First of all, I’d like to announce that I’ve released the earc for the first volume of No Man’s Land.
All three volumes are also up for pre-order. (Thank you and yes, about time.)
This has been the MOST infuriating book. Just how long it took and how long it ended up.
That’s part of the conundrum of “market this how even?” That it’s one book, but I had to publish it in three volumes.
Okay “had to” might be a bit strong, and there will be an ebook combining all three volumes (see cover used for this post.) But the problem is when I tentatively type set to see how long the printed book it would be, it clocked in upward of 900 pages.
Oh! NOW I get why it was so long to finish and revise.
The second story (I want to say book, but I can’t promise it won’t be another 3 books. It already wants to be THREE voices. (Cries.)) is started though I’m taking a couple, three weeks, first to finish other projects that have been hanging fire, including a lot of business-related stuff, but also books that are ALMOST finished (two Dyce mysteries, next Rhodes, Witch’s Daughter), outlines for 9 book collaboration with #2 son for which he’s been waiting very patiently, and perhaps saving my roses from the weeds.
Part of what I want to do (Y’all should see my planner!) is get my shopify shop set up and linked, so I can sell my own books (that aren’t on KU, which when I’m done will be all but the austen fanfic) as well as a bunch of other things.
While on that, to the theme of this post:
When I released the earc, I put in — because it amused me and it’s tradition — Advanced Reading Copy, not for resale.
Mind you, it’s illegal to resell any of the ebooks, obviously, and more on that in a minute. But it’s what used to be on advanced print copies, so it amused me.
I actually intend to distribute this wide, so it will be in many online venues, not just Amazon, but…
It never fails. The minute I posted the link on Twitter, there was someone telling me that they wouldn’t buy it if it was on Amazon only. (Which it is, right now, since it’s the only place with pre-orders and ALSO the 800 lbs gorilla. I still need to get as many sales and pre-orders and reviews there as possible, so…)
Anyway, he wouldn’t buy Amazon only because “I won’t own the book.”
Look guys — gives audience a serious look — let’s talk straight and no bullshit, okay? This is stupid. Like stupid-nuts.
It’s like saying “I won’t go to the US. They have violations of civil rights. I’ll go to Great Britain instead.”
Because let’s face it, even though I don’t put DRM on my books the stores do. Every store does. Not just Amazon.
And yes, unless you take extraordinary measures (and all of them are making it harder and harder to do so) they can “reach into” your library and pull the book.
Yes, it was unfortunate Amazon did that with Farenheit 451 and 1984. In fact, it was so unfortunate that I’M ABSOLUTELY SURE it was a setup by one of Amazon’s rivals. Because it’s too perfect.
In case y’all are still jaw-locked in outrage and refusing to even discuss it: the books were removed because they were illegally published. I.e. the person publishing them didn’t have the rights to. As in, they had pirated it and were trying to sell it. It is, in these cases, the right (and duty) of the store to remove it. Or be complicit in theft. So they had to remove it. And the books being what they were provided EXCELLENT anti-Amazon propaganda.
But any other store would have done the same.
Pinches bridge of nose.
Look, I’m all about giving you choices, and I come not to praise Amazon but to bury it. Their constant algorithm changes are zany (this is the polite word) and have nothing to do with how indie authors can or should run a business.
Their search function is…. There are no polite words, either as an author or as a reader. I’ve been known to look for a book by author and title and be assured there are no books by that name. Instead I get recommended women’s tights or yak milk or something. It’s not till I put it specifically on kindle books that I get the book.
In fact, it’s almost like their goal in life is discouraging reading.
And I think KU requiring you to be exclusive is poppy cock, since they haven’t given a tiny little rat’s ass about the book business since they started selling data space to businesses (And the US government.) In fact, the best thing they could do is spin off the book business as its own company, to someone who gives a hang about business.
BUT–
That said, they are still the best option of a very bad lot. You guys don’t see the other side of this, nor the shenanigans engaged in by the other guys in terms of how you upload your book, how it’s listed, or even how they pay for it. It’s all “not quite crooked, but certainly not above board.”
I’m not sure, because it’s been a couple, ten years since I’ve used it as a READER what restrictions Barnes and Noble puts on sharing the book or lending it. (At least with Amazon you can share with family.) And I know even less about the others, though I guess I’m about to find out. (Is Smashwords still existent? Man are they a mess on the payment scale. I don’t think they intend to seem/be crooked, but all the stuff with lending it to libraries is really opaque when it comes to payment. Or even to WHERE your book went.)
AND NONE OF THEM WILL LET YOU RESELL THE BOOK.
I mean, guys, sure. If you buy a book you can lend it, archive it, resell it. A PAPER BOOK.
And there are books I’m keeping in paper, just-in-case-there-are-grandchildren, including three — count them, three — complete Heinlein collections.
Why? Because I don’t trust them not to be edited to comply with some future “improver”‘s vision, even if it’s just removing smoking or swear words.
BUT…. But. But. BUT! You buy the ebook! You should be able to store it, archive it, lend it, resell it.
Amazon has some provisions for lending the books, and supposing (It is a BIG suppose. Y’all remember I’m technically de-clined) I get through this shopify set up (Younger DIL might have to help) I’ll sell the books with no DRM and you can store, archive and lend if you wish.
Not sell.
But if you own it–
Guys! Let’s take a deep breath. Owning an electronic book is not the same as owning a physical copy. If you have a physical copy, you can sell it, yes. But it’s ONE copy. Not an infinitely replicating number.
Thought experiment: someone creates a replicator, star trek style. You buy one. You immediately get it to create replicators (I don’t think it could do that, but suppose it could) and sell them, putting the inventor out of business. Now what?
But you just want to sell it to the used e-book store. Really? And how do I prove the one that the used ebook store is selling is not an infinite number of copies of the ONE book I sold?
We already have a real-world experiment with this. CHINA. All of us at some point sell a copy of every book of ours to China. And then…. never again, because they replicate them and sell them. (And given their relationship with private property, IP and not, probably write creepy crappy continuations of our books, too.)
Which is why the ebooks are cheaper than paper. I actually have no idea what the price of paper books is these days, or even the price of traditionally published ebooks (Though I just ordered Jim Butcher’s book for next January, but I don’t think I looked at the price, because of course I’m going to buy it, duh.)
However, what I buy are mostly indie and older books in ebook form (it’s easier on the eyes, with the e-ink tablet, honest) and those seem to TOP OUT at 4.99.
I’m fairly sure that paper books are more than that.
For the savings, surely you can forego your right to resell the book to the used book store when you run out of virtual bookshelves.
Look, I do get the frustration. I don’t like the new subscription for everything, you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy model. BUT that’s different from making accommodations for the fact electronic books are in fact a different thing, and therefore must be treated differently than stories conveyed in dead tree bricks.
And while if we’re going to stone Amazon I’m first in line with the brick (Just to hit them over the head on screwing up search, honest!) they are still the big game in town, and the one in which a writer must make a decent showing if he/she is going to have any reach at all.
****
Now, enjoy a short film of Brundar Mahar, (not quite male*) king of Elly, barbarian, magician, spy master, eater of sweets.
*As for the not quite male thing… well, I swear the book is almost disgustingly wholesome, and no, I’m not pandering to any ideology real, imaginary or purple. Next week if you’re very good and eat all your vegetables, I’ll tell you how a nice writer like me ended up with a book like this.
Mad Genius Club 
39 responses to “Ownership And Ebooks”
IIRC, SmashWords and Draft to Digital merged, and relatively recently.
eep. I liked D2D
One of the things I asked the, admittedly small, audience at SoS was
So, make of it what you will.
It’s curious, you know? People SAY that. They also say they PREFER paperbacks.
However, ebooks outsell paperback 10 to 1.
Make of that what you will.
Sarah, I’d venture that sample is just a touch skewed towards bookaholics, and fans who buy anything their authors put out.
Sure. BUT again, it seems like saying “I prefer paper” in person is for some reason “prestige” so people will say that.
Well, I prefer paper – but to indulge my preference, I would have to put an addition on the house (probably buy a new bigger one, actually), and start looking for leather bound editions on archival quality paper.
In other words – nobody here has yet sent me the winning lottery numbers.
I no longer read as easily in paper. So now it’s ebooks for me.
My first Kindle wasn’t for books until Amazon “improved” the software and kept me from uploading/downloading* pictures and text. Still, I’ve been buying eBooks since the beginning of 2016 almost exclusively. (Minor exceptions, either gifts or specialty items.)
If the eBooks were paper, it would have destroyed my budget and overwhelmed my already limited book storage. As it is, my nonfiction is in another building, and the fiction has been culled a few times.
The text on a Kindle is also a lot easier on my 72 year old eyes…
(*) Latest Kindle offers it, but upload to Amazon to get my own pics? No way.
I too no longer have room for more physical books. I buy a few anyway, so that I can sit in the B&N cafe and read them. (Starbucks? Their coffee is not roasted to drink straight. It’s roasted to make an ever-growing list of caffeine cocktails, ending with faux-Italian vowel sounds. Cappucino works for me–whole milk.)
That would fit with super-readers inhaling ebooks.
Two contract revisions ago, B&N put in a rights grab, not just for that book, but for all the IP related to said book (entire series, rights to series). When challenged, they said, “Don’t worry, we won’t exercise it. It’s just boilerplate.” That was right before the former owner became former, so things have improved, but …
Read The Contract. Assume that if it is in there, someone WILL do it.
In other weird and wild news, apparently Japan is taking anti-trust action against Visa.
Turns out a lot of the calvinball with games and media has been the credit card companies trying to enforce their Moral Code. And they started trying to edit anime, which is a big enough chunk of Japan’s exports that their government now appears to have taken notice…
I’m pretty ambivalent on digital media. I’ve come to the realization that I generally do not replay old games, reread many old books, or rewatcha I movies. So having it all in tiny, compact boxes is actually worth the trouble of re-finding it if a publisher decides it should vanish. Or loses interest in selling it.
I prefer to get e-books from the publisher. Why? Because I can download them onto my computer, and then put the book on my e-reader. (Ditto books from services like Gutenberg.) The publisher gets a bigger take than if I had ordered it through Amazon, and I have a permanent copy of the book on my computer. Amazon, as well, especially if there is no publisher site.
That said, authors and publishers pretty much have to have the book available through Amazon. Many periodicals won’t permit a review of a book that lacks an Amazon link.
Hence, why I intend to have my own store, but….
THIS.
I prefer paper for re-reading and e-books for 1-offs. Alas I am limited to about 1K books for the foreseeable future.
Quality hardbound for “…want the grandchildren to have it”
Not sure why we cannot have these at reasonable rates anymore, but Grandma’s new edition of Heidi was used to teach my mom to read. Then me. And I read it to my daughter. It’s still in good shape to read to her kids…
This is just about literally a picture perfect example of copy right.
You don’t have a right to make a copy, you have a right to the copy in your hand.
And ooohboy am I expecting a big kaboom in copyright soon-ish, in terms of decades.
Next week if you’re very good and eat all your vegetables, I’ll tell you how a nice writer like me ended up with a book like this.
Isn’t this the one where you read The Left Hand of Darkness and said, “That’s a nice story, but Le Guin has no idea of what a society filled with hermaphrodites would be like”? And then your muse said, “We should show her…” and the rest was history? Or am I thinking of a different book of yours?
Yes, it is.
But between deciding what it was and the writing the latest (hopefully good. The others weren’t. It’s very complicated) version there were 42 years.
I prefer to download my eBooks to my computer, and a flash drive, before loading on one of my Nooks, or Kindle. It’s not so I can resell them, but so that I can actually have them if I want to go back and re-read them. With all the shenanigans that various publishers have pulled with re-editing books without the author’s knowledge, or against their will, I really don’t trust them. I’m even a little p-i-s-e-d (Corner Gas reference) that Craig Thomas re-edited Firefox to remove Yuri Andropov’s name.
ABSOLUTELY no problem with that, just pointing out why the big outfits are nervous.
Same here. I like ebooks because I’m running out of space for physical books. I don’t want to resell them — I just want to stash them on a thumb drive or external HDD or something so I always have them for my own use.
I realize that can’t be done with physical books either, so one may chalk it up to an old man yelling at clouds or something. 🙂
Absolutely agree with you wanting to do that. I DO TOO. I despise having to buy different versions for different places.
BUT hear me out: You’re not the — mostly foreign — scammers who steal these books and open shops.
In my shop (working on it, I promise) I can afford to ignore those, because it will be a small shop, not much attention.
The big boys? They can’t.
I’ve given up on Amazon for buying ebooks, as it now requires too many hoops to jump through to convert them to epub and put them on my Android tablet.
I’m pretty technical and could do it, but lack the motivation due to my large TBR piles. Just not worth the time it takes.
Interesting. They have to be submitted as epubs by authors, going back two years or so. That said, I suspect there are a lot of “legacy” mobi and other formats on the electronic shelves, still.
I’m willing to buy epubs, but all Kindle books are sold in a proprietary Amazon kfx file format. Therefore any ebook stuck in Kindle Unlimited and unable to be sold elsewhere I wont even consider.
[…] first realized this is not just the left, but it’s in everything, when I wrote the article yesterday about for Mad Genius Club about owning ebooks. (You do, btw. But unless I put it in my own store (working on it) no other vendor is going to let […]
This is why I have no compunctions recently about “pirating” books I already own, because Amazon recently made it impossible to easily archive/store them anywhere but on an amazon device I like to back my stuff up to cds, dvds, etc. Still not perfect, but better than losing all my stuff when one thing or another crashes. And I learned the hard way with my music that a kerfuffle with a distributor can lead to music you already bought vanishing from your cloud library (as in, I couldn’t redownload it after a hard drive crash. The company–Apple ::spits::–told me to reach out to the musician, who was awesome and apologized and gave me all of their current discography (of which I owned all but one or two albums) for free by way of making it up.
yep.
Shrugs. I buy very little from Amazon. I make exceptions for a few authors, including you Sarah.
Reason? I started pre-epub with the old B&N format from multiple small non-B&N, sources (since purchased by B&N and those books, took couple of years, converted and added to my B&N library by B&N itself).
The Amazon stuff I can’t DRM break currently (could probably dig into it myself, don’t want to) via ePubor, go into a category called “2-jailbreak”. Once I have a few, the books are removed from download, I then go through the “back-door-recommended” and fix that problem.
I use Calibre to store the jail-broke-no-longer-DRMed copies on my laptop, on a thumb-drive, and external HD. I’m digitally paranoid.
I’ll note that Amazon doesn’t require DRM. They just don’t make it the default. A book edition also can’t have DRM removed after publishing, apparently (see [1]).
[1] https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200736410
I don’t put DRM on mine, but Amazon has its own proprietary DRM.
Book 2 wants to be three voices? A newish writer I know just had that problem–in only her second book. She bulled through it–four or more plot threads with shifting protagonists, but it took a lot of time, and the book finally has a publication date. Expect it to show up in one of Sarah’s Sunday lists sometime late in the summer.
Oh. The first one is two voices. So it’s not a big thing. It’s just… odd.
I absolutely agree that ereaders are easier on my aging eyes.
I prefer paperback, but buy most and read most as ebooks from Amazon. My wife did not buy my idea that lining walls with full bookshelves makes for great soundproofing, insulation, and are the most aesthetically appealing thing you can do with your space.
i started reading ebooks with a Sony e-reader that fit easily into a pants pocket and I could put anything I found on it via my computer. More to the point EVERYTHING I put on it STAYED THERE unless I removed it.
I bought a number of kindles when they were $25 apiece, kept a few and gave others to my family. I was an ebook consumer and then after 8 or 9 very pleasant years 3 of them died within a couple of weeks but oddly, they weren’t the oldest ones, they were the newest ones. And sadly, it didn’t matter if they were connected to the web or not, Amazon got in the habit of stripping the contents or requiring me to be connected to the cloud. I don’t carry a cloud with me all the time and not very often at all when I go to Maine.
I’m going to figure out how to change the batteries in my old black and white, last 2 weeks on a single charge even if read 7 hours/day Sony devices and say goodbye to Amazon ebooks.
I can get what I want at any of the 5 libraries I’m a member of and still do.
Why Shopify in particular? The reason I ask is the writers I’ve previously bought from direct used BookFunnel for delivery. When did Shopify start doing eBooks?
a while back. I also have book funnel, but it becomes very involved, and I want to sell other stuff as well. It was shopify or square.
As for Amazon, is it possible this is collateral blast damage from other electronic media (including textbook rental) where you think you’ve “bought” something but they decide to stop supporting the servers your DRM needs to work so sure, you bought the “rights” but they have no obligation to ensure your rights have any value? Or the eTextBooks with “lifetime ownership” with fine print that says “lifetime generally means five years”?
As I said on your blog that’s why my concern with Amazon tightening the ability to download outside of their software has me spreading my buying. Sure, other can and will play the same games but I’ll only be locked out of sections of my library at a time until I recover.
I lost a ton of albums circa 2008 to that.
It’s also meant certain books are now physical only (and I was looking forward to fewer boxes next move…oh well).
tl;dr; I get I don’t own it to resell, but with all electronic media I don’t trust that the more limited rights I bought will be honored in the long term as vendors make those right more and more dependent on specific software and platforms they are not obligated to maintain.