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There was a study1 done by Laurina Zhang about the effects of DRM on music sales. In her conclusion1 she states:
My analysis in this paper, based on a large representative sample of
albums from all four major record companies, sheds light on this
question. I find that the removal of DRM increases digital sales by
10%.
While this does not directly ...
12
As the author of 5 tech books (all available in ebook format and published by O'Reilly Media), I can tell you that the O'Reilly party line is essentially that "DRM logic is flawed". We're in a transition period right now and you have to have "faith in the base logic market" and take into account how "DRM interferes with the user experience".
My personal ...
5
The short answer is that any website offering permanent access to large numbers of copyrighted books, for very little money, from multiple publishers is unlikely to be legitimate.
HumbleBundle offers its bundles for limited time.
Book Barbarian, ManyBooks, BookBub, Luzme, and no doubt many others, search the web on your behalf and find books that are ...
3
By itself I don't think book trailers accomplish very much; they have to be coordinated with other publicity/marketing methods.
On the other hand, Amazon and Smashwords allow book trailers (with Amazon, you have to create an account on Author Central). So it gives potential readers a different kind of medium which can justify the purchase decision.
I have ...
3
Since some users want to close this question as off-topic or opinion
based, I decided to give my own tentative answer, based on my own
thinking since I asked the question, and influenced by some of the comments.
I am well aware of cost issues in publishing, but I have little
experience as a customer where e-books are concerned. Having to fix my
own price as ...
3
This would depend on the publisher, and as you mention, it's difficult to prove that you bought the book unless you bought it directly from the publisher and they have a record of it. Many publishers will offer discounts if you're buying both the ebook version and the print version, so it doesn't hurt to ask if you've bought directly from a publisher, but if ...
2
tl;dr This depends on what you mean by DRM, but generally the answer is no.
Overview
DRM can mean a lot of things, but it's basically a combination of software, file formats, and, in somewhat rare cases, the hardware itself. Unless the hardware and the software have some way to figure out where you are, they can't do anything differently based on your ...
2
I don't have any substantial answer to your question, but I have been thinking hard about it over the years.
Let me summarize some dynamics of ebook pricing and then talk about "fair price."
Ebook production is a very speculative business. You have no idea whether there even exists an audience for your product.
Pricing for digital goods is elastic. You ...
1
Ultimately this question is unanswerable because digital purchases involve an element of trust between content creator and distributor.
This is a real issue with the arts business, because fixed expenses by publishers get tacked onto royalty calculations. Also, with creative content, budgets tend to be smaller, so there is less urgency for audits and ...
1
I don't necessarily endorse using it for all your reading, but there are some fine subreddits to suggest book titles. https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/ . Also check out the booklists subreddit. Also, fivebooks.com is creating a whole universe of book suggestions by subject area (though more for academic topics). Finally, I agree with what you are ...
1
Your question is really too broad and unprecise to respect the usual
rules of Stack-Exchange. However, I will try to answer it in a way
consistent with such rules.
There are many places where books are discussed, but they are usually
specialized in some way. And no one is going to list the
possibilities, not here.
My best advice is for you to search the ...
1
Publishers have been very slow to push the boundaries of interactive ebooks, outside of education and children's books. One exception is a French language version of H.P. Lovecraft's "Kadath", published by the publisher Mnémos, with Walrus Studio. That seems to have been almost an experiment on their part. ( https://vimeo.com/43381264 )
I've developed ...
1
It's very common for the listing for publisher to be the company that formatted and produced the ebook. I wouldn't read too much significance into that. Sometimes this conversion services just duplicate everything -- though it is peculiar that it doesn't include some identification on the title page.
Booksmart is the name of an application for blurb.com. ...
1
I am not sure what you consider an interesting book. That depends much on the reader. Anyway, I edited your question to remove the reference to "interesting books", since it is a matter of opinion and as such is generally a proscribed issue on StackExchange.
Asking for, or giving a list of places where you can find free ebooks is also proscribed, as it can ...
1
This is probably not the best kind of question for SE because it asks for an opinion, and your needs may vary.
Also, there are technical issues and business issues involved.
Also, I'm guessing that you are talking about non-DRM files. If you had DRM in your reading system, it would probably be trivial to revoke the license for a piece of content.
I ...
1
Hi LaserYeti and welcome to the forum!
I personally don't agree with the usage of video for advertising a book. I think it is more logical to use the same type of media to advertise your product: Movies advertise with trailers and book advertise with written text like samples. For example making a website that promotes your work is not a bad idea! Also, ...
1
If you plan on advertising or promoting your book on Facebook and some other platforms, you will usually get a bigger reach with video than with an ad featuring a still photo, so that's one reason in favor.
1
I admit I am not into videos at all (ok, I made a video interview for the first book I wrote, but it was more fun than other), but I believe that having a chapter freely available should be a better publicity for the book. Of course, your mileage may vary: if you are good and brilliant in producing videos, and you like it, probably it will help sales.
1
I'd like to second Monicas advice, not to send the same content multiple times to avoid unused data transmissions especially on mobile advices.
But alongside of not developing a whole registration and login system I would still recommend you to simply generate persistent download pages for your customers.
But to prevent your download pages mutate to ...
1
Baen Books has an interface that I find works well (as a consumer). When you buy a book -- or if it's one of their free books -- you get a download page with links for all the formats they support. Here's an example from their free library (so this link should work for everybody). The page is persistent; if I buy a book from them and download, say, the ...
1
There's a new service called Shelfie.com which does exactly what you say. It's a little convoluted. You have to photograph your bookshelf with your phone, and it will offer reduced price on the ebook. The proof of book ownership takes the form of signing your title page and uploading a picture of the book title's page.
There are 3 problems with the service....
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