It is the best of times for electronic ink but it is the worst of times for actually reading eBooks.
  • Sr Estegosaurio
    9·
    3 years ago

    I mostly download the books I read from illegal sources. Sad to say but I can’t pay all books I buy. Also it’s really complicated to get DRM-free material but if someone could recommend me some store I will be very thankful

  • Lionel C-R@lemmy.coupou.fr
    91·
    3 years ago

    I’m not a big reader but when I do I only buy DRM free ebooks or ones that I can de-DRM.

    Calibre with a plug-in for example can automatically remove the adobe DRM. I still have to pay for the eBook though since the plugin uses my adobe private key to remove the protection.

    Not perfect but at least I know I’m really buying a book and not renting it.

  • ree
    6·
    3 years ago

    The most annoying thing is that it’s hard to support writers if you collect the epub on libgen or similar.

    I’m not going to buy eBook on Amazon and I don’t want to hoard physical copies.

      • DPUGT
        3·
        3 years ago

        That’s getting harder to do. I read Stross’s blog sometimes, and he talks about how publishing works. A few years back he started talking about how there were no more “paperbacks”, and I didn’t know what to think of that. But yeh, they don’t really exist anymore at all, if you go into a bookstore. It’s all hardback and “trade paperback” (itself an excuse to sell a slightly larger paperback for $22, apparently). Obscure stuff isn’t even printed at all anymore. And only the most popular authors ever get hardback publishing… and the runs are small.

        If he had a tip jar, I’d maybe Paypal him something, but there’s even a blog post about why he doesn’t have one.

        • ree
          1·
          3 years ago

          last time I asked about ordering a specific book at the bookstore they said they couldn’t do it.

          The book was an published in the UK and with the brexit it was too expensive (iirc) to order small quantities to europe…

  • Zerush
    2·
    3 years ago

    Anyone who had to move to another home and had to transport boxes with half a ton of books, at least has the wish to have them in an e-book reader.

      • Zerush
        2·
        3 years ago

        There are always problems with DRM, e-books are no exception. It is an implementation of the industry to benefit them, the creator himself is that he has fewer benefits, on the contrary. Many times it prevents the general public from accessing the works in a simple way, hindering the author’s attempt to become known. But as they say, where there is an impediment, there is a trap to surround it, this also applies to e-books. Download e-books from Amazon or others big companies, certainly isn’t an option. Search the homepage of the Author, often he has books which he sell himself, classic authors are often in the web as public domain, but never in Amazon.