Almost all of my “light” reading is books I get from the library. Mainly fiction but some non-fiction. It’s unlikely I’m going to read them multiple times so why buy them. I’m more likely to buy reference or instructional books as I tend to read them differently. Most I get from other sources than Amazon and are DRM free epubs which I read on my iPad or Kindle.
As a self-published author, I’ve sold over 25k books on Amazon, which isn’t a lot compared to Dan Brown but would make most authors very happy.
I’ve given away many, many more copies for free.
If someone can’t afford to pay for my books, or is too cheap to pay, or wants to feed one of my books into an AI to ask questions, then removing the DRM doesn’t bother me.
I pay for my iPads from consulting, so I don’t need the money from book sales (I make a couple hundred dollars a month) and I’m happy if others read them, no matter what they pay. That’s partly because I’m proud of work and I love that it helps people, but also the more people who read my work, the more consulting work I get, so it’s win-win for everyone. I write my books so they’re helpful, no matter whether people hire me. If they hire me, it’s because they have especially tricky problems that can’t safely be solved by reading a book.
If I was a full-time author, and it was my only source of income, and people were ripping off my book and selling it or giving it away for free, that’d really annoy me, because that’s theft. If they’re just de-drm-ing the books so they read them on their kobo, I’d shrug and not really care.
The publishers and Amazon, on the other hand, are very keen that people pay for as many books and kindle devices as possible. They think DRM helps them sell more, and I think they’re right.
Publishing and writing is a weird world.
Thought I’d share, not sure if it adds much.
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This is how I think of it, too. Remove DRM so that I can use the material in a personal LLM and/or move to another platform if I ever want to? Sure. (I’ve tried Kobo and happen to prefer Amazon’s hardware, but you never know what might happen in the future.)
But that’s okay only for books that I have a right to access — so only books that I or someone in my Amazon household has paid for.
I borrow a lot of ebooks from my local library. Stripping DRM from those is an absolute no. That would be stealing.
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I’m one of those “terrible” folks who remove the DRM from all my kindle books. I have bought and paid for all that I keep. For a while I bought and paid for a kindle unlimited subscription for my cozy mystery books that are like candy, read one but don’t refer to. I read a lot, up until AnimalTrakker® work ramped up to meet some delivery deadlines I was averaging about 150 books a year. of those about 50 were cozy mysteries but the rest are books I use and refer to often. I am not stealing books or book revenue from authors.
The Kindle apps do not allow me to take all the notes and highlights I need to to make the books useful for me. I can get the limited amount of highlighted material that Amazon allows from Kindle into Obsidian for my use and reference through a tortuous path of Kindle into Readwise into Obsidian. But the limitation on the number of highlights is a show stopper for me.
So I convert all my books to epub format, import them into Reader, highlight them there and those notes then are automatically synced into my Obsidian system.
Many of the books I need for this are not available in electronic form anywhere else and I do not like to buy physical books except in rare cases. They take up too much space and are hard to use as reference. In a typical session I may be reviewing and looking at notes and passages from 8-10 different books. I can flip among them fairly easily on my iPad. Not as seamless as I would like but doable. Yet even with my large desk when I add the other papers, pictures, hardware etc. involved in those projects I cannot even place that many books on my desk let alone keep track of where I am and what I am looking for. I already have 3 computers there and I often have 4 different Android tablets and misc other hardware systems or paper reference all in work at the same time. This workflow demands the ability to consolidate my electronic books into a format that supports further research and use of material I have paid to have access to.
So I am currently looking ahead for the next couple of years of planned work and trying to buy all the potentially useful books in epub format from somewhere else if I can but if not from Amazon now and getting them into my system for use later. The book budget for a year or 2 is being blown in the next week! But i can’t do what i am doing without that resource.
And DO NOT tell me to go to the library. I am in a very small rural area. Our libraries are VERY limited and I have to pay significant fees to borrow books from other places. It is typically $30-50 to get a book that exists somewhere else in a library to me here in my home town. I can’t afford that for the number of books I need. I save my physical book budget for those books that I cannot find at any place at all in epub format.
To say I am dismayed at this stance is an understatement.
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As I mentioned before, I have no problem with removing DRM. That doesn’t deprive an author, etc. of a potential sale. Libraries, OTOH, probably do but that’s an entirely different matter.
When I started college in the late 60’s I wanted to pay my own way, so I always purchased used books when possible. I didn’t even think about the fact that buying used books deprived the author of a sale. When I think about it today, I still see little difference in buying used or borrowing from a library.
What you are doing, IMO, is no different than people who purchase a book then cut the bindings off and scan it.
I share the opinion that removing DRM is good for readers and helps them be fans of authors. I don’t have an answer to the problem of piracy other than DRM-free/indie books tend to charge more and sell fewer copies, and make the same money plus have a direct relationship with their readers, and I’m happy to pay and participate.
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Same here! The Kindle app is good enough for casual reading (and there is nothing wrong with casual reading), but it’s less than ideal for research (or PKM if you prefer.)
I intentionally removed the DRM from the books I’d bought and left Amazon.
I did this on a few hundred books I’d bought, which I know isn’t ethically great. This was years ago (7+). After that, I started using Apple Books to store DRM-free copies of everything I need, and I’ve been happy.
I know it costs more, all the books in my Books library are from legitimate sources and it’s always cheaper on Amazon. Most are technical in nature, so the authors normally sell it DRM-free.
I feel I own them and store them on Apple’s servers, but I still keep backups of the original files.
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Just a heads-up, in case it makes a difference for cash flow: Even after the policy goes into effect, you’ll still be able to get Kindle books onto your computer and convert them to ePub format. You’ll just have to pull them off your Kindle, instead of downloading from the website.
It’s definitely more of a hassle, and Amazon shouldn’t be putting up this barrier. But doing the conversion is still possible.
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This is what I was referring to. Try and be a little nicer.
In traditional publishing, authors typically receive an advance payment against future royalties. This advance is paid upfront, and authors do not receive additional money from sales until the advance has been “earned out”—meaning the book’s sales have generated enough royalties to cover the initial advance. It’s reported that over 75% of advances do not earn out, indicating that most traditionally published authors make all of their money from advances rather than royalty earnings.
The examples I cited earlier are from what the authors have stated themselves.
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The problem comes when the author gets to the end of their contract (typically a 2 book contract in fiction) If sales have not been great for the first contract, even if they managed to surpass the advance, then the advance on the next deal is typically much lower. It does not impact the very big names (e.g. Sanderson) but it’s a massive problem for most everyone else trying to make a living from their work.
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Are you blaming lack of sales on piracy? There are so many tangents in this thread now, Im not sure I know how to reply. As I said in my earlier point, an EU study showed that piracy does affect sales. People who pirate were never going to buy. But they may spread the word and generate sales. Sanderson is probably the most pirated author in the world today, but people still buy millions of his books. The same goes for the little guys with smaller books. I would say books don’t sell because they are bad. This also prevents the desire to pirate them.
How? The Kindle that I have listed that I pull books down from has long since died. I can’t get the books onto it anymore but I never deactivated it.
Is there folder in ~/Library where the books are stored when downloaded with the desktop app?
When I think about it today, I still see little difference in buying used or borrowing from a library.
Not in the UK: here authors get a small fee every time a book is borrowed from a library. Public Lending Right (PLR) – The Society of Authors
It’s not a large amount (pennies) per loan, but it does mean that there is a direct link between borrowing a book from a library and the author getting some financial reward.
If you need to keep the book, sure, buy it second hand, but otherwise borrowing from the library is the next best way after buying new to help the author.
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Not that I can find. Searched in Application Support and in the Library folder directly.
I tried this exercise yesterday and was not successful. (That doesn’t mean it can’t be done, but I’m a reasonably capable person who made the effort and couldn’t get there.) I think having a working pre-2024 kindle is going to be the path forward for Mac users.
Ah, I missed that part somehow, and that definitely poses a problem.
The lack of direct download does mean a Kindle device is needed to get the books onto the computer and into Calibre, unfortunately.
If it’s any help, I’ve had good luck before picking up a cheap older model Kindle from Unclaimed Baggage. It might be a reasonably inexpensive option. (In my case, I was looking for something to trade in for a good discount when I wanted to try the Scribe a few years ago. So I didn’t keep the Kindle, but I tested it and it worked fine.)
I used the Windows version, as I was on Windows at the time and that allowed me to select a save location for my downloaded Kindle books. I didn’t check for Mac instructions I’m afraid!
It defaulted to My Documents > My Kindle Content, so there might be a folder in the Documents folder called the same on the macOS version?
Where there is no reasonable way for those who buy, they sometimes gain it by other means.
In this case, “no Reasonable way” mean:
- It’s not available for them to get a legitimate copy (not available in their geography)
- You can only get a License for the content rather than a copy which cannot be withdrawn or left unusable
Quite often I end up buying it some way and then downloading an unlocked copy to keep and store electronically. I’d much prefer to buy a DRM free copy directly.
This is obviously dependent on the contract signed with their publisher, but unless Authors self-publish on the Kindle Store, I’d guess that this is all in the publisher’s hands.
Dan Moren provides some great commentary on this on his blog like his post this year about his finances. My writing finances, 2024 – Dan Moren
Writers tend to get an advance (how much depends on past sales and negotiating) and then get royalties for the number of books sold each quarter.
One of Dan’s most asked questions is where Fans should buy a copy of his book so he gets the most money, his answer is that it’s much of a muchness so long as you do buy it, but that pre-order is best.
Books seem to be like music and youtubers, a very small number make a lot of money, but everyone else is in the long tail.
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