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Half-price Ebooks for Day Against DRM

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Re: Half-price Ebooks for Day Against DRM

#11
post #8

Anyone read PoC||GTFO? Looks like it'd be interesting.

You can read them online for free https://www.alchemistowl.org/pocorgtfo/ But the bible must be a better format :-)

Thanks! I'll take a look through and may buy the bible later :p

Re: Half-price Ebooks for Day Against DRM

#14
post #7

The biggest issue I have with publisher websites is the lack of a strong review ecosystem. I've started looking at Amazon or industry blogs for reviews and recommendations, but that gets frustrating and is slow. Just wonder if the publisher could arrange to get rights to it's books' reviews across seller sites and aggregate the results. The truth is, apart from occasional sales like this, the publisher sites are rare…

"The truth is, apart from occasional sales like this, the publisher sites are rarely in price competition with any other sellers."

Is this really true? I usually by ebook/pbook combo and I find that I get a better deal directly on the publisher's website. Amazon is a non starter for me because I don't buy into their ebook format. "ebook" to me means epub and pdf.

Re: Half-price Ebooks for Day Against DRM

#15
post #7

The biggest issue I have with publisher websites is the lack of a strong review ecosystem. I've started looking at Amazon or industry blogs for reviews and recommendations, but that gets frustrating and is slow. Just wonder if the publisher could arrange to get rights to it's books' reviews across seller sites and aggregate the results. The truth is, apart from occasional sales like this, the publisher sites are rare…

I don't have a problem with reading reviews on Amazon and then buying direct from the publisher.

Re: Half-price Ebooks for Day Against DRM

#16
It is weird how Amazon works - 50% off from the publisher is within a dollar or two of the regular Kindle price. No DRM and multiple formats is a huge improvement, but if you have a lot of Kindle books already, being able to manage everything through the Kindle system is also a benefit.

(For fiction or single-read, I would still probably go with Amazon. For a tech book which I'd want to keep reading and potentially view on platforms which don't have Kindle and where defeating the DRM could be a challenge, publisher direct.)

Re: Half-price Ebooks for Day Against DRM

#17
post #14
post #7

The biggest issue I have with publisher websites is the lack of a strong review ecosystem. I've started looking at Amazon or industry blogs for reviews and recommendations, but that gets frustrating and is slow. Just wonder if the publisher could arrange to get rights to it's books' reviews across seller sites and aggregate the results. The truth is, apart from occasional sales like this, the publisher sites are rare…

"The truth is, apart from occasional sales like this, the publisher sites are rarely in price competition with any other sellers." Is this really true? I usually by ebook/pbook combo and I find that I get a better deal directly on the publisher's website. Amazon is a non starter for me because I don't buy into their ebook format. "ebook" to me means epub and pdf.

I am involved with ebook production for an academic publisher. I sometimes joke that I am going to have "that doesn't work on the Kindle" engraved on my tombstone.

Re: Half-price Ebooks for Day Against DRM

#18
post #7

The biggest issue I have with publisher websites is the lack of a strong review ecosystem. I've started looking at Amazon or industry blogs for reviews and recommendations, but that gets frustrating and is slow. Just wonder if the publisher could arrange to get rights to it's books' reviews across seller sites and aggregate the results. The truth is, apart from occasional sales like this, the publisher sites are rare…

For technical books, I can't replicate the experience of writing notes in the margins (with a pencil of course) of a paper book versus anything ebook readers offer. Yes, I can't grep or query a paper book but the learning process seems more fluid as the book becomes my own reference source.

Re: Half-price Ebooks for Day Against DRM

#19
post #14
post #7

The biggest issue I have with publisher websites is the lack of a strong review ecosystem. I've started looking at Amazon or industry blogs for reviews and recommendations, but that gets frustrating and is slow. Just wonder if the publisher could arrange to get rights to it's books' reviews across seller sites and aggregate the results. The truth is, apart from occasional sales like this, the publisher sites are rare…

"The truth is, apart from occasional sales like this, the publisher sites are rarely in price competition with any other sellers." Is this really true? I usually by ebook/pbook combo and I find that I get a better deal directly on the publisher's website. Amazon is a non starter for me because I don't buy into their ebook format. "ebook" to me means epub and pdf.

Good point! I guess I'm thinking in terms of dividing the market into 3 types of products: paper copy, locked-down DRM copy, DRM-free ebook. In 2/3 of those, Amazon and publishers don't compete. And on paper copies, publishers usually sell at list price with Amazon priced sometimes significantly less.

There's also a 4th type which is the used paper copy, where publishers kind of by definition don't compete.

Regardless, that's my admittedly naive rationale for why Amazon or other retailers shouldn't mind sharing review data with the publisher for use on its site.

Re: Half-price Ebooks for Day Against DRM

#20
post #14
post #7

The biggest issue I have with publisher websites is the lack of a strong review ecosystem. I've started looking at Amazon or industry blogs for reviews and recommendations, but that gets frustrating and is slow. Just wonder if the publisher could arrange to get rights to it's books' reviews across seller sites and aggregate the results. The truth is, apart from occasional sales like this, the publisher sites are rare…

"The truth is, apart from occasional sales like this, the publisher sites are rarely in price competition with any other sellers." Is this really true? I usually by ebook/pbook combo and I find that I get a better deal directly on the publisher's website. Amazon is a non starter for me because I don't buy into their ebook format. "ebook" to me means epub and pdf.

Kindle versions of most of the tech books would be $21-23 all the time (in the US), vs $39 for the DRM free format. You give up freedom for that $20 but also gain some convenience (frictionless buying process, library management). It is an interesting revealed preference when both are offered which sells at what price.

It would be a no brainer to check a box and get DRM-free vs DRM for the same price. I'd probably pay some premium once I get something (Calibre?) to manage other formats as well as I can manage kindle today, especially since stripping DRM from the latest Amazon format is more challenging than before. But as someone who reads 100+ books/year, it would be hard to justify paying 2x the price for the subset of books I only read once.

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