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What Book Publishers Should Learn From Harry Potter
New submitter Volanin writes "The e-book versions of the Harry Potter series are being released through Pottermore, and J.K. Rowling has chosen to do a number of interesting things with them, including releasing them without DRM restrictions. 'One of the encouraging things about the Pottermore launch is that the books will be available on virtually every platform simultaneously, including the Sony Reader, the Nook, the Kindle and Google's e-book service. ... even Amazon has bowed to the power of the series and done what would previously have seemed unthinkable: it sends users who come to the titles on Amazon to Pottermore to finish the transaction.'"
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2012/03/27/harry-potter-ebooks-are-not-drm-free-in-kindle-format/
it will take authors of her stature to claw back some author's rights back from apple and the publishers
I'm just sayin'
Then just pirate it. Don't be such a whiner.
Each book is a Horcrux. Who needs DRM restrictions? :-)
What Book Publishers Should Learn From Harry Potter
They should learn form this that we wanted these 5+ years ago, preferably released simultaneously with the print version, and ideally the print versions should have included one free e-Version each.
What will they learn from this? They'll learn that they can fake it and promote themselves as "DRM-Free" by releasing material that everyone already owns in another form (and therefore piracy doesn't much matter), which continuing to burden new releases and reference material under as onerous of a lock as they can clamp on.
Never releasing digital, to a digital release.
And by funny, I mean money.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Alohomora DRM!
It doesn't cost them $8.79 to print a book, either. What's your point?
No, it costs them $0.80 to print and send you a papterback version. The cost of the content is what you are paying $7.99 for.
Why link from Slashdot's summary to some other linkfarm's summary? Grrr. DIRECT link -
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-you-can-buy-the-harry-potter-e-books-now/
By Laura Hazard Owen
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
How do I spread my financial details at a brick and mortar? If I buy a $20 book at a brick and mortar, I do hand over a financial document with a name and picture on it, but the name and picture are of former US president Andrew Jackson. I don't mention that's not really my name, and nobody has ever made an issue of it.
A majority of people don't pay cash. Even 20 years ago when I was working retail while going to school, people hand over their credit card to a minor who more or less can't be seriously prosecuted, and almost all of the time, nothing bad happens. Having worked both sides, I used to laugh at people who were "scared of the internet" in the 90s, as if a "rich computer guy" like myself is more likely to skim their records than a 16 year old waitress.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I just read this post today, and it shows how the Warner Bros. bullied the translators of the Potter books. No wonder Amazon gave in, they were probably bullied as well.
They call it watermarking, but it's tracking by any other name. "The Pottermore Shop personalises eBooks with a combination of watermarking techniques that relate to the book, to the purchaser and the purchase time. This allows us to track and respond to possible copyright misuse."
So don't copy the floppy..... er, book to your friends.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
This is what ebooks are made for. Eliminating the middle-man, and letting the creators own the distribution of their own works. I hope this trend continues. I'm only too happy to buy these books knowing that the creator is getting the lion's share of the profits and not some publishing house.
I've already downloaded and read all the Harry Potter books. By waiting this long to release them in ebook format, they only encourage pirating of the ebooks.
Be seeing you...
How much money is it really worth to earn before you don't feel you have to have more?/em.
What a horrible, selfish, evil attitude you have.
It should not matter if someone made zero or ten billion dollars on something. If they make something you enjoy, they should get money for it - it really is that simple. If they manage to make something wildly popular why is it a problem that a huge number of people will be rewarding them?
It's only a problem if you are a dick who wants everything for free and artists to live in poverty.
I myself am happy to buy the Harry Potter books, just as I am happy to buy what I can from small bands who make music I really enjoy. How much they have made in the end does not matter, to me it's only about my appreciation for well crafted art in any form.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
An Ebook version of Potter has ZERO shipping cost and ZERO printing cost. There's no logical reason why the last 3 ebooks should cost 2 dollars more than the print books. In fact they should be about 2 dollars cheaper.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
But the above statement is ridiculous. If I buy the hardcover, I still have to buy the paperback, which is NOT the same book. eBooks are no different. I still cheerfully pay for the paper copies from Baen *and* make a separate purchase for the electronic editions.
That strikes me as a dangerous distinction to make - Would you say (and I don't mean this as a leading question) that you have the "right" to rip a DVD or CD for playback on your computer? And if at some point in the future, the studios start offering large-scale online movie purchases, would your answer change?
From my perspective, I pay for the content, not the form factor. Yes, I may prefer different form factors for different uses (I'd rather have tech references easily searchable, and I'd rather have light-n'-fluffy fiction useable with no batteries required); but I don't buy a book because it comes in form-X; I buy it because of its information or entertainment content.
Now, if you offered me the "plus eBook download code" version for only a buck or two more than the dead-tree-only version, I'd consider that reasonable. But to make me pay for both separately? Not interested.
Another way to look at this - Pro-IP apologists love pointing out that the sales price of a given media-product doesn't usually have much relation to the cost of production; I would consider this almost the "You sure you want to die for that hill?" reverse case of that - Yes, it costs the publisher a bit to prep an eBook version on top of the physical one, but... So what? I don't want either/or, I want both. I'll pay a bit more for the convenience, but once I own a physical version of it, I have absolutely no qualms about how I obtain the digital one. They can take my money, or consider me an off-the-top 50% piracy rate.
Derivative from what?
I don't really consider that a flaw. Most things are derivative from something earlier. It was an enjoyable read just like watching Stargate SG1 was enjoyable even though it was nothing new.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Baen has been doing this, for quite a while now.
David Weber's latest in hardcover is $15.39 from Amazon.or BN.
It's available DRM free on Baen's website for $6.00.
And the early books in his series - as in most of the series that Baen publishes, are available free at the Baen Free Library.
When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.
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"Why can't I add this to my basket?
Due to publishing restrictions, this edition of the book is not available in your country. Please choose another book language."
So, Pottermore may have bought a clue about how useless drm is, but they still don't understand that it's a global economy now and consumers won't put up with that "not available in your country/region" crap any more.
The vast majority of the RRP on a book is author's fee
I believe you meant to say 'retailer's profit' and 'publisher's profit'.
Authors typically get around 10% of the price of a book, if they're lucky; and 15% of that will go to their agent. A full-price book sale probably gets the retailer 30-50% (which is why they can sell at 40% off and still make money).
Given that layout is more difficult in an eBook
Uh, what? Most e-book formats are just a zipped HTML file which support a limited subset of HTML. And there are no returns to worry about either.