But anyway.
In the world of publishing, the ARC is not King. The ARC is sort of like the King's herald, the one who goes beating at the doors of every noble in the land to announce that way-hey, there's a ball coming up, and every marriageable girl in the Kingdom is invited. When the ARC arrives, all the local lords assess it, maybe take a peek at it behind closed doors, and decide just how much they're willing to spend on new dresses for those pretty little maids in waiting. The ARC sets the stage, and gets the discussions started.
The ARC isn't your only marketing tool, of course. There are hundreds of ways that people learn about books, from author websites to word of mouth to advertisements in industry magazines. But it's the ARC that kicks things off, much like Noah and his ark kicked off an international boat-building industry. You know. Later. After we got over that whole "fear death by water" thing that was going on at the time.
I'll be honest: There are issues with ARCs. Some people sell them, which is bad and wrong and totally uncool, and also makes me die a little bit inside. Some people don't actually get around to reading them, turning them, instead, into somewhat expensive, really weird paperweights. They're fragile, so they fall apart under any sort of rough or extended use—and for people like me, who tend to read their favorite parts eight times, take books in the bathtub, and generally...let's not say "abuse," but, instead, "experience" their reading material, this can result in my finishing the ARC in its new incarnation as a handful of unconnected pages. They aren't perfect.
That said...the ARC is a way to build buzz early. The ARC is a way to get the book out there into the world, gaining support, courting blurbs and positive reviews, and basically saying "Hi, how are you, I'd really like it if we could get to know each other better." Have I had ARCs show up on eBay? Yeah. I have. I've gritted my teeth when people came up to me to proudly tell me about the ARC that they just bought off of the Internet, and tried not to say anything when they went on to tell me that they wouldn't be buying the mass market edition because "This one is more special."
But I've had more people come up to me and tell me, in all sincerity, "I heard about your book when a friend loaned me the ARC." Or: "I saw a review posted of an ARC of your book, and that's when I decided I wanted to read it."
What brought all this on? John Scalzi has some comments on the concept of the "eARC"—an ARC issued only as an electronic file, and I found them really fascinating, from both a practical and a philosophical point of view. The discussion in the comments is also fascinating, with people calling out both the good and bad aspects of the physical and virtual ARCs. One of the ones that really spoke to me was the concept of scarcity. See, ARCs are intrinsically scarce. Only so many are printed; there is no second print run. If there's an error in the ARC, that goes out to everyone. If an ARC gets out before you want it to, well, that's your tough luck. And I look at all the fuss and bother about runaway ARCs, and wonder...
How long is really going to take for somebody to break the encryption on the eARC? And really, how long is it going to take before some people start saying "Well, if you're posting the text of something that was always intended to be free (because ARCs are not for sale, remember?), how is that piracy?" I can see the justifications from here. (No, I don't think the majority of people would ever even consider that. Sadly, as keeps coming up, piracy isn't going anywhere, and it makes my cats cry. Making my cats cry is a cruel, cruel thing.) Going eARC-only limits the chance for surprise readers, for readership on buses and in bathrooms, and for readers who don't have an ebook reader. If we go eARC-only, I won't be reading my own ARCs. Pardon me while I find this...ironic.
I hope we can find good answers. I hope we're asking the right questions. And I hope that when you're invited to the ball, you'll put on a nice dress, and you'll come.
Please?
May 11 2010, 03:22:42 UTC 7 years ago
May 11 2010, 03:53:19 UTC 7 years ago
May 11 2010, 03:45:37 UTC 7 years ago
For example you might want to read this blog post from wolfire software.
http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Sav
They are selling a bundle of indie games with no DRM and name your own pricing, down to a penny and they still have roughly 25% piracy. So far they have received about $830,000 by selling this way.
I know the though of someone stealing your books distresses you, but it is probably worth letting a few people steal it if you make it easier for lots of people to buy it. I for one will not buy DRM restricted books because it makes them much harder to read on my phone. I also don't trust companies to not shut down the DRM once something new comes along locking me out of the books I paid for.
All I hope is that you will think about it, as you don't have the power to change your publishers policies anyway.
May 11 2010, 03:56:38 UTC 7 years ago
As has already happened with 3 different sources of DRMed music files.
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May 11 2010, 03:55:19 UTC 7 years ago
And their experience is that reasonably priced ebooks *increase* sales of the hardcopy versions. also, the authors actually get a pretty good share of the ebook prices.
Sure, there are folks who distribute pirated copies of the pay-only ebooks/eARCs. But they are a minority.
And keep in mind that even hardcopy books get scanned, converted to ebooks and distributed. So eliminating ebooks or encrypting them doesn't really slow down the appearance of pirated ebooks by much.
Check the various alt.binaries.ebook groups on usenet to see what I mean.
So it's basically a question of how much inconvenience you are willing to put the readers/reviewers thru to at best *slow down* pirates.
May 11 2010, 04:02:13 UTC 7 years ago
Please don't turn this into me slagging on ebooks. It isn't, it won't be, and all bringing that topic up again does is make me too damn tired to want to cope.
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May 11 2010, 04:28:49 UTC 7 years ago
I just get woobly. And yeah, ARCs definitely enter the commerce stream from time to time. I don't actually object all that much if they do it after the book has been released.
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May 11 2010, 04:34:27 UTC 7 years ago
The professor who's a children's librarian would bring the ARCs that she and her fellow school librarians didn't want.
I loved getting a chance to read books that I wouldn't normally and one of them introduced me to the newest series by one of my favorite authors.
Currently I'm holding onto mine, but I've seen a few for sale in the great used bookstore in town.
May 11 2010, 16:39:31 UTC 7 years ago
May 11 2010, 04:53:03 UTC 7 years ago
How long is really going to take for somebody to break the encryption on the eARC?
About 2.6 seconds. Well, ok, maybe a few minutes. But in terms of the time between the eARC is made available and the time somebody can actually go down to their favorite indie bookstore (shameless generic plug) and pick up something made from
good honest hempdead trees? A wee small fraction.Now, I'm not sure they'd take the time to break the encryption on *your* book specifically... yet... but they're gonna use the same method on yours that they do on their best-seller-list books...
As for the ball? Do the guys have to wear dresses too? Or will a nice kilt do?
Gripping hand: Thanks for making me *think*; the questions you've raised are, I hope, directly relevant to my livelihood in the not too distant future.
May 11 2010, 05:07:27 UTC 7 years ago
Well, I suppose I could, but really, I think I'd rather go with a dress shirt, slacks, and my wood tie. I just don't think I'm one of the guys that looks good in a dress.
May 11 2010, 16:43:39 UTC 7 years ago
May 11 2010, 05:25:25 UTC 7 years ago
What I wonder is, now that the chain store that was small enough to require you to sell books is gone and half the independents are gone, who gets ARCs these days? I'm assuming it's prolific Amazon reviewers and independent sellers and the Big Bs who don't really hand sell. Can I get on a list? I'll tell all my friends about the great books I'm reading.
Now, I'm going to go suck down as many pages of Feed as I can before the baby wakes up or I need to go to sleep because the baby is going to wake up and I have to be in the city at 8:30. And look pretty too.
I put down Sookie Stackhouse to read Feed. I guess maybe that means I'm pretty happy with your writing...only wish my kids had not been screaming/puking as we were leaving GG Park on Saturday. Might could have stopped by and dorked it up in the presence of a Real Writer.
May 11 2010, 16:56:58 UTC 7 years ago
Also, dude. The fact that you put down Sookie for Feed is amazing. I wish you'd been able to come by!
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May 11 2010, 05:57:02 UTC 7 years ago
May 11 2010, 16:57:37 UTC 7 years ago
May 11 2010, 07:49:54 UTC 7 years ago
It will hurt sales, in a way that conventional piracy can't - it gives the whole experience EARLY.
I'm of the firm opinion that 99% of those who pirate Item X would never have purchased it in the first place (and thus are not lost sales). I also believe that of those who would buy Item X if they couldn't pirate it, at least 80% of them will buy it anyways.
But if people get the whole kaboodle a few months early, that kills motivation to buy the book 3-6 months later.
I only see a few ways around this problem.
#1 is not ideal by any means... make eARCs only partial books. Maybe half of it. Enough for the reader to get into the book, drive interest, and push them to buy the final product... but inherently worthless as far as piracy goes.
Cons are that you get no advance reviews, and a LOT of reviewers are liable to refuse to read half a book, knowing they have to wait months to finish it.
#2 is a secure website. Distribute logins to authorized folks, and have an IP/login monitoring to detect and shut down any login credentials that are shared. Technology to detect overshared logins has been around for decades.
The con here is that all reading has to be done on the website. This gives it flexibility (any browser on any device), but ties it to constant online access and the quality of the website in question.
#3 is to significantly watermark the PDFs, so that once a copy is found to be shared, you can track down the source real easy, and blacklist them in the future (or even pursue legal action, if accompanied by some kind of NDA). The text would be included as images, so it would not be inherently extractable. And likely in an unconventional font to try and foil OCR.
This is likely the most user-friendly way of doing the whole eARC thing, as PDFs are inherently portable between all sorts of devices.
There's a future in eARCs. Everything is going "e-" and this will be no exception. It's cost saving if nothing else.
IMO, the best way to proceed with eARCs right now is simple... publishers have their registry of "People To Send ARCs To".
Work on contacting those people, and ask if they're interested or willing to accept eARCs in the future.
Then send them the files, and everyone else the paper.
May 11 2010, 16:58:10 UTC 7 years ago
May 11 2010, 09:42:34 UTC 7 years ago
I've got to say that now I've started getting ARCs, I'm kinda at a loss as to what to do with them after they've been read. I can't give them to a second-hand shop because they're marked as not being for sale, putting them in the recycling feels wrong and logistically I can't keep all of them (even though I secretly hope that I'll end up with one for the next JKR and it can be my pension fund).
Where I've got ARCs in advance of publication, I'm going down the route of having a give-away for them. That way it helps get out the message that a book is out (or coming out) and someone else gets the benefit of a free copy that they can in turn tell people about.
But it is a bit of a conundrum.
My personal take on eARCs is that they're going to cause problems in the long-run because no matter how tightly you encrypt them, someone will bust it. I know several authors who have had problems with people deliberately selling book ARCs on line to hurt sales (which makes me want to kick those people in the shins).
In other news, I picked up a copy of Rosemary and Rue from my local Waterstones yesterday and it's the next book on my To Read List.
May 11 2010, 17:04:24 UTC 7 years ago
Hooray, Rosemary and Rue!
May 11 2010, 11:13:11 UTC 7 years ago
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May 11 2010, 12:12:35 UTC 7 years ago
1. Much harder to carry around and have people notice you're reading. When I was reading Feed I was adoring it, and I was very much going to use every chance I had to tell people just how much I was adoring it. A lot of those conversations came from people asking "What are you reading?"
2. The encryption. It would be very easy for someone to break that and widely distribute the book.
May 11 2010, 18:04:22 UTC 7 years ago
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May 11 2010, 17:28:23 UTC 7 years ago
Conceptually, I like a DRM'ed and time-bombed e-arc for reviewers. Read it, review it, allow for some period after the scheduled release of the physical book for comparison, then the file eats itself. Unfortunately, folk are right, some bastard will crack that and spread it around all over the place. On the other other hand, I agree with the person who said pirates never buy, and buyers rarely pirate. Color me conflicted.
May 11 2010, 18:18:52 UTC 7 years ago
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May 12 2010, 00:47:42 UTC 7 years ago
However, my biggest objection to eARCs now? The publishers want to put expiration dates on them. I can't always get the book read by release date (I have a ton of books at any given time) and would like the extra time to read them. I don't think they should expire at all, but that's me.
May 13 2010, 15:51:53 UTC 7 years ago
May 12 2010, 17:33:33 UTC 7 years ago
I'm a reader primarily. I occasionally review books on LibraryThing -- always if I get them through LT Early Reviewers. I don't feel like I write reviews very well, though, and I'm not sure how to develop that skillset (much less whether I'd have the time and energy to devote to doing so, if I did know how to go about it).
So...why are there so many ARCs in my collection? A few I bought, most were free. I know of at least two legit reviewers -- a magazine and a bookstore -- who sometimes sell ARCs when they're done with them. In the case of the bookstore, their sold at special events, for a nominal charge(which keeps the locusts away so everyone has a chance to look through them) and by the end of the day, I hear "just take what you want". Thus, if there's something I'm especially interested in, I'll pay a few bucks for it to make sure I get it. Mostly, these are books that are already out -- sometimes for a couple of years; occasionally, they aren't quite. The magazine, I've seen selling ARCs in a convention dealers' room. They charge a little more, but I think the idea is a) clear out the storage b) fundraise and c) get people to the table and hopefully sell subscriptions (not necessarily in that order). I've bought a few from them; mostly books I was interested in, but not interested enough to pay full cover -- had I not bought the ARC, I probably would have bought it used. Is this moral / ethical? I don't know; I seem to be OK with it, but maybe I shouldn't be.
When I have had and read an ARC sufficiently far in advance of publication, I have provided continuity-error feedback when needed. (In the case I'm thinking of, I sent it to one of the authors to pass on to the publisher, as the publisher contact info wasn't on the copy I'd won in a giveaway.)
I did buy one ARC off eBay recently; I also bought the final version when it was released. In this case, it's a collector thing -- I have both the ARC and release versions of the first in the series, and the authors are friends of mine. This ARC was somewhat hard to come by, so eBay was the only way I was going to get a copy. The seller was the Friends of the SFPL, so the money went to a good cause. Again, I don't know if it was morally / ethically correct, butit doesn't seem to bother the more talkative of the authors, at least -- I haven't heard from the other one yet.
With an eARC, I probably wouldn't bother. I don't especially like reading ebooks, at this time; I might adjust eventually.
May 13 2010, 15:54:27 UTC 7 years ago
I don't do ebooks either. I keep wanting to edit them.
May 13 2010, 17:09:48 UTC 7 years ago
* Piracy. The obvious comment.
* There is no need to "break" the encryption, because, by definition, you're handing the decryption keys along with the encrypted text. http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt has better explanation of it, if you look for "Alice".
* Scanning an ARC is not hard. Turn it into a sheaf of loose pages, feed it into a scanning machine. I am not sure why people would put up the eARC on the torrents and not the scanned-in-ARC (or vice-versa): they seem about equivalent from the copyvio perspective.
* I remember that one of your issues with ARCs was that they're a sizable marketing expense. eARCs seem infinitely (literally!) cheaper :)
May 13 2010, 17:13:20 UTC 7 years ago
2. No, my issue with ARCs is that they're a sizable marketing expense which people then attempt to co-opt for their own profit. Not the intent. You may not profit from an eARC the way you could from the sale of a physical ARC, but the potential for widespread distribution is much higher.
3. As a rule, eARCs are coming with protection of one form or another, whether it be a code required to open the file or a specific reader required to view it.
I dislike the idea of going to eARC only. You're not going to change my mind.
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