DRM Free O’Reilly Titles? An Author’s Perspective
Usually book publishers don't make news. This isn't much of a surprise as there is nothing very exciting to the public about the business of publishing books, particularly technical books. O'Reilly bucked the trend and managed to make some ripples in the tech community when the company announced that it would start selling books in a DRM free electronic format. Not every book will be available DRM free right away but that DRM free is the direction O'Reilly is headed. (Disclaimer: I don't know the plans for The Big book of Apple Hacks).
This is an interesting turn of events. O'Reilly is exactly the kind of outfit you would expect to embrace the DRM free thing. O'Reilly is widely perceived as an open source ally and the authors (generally the tech savvy types with strong opinions) are often found arguing for DRM free music. Temper O'Reilly's good nature and altruistic leanings with the companies desire to make money and the author's desire to earn royalties and what seems so black and white when you're talking about another's companies source of profits isn't so simple.
The reason to resist the change is obvious: who will buy a book when the can bag the PDF for free from a friend? The fear is warranted. If the O'Reilly books are passed around faster than the plague in the middle ages the incentive for the company to continue publishing them evaporates and one of the biggest reasons authors write the things goes out the window as well. On the other hand, if people treat the digital copies the same way they treat a physical copy then it is no big deal. The number of copies sold remains unaffected and the publisher and authors are still incentivized.
This was the conundrum tackled by David Pogue and Adam Engst. Each argues their position with passion and each scores some good points.
Of course, they are arguing from different perspectives. David is arguing as a publishing mogul (more or less, if you write for the New York Times and have your own imprint to me you're a mogul) while Adam is arguing from the position of an upstart publisher selling (one surmises) to mostly impassioned users who want to learn a little more. In large part, they are arguing about different things. Adam's experience has been that the people who buy his books are cognizant and respectful of the authors. Perhaps most of Take Control's customers follow the website (TidBits) and feel, at least, a little bit of a personal connection. If you're buying a book in the bookstore, you won't really feel the connection that you feel when you buy a book from Take Control. To most people it is just another few dollars headed off to a faceless corporation via the bookstore middleman.
David seems more concerned about people using his book to learn stuff. His imagined customer is some one browsing in a bookstore wanting to get a handle on OS X and seeing OS X The Missing Manual. Instead of hauling the 900 page magnum opus up to the counter and handing over the forty bucks they'll just note that it exists and head home to download the book. The benefits are obvious: no big, honking book to stretch your arm as you walk about town and the ability to display the content on your screen as you play along with the book.
Tacit in David's argument is the notion that having the book on the computer screen is superior to having a physical copy. This is probably true if you've got a thirty inch monitor but if you're an average user you don't have a thirty inch monitor, trying to read the book on your monitor while attempting to master GarageBand will be an exercise in window flipping futility. You'll get halfway through and decide you'd be better off with a physical copy. You have two choices: print it out or go buy a copy.
Faced with the prospect of baby sitting an inkjet printer for 900 pages, finding a way to cram the pages together and other inconveniences one suspects most people who find the book useful will just go out and buy a copy. One suspects that DRM free electronic versions of tech books won't harm sales but will in fact help them.
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Comments
I have several of the “Take Control” books and I refuse to share them with people because they are reasonably priced. If I see someone who needs some of the information, I tell them where to get the book and what it cost.
I sometimes print the books on my double sided laser printer and put them in a binder. This allows me browsing in the book without having the computer in front of me, or for reference when I am working on something.
True, Chris. If a book is good enough, I’ll buy the hard copy.
Many times I want to read books *away* from my computer, even textbooks like the Big Book of Apple Hacks. Many nights I sat up in bed with it, bookmarking hacks to try the next day.
I’ve bought a few books via download, and DRM or not, they end up not getting read. They end up either forgotten, lost on my hard disk somewhere, or used occasionally for reference.
Does anyone read in full a book they download? Who can sit in front of a screen scrolling thru 500 pages? And none of the portable book readers are any good. Whereas many of go right thru hard copy books, even
Until there’s a decent electronic book reader, I’ll keep buying hard copy books.
So DRM free won’t change my buying habits, and in fact could benefit printed books, because I might “accidentally” see a DRM-free book I like that would influence me to buy the hard copy.
But downloadable books would have to be significantly cheaper than the printed counterpart, for it to be good for hard copy sales. You don’t want to pay for the same book twice. At worst, they could have a scheme where if you’ve bought the download at the same price as the hard copy, you can get the hard copy free.
As far as DRM goes, well, it’s actually discouraged me from buying downloadable books since it is so restrictive on what software and devices I can read the book on.