Showing posts with label indie authors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indie authors. Show all posts
Thoughts On DRM
First off, a quick explanation. DRM stands for digital rights management, which is encoding placed on a digital file that locks it for use on certain platforms or a certain number of accesses. So for a more specific industry example, a Nook book I buy could probably not be loaded to my Kindle. I can only read it on registered Nook apps and devices. In some cases, I might only be able to access the item on a certain number of devices.
The frustrations and impracticalities of this should be apparent from the start. When you purchase a DRMed ebook, you're not really buying the book in the traditional sense - you're buying the license to use the book. This means you don't actually own that book - the company you purchased it from does. This means you can't take a book you legally purchased and read it on another device. I recently moved from using a Kindle to a Nook, and I was faced with the choice of either breaking the law by stripping the DRM from the Kindle books I'd bought or abandoning my bought-and-paid-for Kindle library. It also means that if your Amazon account gets banned, your Kindle becomes an expensive paperweight. And what about that one time Amazon actually removed books customers had legitimately purchased from their libraries (fortunately, that move was for legitimate reasons and Amazon claims to have learned their lesson, but it doesn't stop the possibility of something similar happening again)? Here's another consideration: what if the company from which you've purchased the ebook goes under, like when Sony closed their (sizable) ebook store? Fortunately, companies realize this and have so far made deals to migrate user libraries to other retailers.
So you're probably thinking, "But I don't want people to pirate my books!" And that's a good point. No author doesn't want to receive payment for his or her work. But here's the problem: DRM only punishes customers. For so long the media industry has counted every illegal download as a lost sale, when in reality many of those downloads were by people who were never going to buy it in the first place. And there are more legitimate ways to combat the try-before-they-buy people, such as offering the first book of a series for free or generous sampling. Indie authors especially have more to worry about from lack of exposure than from digital piracy. Even big publishers, like TOR, have gone DRM-free - and the move has been hailed as a step forward.
But does DRM fight piracy? I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Hackers strip DRM from files with relative ease and sometimes just because they can. Unfortunately I can't find a link to it anymore, but I distinctly remember reading about an indie developer who released two versions of their game as an experiment: one with DRM and the other without. Apparently, it was the one locked with DRM that appeared on torrent sites.
As an historian, I also feel for future historians, who might not be able to access certain files because the devices that can read them are long gone. Another reason I think DRM is losing its worth is the continued globalization of our society - it no longer makes much sense to restrict media to one region alone.
So I encourage all of you to think twice before selecting the "Enable DRM" option when publishing your next book on Amazon. Do what you think is best, but I can assure you, all of my works have been and will continue to be published sans DRM.
Book Review - Evensong
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| Cover image courtesy of Barnes and Noble. |
Title: Evensong
Author: Krista Walsh
Publisher: Raven's Quill Press
Publication Date: January 30, 2014
Version I Read: Ebook
Rating: 3.75/5
The premise of this one intrigued me a lot, and not just because I'm a writer myself. I've always been a big fan of portal fantasy, and this one had a different take on it, so I checked it out.
Evensong is about a snarky, awkward author named Jeff Powell whose characters kidnap him and pull him into his own book - one he's frantically working on to meet his deadline - in order to enlist his help to save their world.
There will be spoilers.
There will be spoilers.
The world building, even though it could have been better, was still satisfactory - the author certainly did not bite off more than she could chew. I liked how she consistently showed that there was a lot more to Jeff's novel than he knew or realized - like the true temperament of the dragon, Raul's presence (whom Jeff just had a vague idea of existing) and history with the main characters, and the true feelings and memories of his characters. There was a particularly sweet moment near the end where Jasmine thinks a memory she has is something Jeff forced upon her, and he just smiles and says he didn't write that one.
There are also interesting ethical dilemmas posed that will make authors really think about why they do terrible things to their characters. We do it to make a plot, because without conflict, there is no story. But at the same time, as the book seems to suggest, we must have meaningful conflict, and not just throw in things because you have no better ideas. We really do make our characters suffer when, if we were to know them in real life, intentionally hurting or killing them would be out of the question.
Having Jeff sacrifice his creativity for a shot at helping everyone was a good idea, but I don't think the consequences were consistently shown all that well. What does it mean to give up your "creativity?" That could go so far as to take away your basic human reasoning (i.e. use a different tool to get a better result) and I don't feel that was adequately addressed.
The plot is winding and moves along at a pace that keeps you invested (with one significant example near the end that we'll get to later), and several well-timed deaths are effective in showing both Jeff and the reader that, in this world, people play for keeps.
There are also interesting ethical dilemmas posed that will make authors really think about why they do terrible things to their characters. We do it to make a plot, because without conflict, there is no story. But at the same time, as the book seems to suggest, we must have meaningful conflict, and not just throw in things because you have no better ideas. We really do make our characters suffer when, if we were to know them in real life, intentionally hurting or killing them would be out of the question.
Having Jeff sacrifice his creativity for a shot at helping everyone was a good idea, but I don't think the consequences were consistently shown all that well. What does it mean to give up your "creativity?" That could go so far as to take away your basic human reasoning (i.e. use a different tool to get a better result) and I don't feel that was adequately addressed.
The plot is winding and moves along at a pace that keeps you invested (with one significant example near the end that we'll get to later), and several well-timed deaths are effective in showing both Jeff and the reader that, in this world, people play for keeps.
I think the biggest problem are the characters - with the exception of Jeff, none of them had a lot of depth. This was quite the missed opportunity and perhaps this will get better in later books - we'll see. Jeff's insistence that none of it was real upon finding himself in his own book went on for far too long and really dragged the story down.
The plotting also starts to suffer and drag towards the end - I'm not quite sure why Walsh decided to have Jeff imprisoned and then try and squeeze a new character in towards the end (who quickly dies). I suppose this character does give the readers a little insight into why Raul's people follow him, but her and Raul's guards' interactions with Jeff just started to get repetitive and boring. The writing and plotting suffered from after Cassie's escape to the final climax, which was an interesting ending and I'm pretty sure will lead to the issues of the next book.
The final significant issue is the lack of clarity regarding how exactly Jeff influences the world. This one isn't as glaring as the former two, but I think it's still worth mentioning. While I do like the unanswered question of whether Jeff's just observing this world and writing down what he sees vs. actually being akin to a god, towards the end of the story greater clarity was critical to make the plot make sense (why COULDN'T he just write Cassie out of the book, or kill off Raul in a twist, for example?).
The final significant issue is the lack of clarity regarding how exactly Jeff influences the world. This one isn't as glaring as the former two, but I think it's still worth mentioning. While I do like the unanswered question of whether Jeff's just observing this world and writing down what he sees vs. actually being akin to a god, towards the end of the story greater clarity was critical to make the plot make sense (why COULDN'T he just write Cassie out of the book, or kill off Raul in a twist, for example?).
Unfortunately, I can't bring myself to give the book 4 stars due to its flaws, but it is certainly not deserving of the mediocre 3 or even 3.5, so I'm going with 3.75 for this one. I am interested enough to read the next book, once my pile thins a little.
The Verdict: Evensong is a well-written, fast-paced book that poses some interesting questions to authors. The characters are weaker than they should have been, there are some plotting issues near the end, and some obscurity in how certain things worked.
Neither Karen Lofgren nor Loyalty Press has any affiliation with the author or publisher. This review constitutes Fair Use.
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