04-29-2011, 04:32 PM | #556 | |
curmudgeon
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J. Wiley and Sons The National Academies Press O'Reilly Media I'm not sure where the NAP falls in terms of size. But Wiley is much MUCH bigger than Baen -- they're traded on the NYSE. Wiley and the NAP both report that switching from DRM to DRM-free hasn't caused them any increase in piracy that they can tell. My uncle was on Wiley's Board of Directors* when they changed over to DRM-free. He tells me that as they converted publications from DRM to no-DRM, they saw step-wise increases of paper sales shortly afterwards for each book so converted. That's right, PAPER sales measurably UP shortly after the bits became no-DRM. At the same time, eSales went from insignificant to "enough to care about." Note that this was pre-Kindle. All I know post-Kindle is that they're still think that piracy isn't a problem -- I have no idea what data they use to make that determination, however. As for why so few other companies are following in Baen's footsteps, one can only guess. My personal guess is that it's mostly a matter of agility. Baen's approach happened because the Publisher and owner (Jim Baen) had a whim of steel and decreed that it would be so. And one guy can make decisions far more quickly than even a small organization, much less a large one. Further, as controlling owner and top executive, Jim could take whatever risks he felt were appropriate with no need to convince other managers, investment analysts, corporate parents, etc. -- the company was his to risk. History has shown that he was correct (IMHO), but that was entirely uncertain eleven years ago when he kicked off Webscriptions and Baen's DRM-free policy. Back then, even I would have questioned the sanity of a major publishing house CEO who'd made a similar choice. Heck -- I thought Jim Baen was nuts! As for Baen's financials, I have no idea. It's a privately held company, so they need not disclose anything to the public. We do know, however, that Baen has grown substantially over the last decade, even as the publishing industry as a whole has been shrinking. We also know that Toni Weisskopf (now the Publisher and top boss) says that their e-Sales are larger than all foreign sales combined (including Canada), and that those sales have been growing faster than paper sales. (Note: both of these statements are a couple of years old. If you want more up to date info, ask Toni. Who knows... she might answer!) Xenophon * Note that all these statements are also somewhere in Wiley's official public statements -- no insider information here, other than getting it from the horse's mouth rather than via press release or SEC filing. |
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04-29-2011, 04:35 PM | #557 |
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04-29-2011, 04:38 PM | #558 | |
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Once you are an established writer, your IP becomes more valuable, you are much more likely to be "shared" ( to use the preferred euphemism) and when that happens, you are losing sales and money. Then you are not so OK with being passed around. Its worth noting that despite the success of Baen, the vast majority of well known speculative fiction writers use DRM, thank you very much. Guess the people who write the future aren't so gong ho for the DRM free future Last edited by stonetools; 04-29-2011 at 04:40 PM. |
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04-29-2011, 04:45 PM | #559 | |
Wizard
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04-29-2011, 04:50 PM | #560 | |
Reading is sexy
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It really should be a balance of protecting the author's work and allowing purchasers to use their purchases as they should be allowed. Right now I believe that DRM is far too close to the "protect the author" point on the spectrum. It's not yet at the "happy trade-off" point for both parties involved. And to speak to a couple other points that I'm too lazy to quote: 1. Purchased books that are later geo-restricted have (in the past) disappeared from people's accounts. This is stupid. 2. There was a point upthread that you tried to turn into "do you think you should be able to purchase any ebook ever published? but print books go out of print!!!" The point of the original poster was this: If I've purchased a book and it's suddenly removed from the book-provider's catalog, I should still be able to access my book, no matter what. If I haven't purchased the book and it's "out of print", then that's fine. |
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04-29-2011, 04:59 PM | #561 | |
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04-29-2011, 05:10 PM | #562 | |
Wizard
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It may just be that a publisher of speculative fiction, with an emphasis on military sf, who spends time cultivating a following in the techno-geek community, can get away with going DRM free. I note some of the passionate anti DRMists are also devoted followers of Baen. They're kind of invested in Baen's success and they share the whole" everything should be TOTALLY open" ethos. I bet their Android and Linux enthusiasts as well. A big publishing company, with many lines of books, has different interests and must take a different approach. I didn't think a single one of Elfmark and Xenophon's choices were for general nonfiction or general fiction-the two biggest categories of books published out there. |
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04-29-2011, 05:10 PM | #563 | |
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04-29-2011, 05:20 PM | #564 | |
Loves Ellipsis...
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Time after time people are telling you that THEY DO NOT WANT TO SHARE THEIR BOOKS WITH THE WORLD and yet you keep coming back with the same You keep proclaiming that authors aren’t going to write books…well they can STOP and find a full time job. I don’t give a good damn. I can live just fine without their crap and keep my hard earned money in my pocket. You don’t get it, do you?? There are NO AUTHORS without readers and you, my friend, turn my stomach. I have spent over $300 on books this calendar year and you know what?? If some stupid publisher or author didn’t get my money cause they don’t get the message – well it’s their loss, not mine. I am SICK TO DEATH of people like YOU calling me a thief because I want the ability to use the items that I PAY FOR as I SEE FIT. If you are so concerned about the pirating, keep your damn manuscript in the damn drawer! I’ve lost thousands of dollars in .LIT books and I refuse to keep losing more. I don’t steal/pirate/whatever ebooks. I don’t need to. I have a damn good job and I can spend my money in whatever manner I please. And I please to spend my money with the companies who actually value me as a customer. If you had a publishing company, you’d never see a DIME of my money. And if I ever find out who you are and that you are part of a publishing company or an author I support – I would stop supporting whatever it is that YOU are attached to. |
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04-29-2011, 05:28 PM | #565 |
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Stonetools has shown that he is out of touch with reality as far as DRM and piracy goes, over and over. Very trollish if you ask me. Don't feed him if you can help it...
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04-29-2011, 05:28 PM | #566 |
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04-29-2011, 05:32 PM | #567 | |
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04-29-2011, 05:34 PM | #568 |
Wizard
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04-29-2011, 05:37 PM | #569 | |
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Great post. I dont know if its being ignored or what but I stated the very same thing myself earlier on. Not everyone is trying to steal something and even honest people are getting ripped off with DRM. |
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04-29-2011, 05:40 PM | #570 | |
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Here's one:
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dead horse, dead meat |
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