'm an iPad owner living in Luxembourg. Unfortunately, Apple has not yet opened its iBookstore here, meaning there are only the Project Gutenberg books available for download here.
Of course, there are tons of other ebooks apps availabe, but I'd like to use iBooks, which can only read non-DRM-protected ePub files.

I thought I would easily be able to find some of those on various websites, but alas, I can't seem to be able to find *one* recent, commercial, book, from a "famous" author, in this format, available for this country.

I stumbled on tons of free books, tons of commercial books which I have never heard of, and tons of links to pirated commercial books, but I would just like to be able to go on some legal website, enter the name of a book I'm looking for, and to be able to buy and download it.

Please tell me I have not searched hard enough and that the ebook-selling website of my dreams exist.

[LadyHeather]

I only know of a Dutch (web)shop were they sell USB sticks with books with no DRM, but you have to buy one of the USB sticks with a theme (and can't search for books like you asked for).... that's t only one I know of..

oh and I bought 1 or 2 books from bol.com with no DRM, but that where not famous books..

[neilmarr]

Good to have your new company, Ynorsa. Pop into the bookstore section of our site (linked below). There's no DRM there. If a couple of titles catch your eye, just email me with your preferred format and I'll be happy to send them by return with our compliments. Very best wishes and happy iPadding in 2011. Neil -- ntmarrATbewrite.net (but use the @ sign)

[Fastolfe]

Buy the unreadable DRM ebook file or order the paper book if you want to ensure the author and the chain of greedy sharks who publish and distribute them get paid, or (better imho, but some authors don't like it) send the full amount directly to the author. Then download the DRM-free book from the darknet or scan the paper book and use that copy.

[abookreader]

You really have 2 issues going on here

1. Geographical Restrictions
2. DRM

Given your country, your life is going to be hard enough finding current commercial literature in eBook format due to the Geographical Restrictions.
Complicating that by insisting that you want to read via the iBooks App is just piling on another layer.

I'd really suggest you consider something like the BlueFire App which can display Adobe ADE ePub files on the iPAD or barring that, learn to remove the DRM and then put the books into iBooks.

[Worldwalker]

If you happen to like science fiction and fantasy, Baen Books sells without DRM (much to the detriment of my wallet). O'Reilly does the same for technical books, although while they're recent books by famous (in their fields) authors, somehow I don't think they're what you're looking for. Also, check your favorite authors' websites; they may have their backlist, additional stories, or even whole recent books, available.

I won't buy books with DRM for philosophical reasons (the vote of my wallet may be tiny, but it's all the vote I have) and this has led me to discover all sorts of interesting authors I might never have read otherwise. And, of course, there are always the classics -- Project Gutenberg, here on MobileRead, Feedbooks, Manybooks, and Munsey's being popular sources.

[asjogren]

Another alternative: talk about how much you like the specific vendors that sell the way you like.

For example, The Pragmatic Bookstore publishes books and eBooks (Computer Programming). The eBooks are available from their website. With NO DRM. They put on every page WHO owns the eBook. And you can have all the formats.

Now I am not going to buy *lots* of these eBooks. But, I really like the approach. And I will go to The Pragmatic Programmer website FIRST.

I think that the more we discuss the best vendors and how they operate, the more probable that change will move in that direction.

[ynorsa]

OK. Thanks for you replies.
So basically, there isn't any such website.
*sigh*. I caved in and bought a Kindle ebook yesterday..

[queentess]

I have iBooks and the Kindle app loaded on my iDevice. So far, I'm finding the iBooks apps to be sort of worthless. It's pretty, but Kindle app does everything I need, and the Amazon bookstore is (for my location) much more robust and cheaper.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Fastolfe

Buy the unreadable DRM ebook file or order the paper book if you want to ensure the author and the chain of greedy sharks who publish and distribute them get paid, or (better imho, but some authors don't like it) send the full amount directly to the author. Then download the DRM-free book from the darknet or scan the paper book and use that copy.

Blah, blah, blah, greedy sharks, blah, blah, blah.

If you want to leave out the publishers entirely, buy self-published books. It's easy. But pretending that publishers don't add any value to the books they select and edit is being willfully ignorant.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ynorsa

I'm an iPad owner living in Luxembourg. Unfortunately, Apple has not yet opened its iBookstore here, meaning there are only the Project Gutenberg books available for download here.
Of course, there are tons of other ebooks apps availabe, but I'd like to use iBooks, which can only read non-DRM-protected ePub files.

I thought I would easily be able to find some of those on various websites, but alas, I can't seem to be able to find *one* recent, commercial, book, from a "famous" author, in this format, available for this country.

I stumbled on tons of free books, tons of commercial books which I have never heard of, and tons of links to pirated commercial books, but I would just like to be able to go on some legal website, enter the name of a book I'm looking for, and to be able to buy and download it.

Please tell me I have not searched hard enough and that the ebook-selling website of my dreams exist.

There is a solution to your problem. It's a very simple solution. And it involves giving no money at all to Apple for any eBooks. Download the free Bluefire Reader app. It allows you to have eBooks in ePub using the standard adept DRM. Bluefire uses ADE so it works where ePub would with ADe on your computer.

[Fastolfe]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Blah, blah, blah, greedy sharks, blah, blah, blah.

If you want to leave out the publishers entirely, buy self-published books. It's easy. But pretending that publishers don't add any value to the books they select and edit is being willfully ignorant.

Publishers add value. Most self-published books are rough (to put it nicely) enough to convince anyone that the selection process, then proofreading and edition process publishers make would-be authors go through is beneficial to their readers.

However, when publishers sell electronic books for the same price as paper books, that's greedy. When publishers use copy-protection schemes that make it awkward for people to sell their electronic books, that's greedy.

If you think you're not getting shafted by publishers with electronic books, you're delusional.