Ebook Publishers Never Learned: DRM & Ridiculous Prices
from the history-repeats-itself dept
One of the reasons we talk so much about the recording industry is that, in some ways, it's an "early warning system," for a ton of other industries. I had hoped that, in calling attention to things done poorly and the things done well in the music industry, some of those other industries starting to face the same issues would be able to avoid the same mistakes. However, as we've watched the movie industry, the newspaper industry and the publishing industry start down those same rapids, a part of me is wondering if they're simply destined to make the same mistakes anyway (and just wait until other industries, such as healthcare, energy and finance go through this process as well...).In fact, watching the ebook market in action is like watching a slow motion train wreck that parallels the music industry. Here are two examples. First, some publishers have apparently decided to price ebooks higher than hardcover books. Customer are protesting (and giving the books one-star reviews on Amazon), but the publishers don't seem concerned. Meanwhile, publishers are still insisting on ineffective and annoying DRM which only serves to harm legitimate buyers, without doing anything to prevent unauthorized copies from proliferating. We've seen this story before... How is it that folks at these publishers haven't been paying attention? Or do they really think "but, with us, it's different"?
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Recently I bought an ebook, 'Diamond Age' from sony's ebook store. Wouldn't run on my sony reader. Sony's store knew which reader I had. It sold it to me anyway. Then I set out to learn how to crack sony's DRM-laden files so I could reformat the text to work on the reader. That ended up being a pain, and I ended up losing the first letter of every chapter for some reason, but it worked.
Anyway, long story short: burn me once, shame on you. It won't happen again, and you now have a 100% pirate on your hands, until a few years pass and I feel like wading into your cesspool of a business model to try again and see if you've learned your lesson. Ive certainly learned my lesson.
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Beyond the first issue - why there would be any eBook format that the readers do not support, there are a few standards and every book they sell should be available in the big ones - they should have no trouble making sure what they sell a consumer will work on the device the consumer has registered with them.
This is a case of: garbage hardware + horrible software = former customer
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Lots of legally free ebooks out there
I would much rather discover that I don't like a $2.95 book rather than a $29.95 one.
If you shop at the right places you can get nicely edited and packaged books for $3 or $4. Free books often need the touch of an editor, but sometimes it is kind of fun reading a book that is in raw form.
Let the major publishers set whatever price they want. I will vote with my dollars. If enough people do that, prices will drop.
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Re: Lots of legally free ebooks out there
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Re: Re: Lots of legally free ebooks out there
Games: The only games I bought in recent years are from GOG.com. They are old (but fun) games that re DRM free and under $10 each. They shut down for a while, but seem to be back.
Movies: I go to a small number of movies in theaters. I generally skip the $30 recent releases. I'll wait the 28 days and get them on Netflix or Redbox. Otherwise it is whatever strikes my fancy in the $5 - $10 movie bins.
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Re: Re: Lots of legally free ebooks out there
http://librivox.org/
All DRM free made by people like you and me for yours entertainment.
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Why publishers don't care (A Guess)
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Then the war broke out, and an ebook I'd pre-ordered for $8 was yanked from my supplier and never returned there. It showed up on Amazon and B&N, though, at $12. To be fair, I got my pre-order money back, but the short-sighted greed evidenced by the publisher's behavior rather soured me on the Big Names.
So what were my coping mechanisms?
1. I buy occasional stuff from the Big Names if it's something I really want to read badly enough to put up with giving them money for it.
2. My major purchased book suppliers these days are Baen and Harlequin. I'm a long-time Baen fan, and they've got reasonable prices, good stuff, and DRM-free. Harlequin's got reasonable prices, good stuff, and DRM that doesn't lock me into having to read the books on any given ebook platform. If it sounds like an odd combination of tastes, convenience plays a part. Also, they don't attempt to make me their financial bitch in the prison sense.
3. With the exceptions named in item 2, I never pre-order books anymore. Period. Paper or electronic. EVER.
4. And finally, although the quality varies all over the place, I finally convinced myself to start browsing friendly little shops in New Providence, Tortuga, and Port Royal.
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Re: Why publishers don't care (A Guess)
The publisher is NOT pricing the ebook higher than the print version.
The primary example from the article is Ken Follet's 985-page opus, Fall of Giants. It sells from Amazon at $19.99 as an ebook, And it's $19.39 as a print book. Thus the ebook is slightly more expensive.
But wait. The $19.39 price for the print edition is Amazon's DISCOUNTED sale price. The PUBLISHER'S list price is $36. So in reality, the ebook is 45% off the publisher's retail price.
The PUBLISHER did, in fact, price the ebook at nearly half the price of the print edition. Good for them.
AMAZON, however, made a choice. and CHOOSE to discount the physical book's price below that of the publisher's ebook price.
The question is why? Loss-leader? Make it up the difference in shipping charges? Or perhaps it's publicity, as everyone and their kid brother (including Mike) is blogging and writing about the discrepancy. "Greedy publishers are pricing ebooks higher than the print version!"
Let's lynch the bastards! Yar!
Or does AMAZON, currently the largest seller of ebooks and electronic reading devices, and owner of the largest ebook reader platform, have something to gain from forcing down price points???
Think about it.
(And Mike, please try not to miss the real story next time, okay?)
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I love reading, but ebooks so far...
My only "testing of the waters" for ebooks has come from loading up a free ebook reader on my iPhone and downloading a bunch of free older books (public domain?) from Project Guttenberg. That works pretty well when I'm on a trip and don't have another book to read I can use it as a stop gap. I have a friend who swears by her Kindle, and the screen is really easy on the eyes, but their pricing and DRM leave me wholly disinterested in the format for the time being.
While reading is often considered a solo activity, those of us passionate about books tend to give our books away in the hopes of getting someone else into a series or exposed to new ideas, or just to see something from a whole new angle. One of my fondest memories was when I was a kid and on a family vacation we went to visit my moms sister who had recently gotten married. When I met my new uncle he was showing me some game on his new Apple ][ computer and he asked me if I like reading then he showed me his library and said I could take any two books from it I wanted. I looked through the books and ended up taking Robert A Heinlin's The Cat who Walks through Walls (I liked the cover) and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game I'm pretty sure I turned into a lifelong Sci-Fi fan that summer and have since spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars over the years buying all kinds of books, but that all happened because someone who loved reading on a whim gave some snot nosed kid a couple books from his library. That's not something that could happen with our current ebooks, and that is a damn shame.
Crap, sorry this post was long and I started to sound like a curmudgeon at the end of it. Now get the hell off my lawn, ya damn kids listening to your records all day and wearing those fancy dungarees... eh? I'm.. going .. back ... to sleep... now...
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Re: I love reading, but ebooks so far...
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offtopic
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Ostriches in the Sand
Like all dinosaur companies, publishers are comfortable in their condescension. As long as they can control everyone's behavior, all is well. Until they let go of the delusion that they're the best game in town, nothing will change on their end. At this point, the outsiders and indies have the best chance of restoring sanity to this industry.
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EBooks Generally Cost More
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No thanks
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Just Say No To DRM
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Amusement.
I am surprised at you Mike.
And No, I will not register with them just to read the stories that I can find elsewhere.
Here's a link to elsewhere, (ya, I know huffpo, whatever.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/05/ebooks-kindle-version-of-_n_751800.html
and of course, amazon...
http://www.amazon.com/Fall-of-Giants-ebook/dp/B003ZK58WM
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Why...?
Lots of VP's will have to retire or be fired or go down with sinking companies before their replacements take over and craft a reasonable approach. Meanwhile, it's anybody's guess what the right price should be for an e-book -- the Publishers Don't Know, and argue among themselves. I'm not making this up.
Anyone who is interested in what's actually going on should subscribe to two free daily newsletters: the one put out by PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, and Michael Cader's PUBLISHERS LUNCH.
And... follow Teleread.org for a daily insight from the trenches.
There are many more sources, but these three will cover the story pretty completely.
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Luxury goods
The text of a book is what I want, not the physical object; as far as I'm concerned, the whole wood-pulp-and-cotton-and-mineral-ink construction can go into the bin once I'm finished with it.
Ebooks give me the text of a book without the associated, unnecessary physicality of the physical medium. This is a cost saving, not a luxury. It's the elimination of a luxury. It is, as I've said, a luxury I don't want, but it is nonetheless a luxury. Like diamonds, I guess. I don't want diamonds either; I don't buy diamonds; I don't have to pay for diamonds. Bit of QED there, or something latin.
So, having determined that with an ebook I'm getting less, to have to pay more is somewhat confusing. To have to pay more for a digitally limited, locked, less-accessible version is utterly bewildering.
Pay more, get less, be more inconvenienced in practice and in pocket than the pirates.
Piracy beckons, I think...
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Books can be free--and should be
In Baltimore we have this awesome solution--the Book Thing. It's an enormous warehouse of books. They're all free. OK, not categorized, no Dewey system, no catalog. A lot of treasures. Each book is stamped on the inside "THIS IS A FREE BOOK--not for resale!"
Since the economy tanked and I lost my job, The Book Thing has saved my ass from literary boredom every single day. And when I'm done with that piece o' crap mystery, I bring it back to The Book Thing. No borrowing fees, no membership, nothing--just goodwill and the realization that books are heavy and you just don't want most of 'em after a while.
I don't understand why ANY seller of content--words, music, moving pictures, pictures, illustrations--believes that there's some "originality" to the copy we hold in our hands that makes it inherently valuable. If it's a rare edition of anything, or beautifully done, that's one thing. But a paperback that falls apart in your hands on first read? Come on. Furthermore, I used to have a Kindle. Wait, I have 3 kindles! Each one broke when I looked at it crosswise. Props to Amazon for replacing them no questions asked--but all those books I bought? Don't have 'em any more.
Every city should have a Book Thing. It's like your elementary school book swap with legs. And as much as I want e-books to grow into a mature and responsible market, 'cause I'm a reader with a capital R, I have no faith in that given the RIAA and the Hollywood fucknuttery (see: Blockbuster, DRM). Sorry, but I hope books continue to be huge doorstops so I can get the free or super cheap.
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Re: Books can be free--and should be
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Bought Kindle, not Buying ebooks on Amazon
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Price Differences
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You will never own it! Most DRM turns software into a RENTAL! Why would anyone want to pay full price, or more, for something that is nothing more than a RENTAL!
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ya too bad
as it costs zero to copy.....and then pennies to distribute online....
i'm done trying to get solutions cause they aren't listening.
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Wrong end of the telescope folks.
Price it out of existence, and make it hard, or impossible to use. It doesn't mater that they are making money off the e-books while they are killing them, they are still doing everything they can to protect their outdated business models.
However, they will fail. Print, despite the horror stories, will not die. A book does not require power, upgrades, or virus protection, in order to be used. Technology fails, we all know that. But some methods of entertainment are virtually timeless. Print, happens to be one of those forms. The e-market for authors and publishers is not killing print, it is augmenting it. Television and motion pictures did not kill theater, they helped bring theater to the masses. Radio and recorded music did not kill live performances. They gave performances to people in a more convenient venue. As the fine folks here at TD have stated so many times, those who adapt, succeed. Those who don't adapt, go extinct.
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Not decided by book publishers
So it may be the same people who are making the foolish decisions in the music and movie business who still haven't learned, not new people who might have learned from previous examples.
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Re: Not decided by book publishers
Thanks for the link. There's lots of good information about publishing on Mr. Stross's blog.
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Ebooks and readers
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