DRM – The Great Misnomer

There is a lot of rubbish written about DRM and to be frank, we all know it doesn’t work for those who are determined to hack it. However for the majority of readers who are legal, law abiding citizens, they don’t care and probably don’t even know or care what DRM is or does let alone if it is DRM free. Why don’t they care, because unlike music, games and movies most readers keep their book collection on a single machine to read and for those that don’t, five machines is ample enough to move a book between. The great misnomer is believing all the hype about DRM, how it affects the poor reader. This is total crap. The average reader consumes his or her books without anything inhibiting their enjoyment of their books. So we then have to address the other issue; are some publishers lofting themselves on white chargers and slapping themselves on their own pious backs as champions of DRM free titles. The answer to this is sadly, yes.

In reality DRM doesn’t actually do anything except maybe stop kids who are too lazy or too untech savvy to crack it, so it does offer some protection from exploitation at a basic level. As mentioned, those who wish to crack it can do so easily. The average reader who now outnumbers the early and vocal adopters of ebooks (These are the people who believe that all eBooks should be free) is willing to actually pay for their books and read them (generally) on the machine they purchased them on.

As the eBook market has matured with the number of readers increasing (These are now the people willing to pay for books and keep a library in the cloud) the issue of DRM either pro or anti will diminish. This is because the majority of people are honest and feel that the content they purchase belongs to them regardless. How many machines does the average reader want his/her content on? What has happened here is that the industry has become so fixated on the argument of piracy by comparing it with the music industry that no one has stopped to compare what is two distinctly different sets of consumers. The music industry is mostly driven by a much younger audience who have little interest in paying for content. Lets examine how they perceive this. They hear music on the radio for free, they tune into MTV and a host of other TV music channels for free, music is short and relies on repetitive plays/listens for it to become popular and many artists/record labels release their content to platforms such as YouTube to be consumed for free. So this audience has been educated to believe that they shouldn’t have to pay for music. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable (their view not mine) to upload/download, swap, share and generally pass around for free.

The book industry seems to have got so caught up with not making the same mistakes as the music industry that it has assumed the audience is the same. The fact is that it is no longer the same audience. It was at first, when the early adopter was kids looking for more free content (regardless of whether they would actually read it) but now the uptake is a more mature market where the thought of sharing files the way music files are shared is not part of their psyche.

Without generalising too much, the biggest threat to file sharing from the younger generation is going to be academic books. They are too busy watching movies, listening to music and playing online games to spend hours reading other than their school and university obligations. So the whole debate about DRM is a bit of a misnomer. Of course I am not discounting professional thieves, conmen and rogues who will exploit any loopholes in content security, these people are so determined they will crack whatever is placed in front of them. The fact is that with the book industry, the market is actually far more limited than the music, movies and games industry.

The book industry and its majority of consumers are happy purchasing their digital content and reading it on a single machine (Though even with DRM they have the ability to use this on 5 machines – how many do they do they need in reality?). The industry has indeed changed but I think publishers have so got caught up in a spurious argument that it has failed to see that its core audience has changed as it has grown and developed from the early adopters. Even this does a miss-service to younger consumers, many of whom are also prepared to pay for content. 

So the next time you see a publisher boldly shouting ‘Our titles are DRM free’ ask yourself a question as to what they are really saying or understand about the current market and if it is no more than an attempt to make themselves look good while not actually conceding anything. 

GOING INDIE: THE WRITER IN THE DIGITAL AGE

On Thursday 22nd November I was invited to sit on the panel of an event looking at publishing in the digital age. I was on the panel with one of our authors, Shelley Weiner, Rachel Ogden a director from publisher marketing company Inpress, and Justine Solomons from Byte the Book. The event was hosted by Rebecca Swift, director of The Literacy Consultancy in Farringdon where the event was held. A broad range of subjects was discussed and it was clear from opinions on the panel that there were areas of great contention especially the shifting tide of sway held by the voice of the reader now being one of the main influencers of a books popularity rather than the considered opinion of reviewers. Times are changing and there is a paradigm shift toward popularism over literature. All I mean by this is that digital has opened the door of democracy taking the opinion of a few select reviewers/judges and given that power to readers. This is the reason why it is important for publishers and authors to engage with their readers and equally important to know who their readers are.

Rebecca Swift did an excellent job in keeping the panel on topic and opening the conversation to the packed house of 50 who turned up on a cold November evening. Shelley Weiner gave a very thoughtful and considered talk on what going indie meant for her following a reading from her novel The Audacious Mendacity of Lily Green. This kicked off the evening adding plenty of strands of conversation.

It was clear from the audience response that Amazon is a big issue for many readers and writers alike, seen as both the bogeyman and the democratiser of publishing. Topics on the night ranged from royalty rates, self-publishing, hybrid publishing, editing, proofreading, the recent mergers of Penguin and Random House as well as the proposed Simon & Shuster rumblings.

My overall thoughts are that the passion for publishing out there is in a far more healthy position than many realise and although this is only a snapshot of 50 or so people, there is clearly a desire to accept change and find ways to exploit that change while still wanting to protect bricks and mortar book stores. Whether this can be achieved is doubtful as I fear for the long-term survival of book stores in the high street, especially independents who are had tied through finance and often by a mind set that is set in the good old days. Those days are gone and unless stores adapt they won’t survive.

Publishing equally has many obstacles and the same can be said for publishers, unless we adapt and learn then we too will become redundant. We have to work with the likes of Rachel from Inpress and listen to forward thinkers like Justine from Byte the Book while listening to our readers and being innovative in our own thought and ensuring we can make ideas turn into strategies.

GOING INDIE: THE WRITER IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Event Announcement

Smaller independent publishers are enjoying a renaissance in the internet age. For writers they can offer the kind of personal attention and access to digital services that may be hard to find in the mainstream. At what point, therefore, might a writer approach small presses rather than a large publisher? What, if any, is the role of the agent in this changing world? Can it be financially viable for a writer to be published by an indie press? And – most importantly of all – who can we trust (small press or large conglomerate) to ensure that the best quality writing finds the audience it deserves?
Join Rebecca Swift, Director of The Literary Consultancy to consider these questions with a highly qualified panel:
Shelley Weiner whose new novel ‘The Audacious Mendacity of Lily Green’ is published by the go-ahead indie, Caffeine Nights
Darren Laws, head of Caffeine Nights
Rachel Ogden, Director of Inpress, an organisation that seeks to ensure that small presses do not get lost in the marketplace
Justine Solomons, whose member organisation, Byte the Book, helps inform writers about how digital publishing really works.
Thursday 22nd November 2012
Free Word Centre
60 Farringdon Road
London EC1R 3GA
6.30pm – 8pm
Tickets: £10 (Glass of wine included)
To book call Free Word at: 020 7324 2570

The end of the road for indie book stores

Are London indie Books shops now a closed shop? If you are not famous, don’t have a large following or can’t guarantee selling 80 copies (seriously this figure was quoted to me by an indie store) then there is no way you are going to get a book signing even in an indie store. What is depressing is that we hear indie stores moaning their lot, crying and whinging about how tough it is and not willing to host an event where there is absolutely no risk to them financially and only a chance for them to make money. I have run into closed minds, pretentious fools and scared rabbits in headlights. The one thing they all have in common is they are all doing NOTHING. It’s almost as if they are paralysed with fear and content to continue on this course of inaction until they put up the shutters and close their doors for good. And if this happens we will continue to hear them blaming everyone but themselves. It’s eBooks fault, it’s Amazon’s fault, it’s supermarket’s fault, it publishers fault…boy can these guys whine! You know what, it’s your own damn fault. Engage with publishers, talk to authors, you are part of a community…talk to them. Sure times are tough and that’s more reason to be pro-active. The next time a small publisher gets on the phone to you asking if you will host a book signing from an unknown author, find out what the book is, listen to the proposal and think of ways of working with the publisher to make that event a success.

National Book Awards…Entries from the Big Boys Only Please

I was excited to receive news of the National Book Awards and looking forward to entering a few of our titles in different categories until I read the entry details and realised that this is yet again another 'awards' competition that is not open to small publishers and will invariably be dominated by the big six. How disappointing to find that they are only looking for books that have made an “outstanding or massive impact in terms of acclaim and sales”. Seriously, what is the point in this competition if it cannot be judged on quality of writing. You may as well hand them out to Jordan and any other 'celebrity' hogging the limelight who can shift a few thousand copies by not actually writing a word. I could argue that all of our books have exceeded sales expectations as this is obviously very open terminology but feel it is not really what the National Book Awards are looking for. Again, how do you define a best-seller in the digital age?
Just for once, why can they not make a competition a real competition and judge books solely on their content and ability to engage and entertain the reader.
After reading the entry pack, we can only enter 1 category instead of a possible 4.
Let's look forward to another stitch-up for the big boys in the industry in this years National Book Awards.

Master of the Sock Puppets – True Crime Writing

But who’s strings are these guys pulling. Recent confessions by crime authors RJ Ellroy and Stephen Leather of ‘sock puppetry’ or to be less misleading, writing their own fake reviews. Leather openly and brazenly (with a dash of hubris) told an audience at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival that he writes many of his own reviews to get the ball rolling. Mr. Leather, an ardent Mail on Sunday reader - if his facebook posts are to be believed, is never short of an opinion, or a review…so it seems. I wondered what sort of respect he actually gives his ‘fans’. I say fans because it is clear from many of the reviews that he is clearly his own biggest fan. Ellroy’s own reviews were as prosaic as his award winning novel ‘A Simple Act of Violence’ though maybe it should be retitled ‘A Simple Act of Stupidity’. Ellroy’s own crime was compounded by the fact that he not only accidentally signed off as Roger on one occasion but also chose to give low ratings to other ‘rival’ authors…ah, if it was only Mr. Leather, but it was not. There is no excuse for this sort of behavior especially from authors with reputations we were supposed to trust. And this is about trust and a flagrant disrespect of that trust with their readers, let alone fellow authors. It was clear from his response at Harrogate that Stephen Leather feels that he has done nothing wrong and he almost applauded himself for his sharp thinking and the way he fools his readers. Mr Ellroy at least has the decency to accept what he has done is wrong – even though he had to be ‘outed’ to actually get to that point. These are not the only authors to do this and get found out and will probably not be the last to knowingly and intentionally deceive their readers. The question is can you ever trust any future reviews this particular pair may receive. The last few weeks has given crime fiction a bad name with more puppetry on display than a Gerry Anderson festival. This practice must cease otherwise the reputation of crime fiction in this county could be severely damaged losing the industry even more readers, who no longer trust what they are reading.

A Daunting Time for Waterstones

What the heck is going on at Waterstones. This month we have had wholesale management clearouts and rumours abound about Waterstones ending book signing events for small publishers with the focus concentrating on…you’ve guessed it, the big six. One has to wonder what is coming next in what seems like a meltdown at Waterstones.

One thing is for sure is that these changes do nothing more than consolidate the position of the big six and handicap even further the small guys who are struggling to make a living. By the way Mr Daunt, these are the guys who have week in and week out brought custom and sales to Waterstones on a regular basis with non-discounted books. I should know because we are one of those little guys who have worked tirelessly up until now with the help of some very supportive staff at Waterstones branches the length and breadth of the country. We enjoy in-store book signings. They are a great way for authors to meet new readers and fans. We always support these signings with good local and regional PR to ensure that readers in the area are aware of the event. Sure, not every event is a success but many are. We make new friends, we broaden the reach of our books and we build demand for them. Now if the message from Waterstones is true this may all be coming to an end.

A spokesperson for Waterstones head office said: “We are reviewing the experience that we offer our customers and are moving away from open-ended, handselling events and asking shops to focus on well rounded event programmes that are more engaging in the long term.” The spokesperson added: “The intention is not to immediately cancel events, or to shut anyone out but over time shops might want to adjust the format of certain events and rebalance the activity that they have planned."

And I know what will happen; confusion in its messaging will filter down to branch level ending in many signings being cancelled or simply not arranged. Managers are already confused over ordering titles, now it seems this directive will add further to the murk descending on the once great book chain.

What needs to happen is clear and unequivocal directives from Daunt & Co, not this mish-mash of whispers filtered out from head office. With so many changes, instant resignations of the ‘was he pushed or did he fall’ variety at director and manager level, and bizarre decisions (Amazon springs to mind) at operational level you have to wonder if Daunt is executing a clear master plan or playing euphemistic piñata, aiming wildly at everything but with a blindfold on.

I for one am beginning to become worried by what is happening at Waterstones.