Ouch. I can see that being a nightmare on dialup. Your note prompted me to look at my own purchases, which total just over 1000 for eReader & Fictionwise combined, and even on a cable connection I wouldn’t enjoy the job of pulling all of them down again — I’d do it but I wouldn’t enjoy it, and I suspect there are more than a few titles I’d just leave in the bookshelf unless I was itching to re-read them.

Couldn’t bring myself to total up the $$$, though.

Baen runs a nifty site indeed, and if I were still reading as much sf as I used to, I’d spend a lot more there than I do.

Bests,

–tr

Number of titles purchased at Fictionwise? 191. That includes free titles, and I can’t get a total of what I’ve spent. Can’t recall the last purchase made, probably a couple of years.

Number of titles purchased at eReader (and earlier versions)? $630.65, 110 titles. Nothing purchased since 2004.

Purchases at Baen since I started buying there? $1,572, including a good chunk of the “Free Library” which I bought later (even though they are free) or books that are on the CD’s that Baen has distributed. Say 315 titles, as prices were ~$4.00 on average when I started buying and are now ~$6.00 average. Most recent purchase? Last month, four times, average of $15.00 per purchase.

I know I’m just one eBook consumer…but…

I’ve not had to do this, but if I’m reading eReader’s site correctly, you can reset your unlock code to your current credit card if that changes. If I understand it correctly, change the number, download your books again, and you’ve got ‘em. I’d assume doing the same is possible with DRM eReader files from Fictionwise, but I haven’t checked. Hope that helps.

Bests,

–tr

At this point, I’m equating eBooks with paperbacks. I’ll buy hardcovers for collecting and saving, but I’ll buy eBooks over paperbacks (less storage space!).

(I’ve bought from eReader in its various incarnations. I’ve bought from Fictionwise. But to be honest, since Mr. P. is reading the comments…I haven’t bought from either in a couple of years. Why? I’m tired of keeping track of old credit card numbers and other bits for DRM-locked eBooks. I’m tired of being locked into one or two formats for eBooks I’ve bought. I’d rather put my money with folks like Baen–no DRM, anywhere and multiple formats. Sorry, Scott!)

It isn’t clear to me how “open” the eReader format (without DRM) is. For example, would it be ok for Baen (say) to provide an eReader version of its multi-format e-books and for FBReader (say) to add e-Reader support.

And nice to see the nod to eReader’s DRM implementation, which is far more friendly to the customer than any of the others, offering the buyer far more freedom in the use of his ebooks (though, as you say, the best DRM is none).

But as to the idea that publishers will look at the sales of non-DRM titles compared to their DRM offerings and actually get the message, I’m a little skeptical at the moment. Will they look at the figures and say, “Jeez, people hate DRM so much that they’d rather not purchase our books at all” or will they say “Well, you’ve got a bunch of people here who don’t care much what books they’re buying as long as they’re cheap and as long as they can ’share’ the files with everybody on the planet”? Given that too many publishers are still married to the idea of DRM, I’d guess they’re thinking the latter.

The number to look at isn’t whether Darrel Bain’s newest $5 ebook is selling more than the newest $20 offering from a more widely known writer. It may not yet be time to consider the really relevant number.

Spread the word some about eReader’s DRM and how customer-friendly it is. Let the Pendergrasts have eReader software implemented across more platforms (Blackberry and Linux come immediately to mind). Wait a while…

And then ask Steve and Scott Pendergrast about the sales figures of the more widely known writers, compared not to the stars of the e-rather-than-print group but across file formats. Does Stephen King sell better in eReader than in Microsoft Reader or MobiPocket? Does Michael Connelly? The Pendergrasts may be in a position to supply those numbers right now based on their experience at Fictionwise with books offered in more than one secured format, but there’s such a perception that a DRMd purchase is inaccessible once you change desktop computers or handhelds that the sales of the large commercial publishers’ ebooks perhaps aren’t high enough yet to show what the large houses would regard as significant data. But at some point, publishers will finally see a number from a trusted retailer that tells them whether their stars and their midlist writers sell more copies in less restrictive formats. Seems to me that’s the number that will finally start driving the stake through DRM.

Bests to all,

–tr

From the point of view of publishers who allow us to sell their works as “multiformat”, there does not appear to be any contractual problem. The contracts for those publishers say that Fictionwise can convert the books to any ebook format (read: ereader format) and those contracts also say we can sell the ebooks on any web storefront that Fictionwise owns and operates. Well, now we own and operate eReader.com and ebooks.palm.com, hence no contractual problem. In addition, I can’t for the life of me think of a reason why any independent publisher would not want additional sales exposure on one of the largest ebook retail sites in the world.

As far as opening up books previously sold on Fictionwise as encrypted, we cannot do that without the publisher’s permission. Contracts for publishers who require DRM typically say that they must approve of any new format. Our hands are tied on those.

As a side note, we are still doing the planning and software work for these conversions, there is a lot to do, and we have made no public announcements yet regarding timeframes. Stay tuned.

-Steve P.

Of course, I wonder if Fictionwise will multi-format and un-DRM that single-format, DRM-crippled books I have bought on their site first…

In my experience, Fictionwise is much more willing to reach to small publishers than eReader was in the old days and I continue to be excited about this purchase.

Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com