A working question.

[theweaselking]

The last time I tried to pay money for an e-book, I was unable to do so for the first 20+ clicks and got frustrated and stopped.

The time before that, it was free books from Kobo and Google Play. Whose DRM was so hideously annoying that *for free*, I felt ripped off.

The time before that, it was from Baen so it was simple and easy and gave me exactly what I wanted, DRM-free, but that only works for Baen books and not, y'know, for books I want *now*.

Where does one go these days to pay reasonable amounts of money (Hint: Not more than hardcover price, Google Play, I am looking at you) and receive DRM-free (so AGAIN Google Play I am not looking at you) ebooks? ePub format preferred, but that's easy enough to change around on my end.

(And no, while I'm perfectly capable of ripping out Kobo or Amazon DRM, I'm not going to. Purchasing a DRM-locked product validates a business model that says "DRM-locked product can sell", and the fact that I crack it afterwards so I can read it on my device is not the point. And it's nowhere near *cheap enough* to make me put up with the DRM-cracking annoyances.)

So: Where does one go, these days, to purchase DRM-free ebooks in the format of my choice, at a reasonable price, with a good selection?


(While I'm at it: Anyone got a good working way to have reading sync wirelessly across multiple devices for non-DRM'd books, so I can be reading the same page on my phone as my tablet? Yes, I know that Kindle and Kobo will do that, but only for still-locked books purchased from them, and that's not useful. Bonus points for making it work in FBReader.)

Comments

[cyprinella]

I get mine generally from e-first publishers, like Samhain or Loose Id. Otherwise I'm still torrenting or grudgingly buying authors who I want to give my money and still have in my preferred format via B&N because I find their DRM least annoying to break (I don't have to download a program to download the original file like I do with Amazon). NY Publishers are not giving up DRM yet for the most part, however utterly stupid it is of them.

[pappy-legba.livejournal.com]

You're on a case-by-case basis with non-DRM ebooks, as far as I know. I would be happy to be wrong on this.

For cross-syncing across various androids, you can use moon+ reader pro, which will save your page to a dropbox account and sync across devices. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to move the ebook file itself, or at least I haven't found how to do it.

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

I also use Moon+ pro, and am happy with it as a reader (yay for letting you use your phone upside-down, so the charging cable is less annoying, for instance). I don't sync, as I only read on one device.

[pappy-legba.livejournal.com]

This got me hunting around the MR settings-- it will download to dropbox, but the interface isn't as direct as it could be.

(I use my tablet upside down for a different reason-- I'm left-handed and I have a case with a handstrap.)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I tried Moon+ free and Google Drive, but I hated the interface and especially the gargantuan ugly fucking animated ad so much that it was unusable and I wasn't going to pay the crazy-high-for-an-app price to unlock it without testing.

(And Google Drive does not play well with files you're trying to have open and make changes to. Is Dropbox better for that?)

[pappy-legba.livejournal.com]

I haven't had any syncing issues with the moon reader/dropbox combo, once I got it set up.

And yes, the interface defaults have Problems, but you can fix them. I hate the default theme, the default tap-to-advance behavior, and several other things. With some digging through the config, though, I found a way to fix almost everything I don't like. If only they would put some thought into their default settings to begin with.

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

I mostly buy off of Baen, download from Gutenberg, or very very occasionally Kindle but the latter is not always drm free. Also I think Diane Duane's ebook store. But yes, any particular book there is no guarantee of a DRM free copy.

[sleary.livejournal.com]

The selection at Weightless is improving, but I hate their cart's workflow.

For now, my solution is to buy from Amazon or B&N to take advantage of the selection and ability to sync, but strip the DRM in Calibre so I have clean backups of everything. This is tedious, but it's a good task for the days when I need something brainless and repetitive to do.

[thornae.livejournal.com]

I've just bought a Clarkesworld Magazine subscription from Weightless - I didn't find the cart too annoying, but I can see that it could do with improvement.


I bought from them specifically because they offer DRM free and, unlike Amazon, won't delete all my back-issues should I cancel the subscription...

At some point I'll get around to checking the rest of their selection.

[glaurung-quena.livejournal.com]

"Good selection" and "no DRM" do not yet overlap much. I think Your best one-stop shop bet is the Kobo store, where they only stick DRM on those books that the publisher insists have it. It's been a while since I shopped there, but I seem to remember that they kind of indicate which books have DRM and which don't, once you parse the marketing-speak.

Or, forgo the one-stop convenience and only buy directly from authors (eg, Book View Cafe) and from small presses that have not been drinking the DRM kool-aid.

[skington.livejournal.com]

Yes, Kobo tell you if ebooks have DRM. Got the latest Charlie Stross novels from there quite happily.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Sadly not really

Since I review books I have to read a whole load of books in different damn formats. It says something that I have 3 e-reader apps on my tablet, not including calibre, because the damn industry cannot sort its shit out and create some universal standards that work together

[thornae.livejournal.com]

You can probably guess which XKCD this is without even clicking on it (http://xkcd.com/927/).

[argonel.livejournal.com]

As I recall Tor has gone DRM free on their e-books, from any store, so that opens up some book availability to purchase from your preferred store. Also a recent update to google play books (stupid branding) allows you to read any non-DRM epub that you store in drive so that might solve the syncing problem if you can stand the interface.

Unfortunately most publishers are still fixated on preventing piracy instead of selling more books so pricing and availability of non-DRM ebooks is still pretty spotty.

[pappy-legba.livejournal.com]

I'm trying this out now. It looks like you need to do the initial upload through a desktop, but after that the sync/reading seems to work quite well.

Thanks for the info.

[affreca.livejournal.com]

There's a couple publishers besides Baen that have gone DRM free. Tor is the the biggest, and I think even their books from Amazon are DRM free. Baen also sells e-books from a couple of other small houses in their ebook store, including Nightshade Press (and cheaper than you can get the same books on Amazon for some reason). Finally, Book View Cafe (http://bookviewcafe.com/bookstore/) is an author collective that has publishes electronically (and directly) some of its members' back catalog (DRM free). It's a limited number of authors, but there might be a couple of books you enjoy (and I like supporting authors I like directly and getting copies of out of print favorites).

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Somebody on my FB list asked that exact question. The main answers seemed to be Smashword and Project Gutenberg. And the library.

[miss-bontemps.livejournal.com]

Smashword is something of a free-for-all. It's a bit overwhelming without having a specific author to look for. O_o

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

For cross-device purposes, use Calibre.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

How do I make Calibre sync libraries across devices? Specifically, across two Android devices, over the internet?

[thornae.livejournal.com]

Looking at post #11 of this thread (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147813), the answer seems to be to use Calibre to convert to .mobi, then use Kindle reader app to sync.


The only other non-ecosystem dependant one I've heard of is the Aldiko sync app for Aldiko reader (http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/aldiko-sync-for-android-uses-dropbox-to-sync-aldiko-ebooks-across-devices/). There was a nifty sounding online one called Ibis Reader, but it's now defunct.


Currently, this isn't an issue for me, as I've only the one device I use to read ebooks, but I'm sure at some future point I'll have to worry about this. Hopefully things will have improved by then (HA!).

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Converting to a bad format and using Kindle is a non-starter. The Aldiko Sync (and FBReader Sync! I like FBReader!) apps I saw looks cool, but require that I root both devices since neither is part of FBReader/Aldiko and thus need to be root to access their DBs.

Oh, well.

My current solution is "read two books at once", and that's actually not so bad.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

Dropbox or non-Dropbox solution?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Don't care. I don't have a Dropbox account, but I don't have the kind of philosophical objection I'd have if you'd said "facebook" or "amazon".

[torrain.livejournal.com]

I usually hit Smashwords, but the selection isn't great. Or the author directly.