Book Publishers Making the Same Mistakes as Record Labels?

Techdirt points out an interesting query in Slate asking why book publishers appear to be making the same mistake that record labels did with the iTunes service with DRM, and single-vendor lock-in. "Back in 2005, we noted that Apple's dominance over the online music space, which upset the record labels tremendously, was actually the record labels' own fault for demanding DRM. That single demand created massive lock-in and network effects that allowed Apple to completely dominate the market. If the record labels had, instead, pushed for an open solution, then anyone else could have built stores/players to work as well, and it could have minimized Apple's ability to control the market. Yes, everyone is now opening up (including Apple), but it took a long time, and Apple had already established its dominant position. So why are book publishers doing the same thing?"

Comments

Not all of them. Baen does not.

[gweihir]

Have a look at Baen books: They publish everything also as downloadable without any DRM (HTML/RTF/PDF) and you can buy months (4-6 books) or individual books. Individual books cost about the paperback price, a month costs about twice that. You typically also get the first 1/3 of a book as fee sample. They also have a "free library" where you get older books in the same formats entirely for free.

Eric Flint coordinates the free library. He has a series of postings on the effect and it seems to be very postive, with older books suddenly producing significat income for the authors, which they did not before.

Of course this only works for good quality books, but for them it works. I found myself buying more and trying authors I would otherwise have overlooked.

References:
http://www.baen.com/
http://www.baen.com/library/

Re:Not all of them. Baen does not.

[R2.0]

"Yeah but they mostly publish the glorified-war-sci-fi kind. But sure I really recommend buying books from them they have some really good book and they are cheap."

That's not particularly true. They publish a lot of fantasy, and have had a huge success in the alternate history genre. That being said, Jim Baen (rest his soul) was quite conservative and tended to buy from authors who he liked, so they tend to be conservative as well. With notable exception - Eric Flint was a labor organizer, and Bujold could hardly be described as "right of center".

As for the "glorified-war-sci-fi" comment, have you ever actually read any David Drake, particularly works from the Hammer's Slammers series? His stories are mostly through the eyes of soldiers who have no illusions as to "the glory of war". Or if they do, it doesn't last very long. But yes, some of the other series lay it on a bit thick.

Audible

[thermian]

Audible have already cornered the market in DRM encumbered audiobooks. I've been a regular customer of theirs for years, buying dozens of titles. Yet I have not a single drm file in my collection, thanks to those nice people who packaged up the 'how to strip Audible DRM' set and stuck it on piratebay that is.

I'd prefer if they had no DRM to start with, but for the moment they have lots of titles I want, so I just pipe the downloaded files through the stripping process and discard their drm. It takes all of 20 minutes usually.

If however they changed their DRM to make it harder to crack, I would cancel my account that day and never go back.

Re:Audible

[TobyWong]

Says you. He is using the proper legal definition. You are some random clown on the internet who disagrees with him.

Not technical books...

[TheRaven64]

When my last book was made available in electronic form, I asked my editor about DRM. Her reaction, before I'd expressed an opinion on the subject, was 'don't worry - I'm used to authors hating DRM. We won't put any on if you don't want it.' The contract for my most recent book had a explicit clause added preventing the publisher from distributing it in any DRM-encumbered format.

Tech book publishers know that what they provide of value is access to a large reservoir of knowledge. That is why they are creating things like Safari Books Online, which allows you to browse books online and buy DRM-free PDF copies (or get some included with your subscription) if you need to read more than a few pages.

Re:Not ignorance, fear

[tenco]

history != future. They are afraid of the future.

Re:Same S***, Different Pile

[Spacejock]

My article on self-publishing is here, and you'll also find articles on POD, finding a publisher, seeking an agent, etc.

(I self-published back in 2001, and after putting out three titles in the same series I was picked up by a traditional publisher. Therefore my articles cover both sides of the coin.)