ePub: David Baldacci, Elizabeth Hoyt, other best-selling writers now in IDPF’s format, via Books on Board
ePub-format books from David Baldacci, Elizabeth Hoyt, James Patterson and other best-selling writers are among the titles now on sale at Books on Board.
The catch, of course, is that the books come with Adobe DRM.
So this is a long way from a nonproprietary nirvana. Social DRM, anyone—in place of infestation with traditional DRM?
Progress anyway
Still, Books on Board’s ePub tiles are a step forward, probably even the first time that mass-market books are on sale to consumers in ePub.
Hachette Group USA, home to the above writers through the Grand Central Publishing imprint, is already using ePub as a standard distribution format.
That saves a bundle of money from the resultant efficiency. Now for retailers to wise up and help consumers, especially if the e-book biz can get over the DRM fixation. In the United Kingdom some book people are seriously thinking about releasing ePub books without DRM. Time for U.S. publishers to catch up? Worry about your bottom line, not that of Amazon, which sells MP3s without DRM but so far isn’t getting into DRMless e-books. Because of its interest in Mobi’s “protection”? Not just intellectual property issues? Of course, we know that DRM penalizes buyers of legit books, while pirates merrily scan paper books for distribution on P2P.
Hint, hint—to Sony, Amazon and the others
Meanwhile I congratulate Books on Board on probably being the first retailer to offer mass market titles in ePub, even with DRM to spoil the fun a bit. Hint, hint, Sony? Amazon? Borders? Barnes and Noble? Care to do ePub in your online stores? In particular, Sony would be do well to follow Books on Board’s example. Remember, its PRS-505 will soon be able to work with Adobe Digital Editions, which meanwhile is already available for other machines [update: via versions for their respective OSes].
Major detail: The Books on Board release talks about “select titles” and does not mention the number of books it’s carryinging ePub right now. Any stats, guys? I see that not all of the above writers’ books are in ePub. But I’m sure that will happen in time.
Related: ePub books finally reach mass-market status, from ePub Books.
Technorati Tags: Books on Board,IDPFF,David Baldacci,Elizabeth Hoyt,James Patterson,Sony,PRS-505
June 28th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Sometimes even *light* Social DRM is too much for some people:
http://www.wetasphalt.com/?q=node/351
June 28th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
My question here is, does DRM really matter? Well, at least if all eBooks were released in the ePub format, and all devices (mobile or otherwise) could read DRMed ePub files. It wouldn’t actually matter about DRM because you could read your ePub book on any device.
A strong augment for the publishers on having one eBook format?
June 28th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Mike Cook a very good point, but my problems with DRM go deeper.
For light reading what you say holds, but DRM is essentially crippling by nature. Whether it be converting a book to audio, or more likely studying a text, that needs to be referenced, annotated, and perhaps even fed into a database (none of which needs to compromise copyright); the fact remains that DRM stands in the way.
If we were just talking about small handful of people then it is just bad luck, but I believe we are looking at something much broader. The integrating of literature into a digital environment and this is something that should not be artificially restricted.
However, the real pressure will come from epublishers simply making non-DRM epubs available. In the end they will make the sales, but it will take time and of course a standard format.
June 29th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Greg, I actually agree with you regarding the crippling nature of DRM. Like most people around here I would like to see it eradicated in all its guises, but my feelings are that the DRM battle still has a long way to go.
The thinking behind my comments were that if we have to deal with DRM, then let’s deal with it on just one eBook format. We should then quickly see readers with annotation abilities as well as ones that would work on various accessibility devices, such as Braille and audio readers, at least in an ‘on the fly’ mode.
I guess this would not be so useful for referencing and adding to a database, but then is it such a terrible thing to have to type them by hand?
June 29th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Mike I liked the logic of your post, I am afraid I was only using it to illustrate another point rather than implying a pro-DRM position to you.
Actually, as you state, a universal format would eventually lead to the un-crippling of DRM by reader software and its progressive impotency. Long before that, I suspect, cracking software would solve the problem.
The thing is that logically it has no long term future from the perspective of publishers, or anyone else. It acts as a temporary impediment to the sale and use of e-books, slowing down acceptance and throwing up needless problems of reliability.
Corporate logic all too often runs directly against reason. It defies long term planning and investment and fixes on immediate problems – many of which are exaggerated if not entirely fictional in the first place.
To quote Ned Kelly’s last words before he was hanged (Australia’s most beloved outlaw) “Such is Life”.
June 30th, 2008 at 5:24 am
“Remember, its PRS-505 will soon be able to work with Adobe Digital Editions, which meanwhile is already available for other machines.”
Er, what? Digital Editions is available only on Windows and Mac so far. Not even the promised desktop Linux version is available yet, not speaking about other ebook readers. The PRS-505 will actually be the first device with Digital Editions support.
June 30th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Hi, Igorsk. OS support in effect is machine support, and Win and Mac systems are in the majority. That said, I share your frustration over the lack of even a Linux desktop version. Yet another argument against proprietary DRM! If you use Linux and want to read Adobe-DRMed ePub books without Wine, etc., you’re out of luck. Thanks. David
June 30th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Well, it’s just that when you mention PRS-505 and then say “other machines”, the impression is that you are talking about other e-book readers. You might want to clarify that passage a bit.
August 24th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
I love e-books, and it is so much better then wasting trees on the paper becuse they just end up sitting there collecting dust unless you give them away. I hate reading things off of my computer for long periods of time though.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I think it is so cool that we are moving to e-books it makes them so much more accessible, and I really like this one.