Movatterモバイル変換

You are notlogged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it ispeer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

Required fields*

Rev

Required fields *

How does DRM impact the sales of eBooks?

DRM (Digital rights management) is a somewhat controversial anti-piracy measure. There are strong arguments on both sides of the debate, this question is not about the should/shouldn't debate. It just about sales, does DRM have any impact on sales?

Are there any studies indicating an impact on sales based on the presence or absence of DRM on ebooks?

Answer*

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][1]". 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 views on the matter as a producer of published goods and as someone who is trying to treat my latest effort as a "[book-as-a-startup][2]" (product vs project) are basically in line with those of O'Reilly in that you don't lose anything with digital goods sales unless more people who could have paid for your content don't pay for it *because* they elected to stick with the pirated versions. e.g. "People who don't pay you generally wouldn't have paid you anyway."

In some regards, you could actually look at it as a sign of viability and even a compliment if you were a highly pirated ebook author. Clearly, you've done something right to have become that "in demand".

Anecdotally, and along related lines, I've had many people tell me that they often will "preview" content by searching for a PDF and then following up with a purchase. In that regard, pirated versions may ironically lead to "conversions in sales" for the people who *would* have paid you anyway. 

Along related lines, many ebooks these days are inexpensive enough that it's just not worth the trouble to risk having an out of date pirated version when publishers like O'Reilly now offer premium services such as giving you automatic updates to Dropbox or Google Drive. In that regard, people who "would have paid you" probably will pay you for that premium of having the latest/greatest errata-free versions (at least for tech books.)

A closing thought: I suspect that there is a strong correlation between how pirated your content is and how many copies that you actually sell. (The sum of the two could be considered your "overall demand".)


  [1]: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0411/focus-tim-oreilly-media-e-book-antipiracy-steal-this.html
  [2]: http://miningthesocialweb.com/2013/11/23/confessions-of-a-prolific-moonlighter-with-a-chronic-writing-disorder/

tips on writing great answers.

Draft saved

Draft discarded

Edit Summary*

Cancel

Add a comment |

How to Edit

Correct minor typos or mistakes
Clarify meaning without changing it
Add related resources or links
Always respect the author’s intent
Don’t use edits to reply to the author

How to Format

create code fences with backticks ` or tildes ~
```
like so
```
add language identifier to highlight code
```python
def function(foo):
print(foo)
```
put returns between paragraphs
for linebreak add 2 spaces at end
_italic_ or**bold**
quote by placing > at start of line
to make links (use https whenever possible)
<https://example.com>
[example](https://example.com)
<a href="https://example.com">example</a>

formatting help »
answering help »

How to Tag

A tag is a keyword or label that categorizes your question with other, similar questions. Choose one or more (up to 5) tags that will help answerers to find and interpret your question.

complete the sentence:my question is about...
use tags that describe things or concepts that areessential, not incidental to your question
favor usingexisting popular tags
read the descriptions that appear below the tag

If your question is primarily about a topic for which you can't find a tag:

combine multiple words into single-words with hyphens (e.g.ebook-readers), up to a maximum of 35 characters
creating new tags is a privilege; if you can't yet create a tag you need, then post this question without it, thenask the community to create it for you

popular tags »