E-book Conversion Help

[Bard A Madsen]

I've noticed that there are some computer techs. here.   I was wondering if someone can direct me to how I can convert my book to almost all E-books and able to sell it myself.  I've looked into it before and it is confusing with all the different types of readers and security codes.  Plus it seems all of them can be hacked.  I don't even understand why PDF's can be water marked and yet easily 'washed', why embed it when it can be erased?   I can have it done, but still I think I have to go through a retailer and they want a large part of the pie.  I haven't tried to run it though one of those free converters because there are around 200 images and a lot of long unfamiliar words that are surly to come out like ooobtttcccsk.  Is there a way to sell downloads myself without it ending up free around the world?  That brings up another problem with the retailer, they have huge complex contracts and give away your book and let people share them AND the contract is open ended, meaning they can change it anytime they want.  Reminds me of my last job wherein I had to sign piles of paperwork that I can't sue them and have to give 30 days notice ect. ect., but they can sue the crap out of me and can me in a heart beat, makes one feel loved.

[SteelCurtain]

I think you have to look into motivation.

If your book gets torrented, that is fantastic news for you. It means your book is doing well enough that someone took the time to set up a tracker.

Also, it will give you good numbers to pitch for book #2.

I'll give you a good example. I bought Between the World and Me by Ta-nehesi Coates (which is an international bestseller.) I have the physical copy, and I wanted to read it over the holiday break. I never gave myself enough time, so it didn't get read, and now I'm back at work and I want to get the audiobook. I cannot find a copy of it online. It is super popular, but no one has uploaded the audiobook yet. I say this to point out that books don't get torrented sometimes even when they're popular. There had to be a pretty significant demand.

My point is that if there's enough of a demand, then you'll be only moderately annoyed, I promise.

[Aractus]

It's the publishers who hate free public libraries. They lobbied hard against them (see for example the Public Libraries Act 1850). They even claimed it was a scandalous abuse of taxpayer money to spend on a service that not everyone would use. Publishers can't demand that everyone buy a copy to read it.

I don't think there's any reason to feel more threatened by torrents than public libraries, it's all just huff and puff from big publishers that want to control the market and dictate how their products can be used once sold.

[account_inactive]

Fuck copyright laws.

[Ravenshire]

Fuck copyright laws.

Nah. Fuck the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Copyright laws are a necessary evil. The DMCA simply stripped all the consumer protections from the original copyright laws in favor of protecting those who sell the media. Even the right of first purchase has been killed by it. There is simply no reason for the lock down the media companies want, other than their own bottom line.

To the OP, I have to agree with Steel's sentiments. If your book gets noticed enough for people to start file sharing it, that's good news, not bad. I don't remember which author I heard say it, but the gist was that "I fear obscurity far more than I fear piracy."

Have you looked at smashwords.com yet? They don't have the arduous contracts, you keep the rights to your work, you get to set the price points and they take a much smaller cut. But, you have to do your own promotion. This is the thing that most people simply don't understand about the media companies. They don't just sell your book. They market it. That costs money. While the biggest of them do take too much and bind authors way too tightly, they are still entitled to compensation for the work they've done promoting your book.

Smashwords does require that the books be DRM free. I look at that as a plus though...

Consider this: Someone buys your book from Smashwords and they absolutely love it. They tell their friend about it, but their friend doesn't buy it. So, they give them a copy of it and the friend loves it too. Did you lose a sale? No. The friend wasn't going to buy it anyway. Will the friend buy your next book? Maybe, maybe not. But they certainly won't if they never read the first one. Most people are honest and willing to pay for what they enjoy. Don't let the great "internet piracy" demon scare you. If it were anywhere near as bad as big media claims, there wouldn't be any big media.

[Bard A Madsen]

I'm a bit lost, this isn't the response I had envisioned. I started looking into it again and I think I ran into something I missed before and had given up. It seems it isn't so hard to do, mostly. Convert the Word Document into HTML and then convert to MOBI and EPUB and that should just about cover all the E-Readers. Now I guess is how to put in a 'code' to prevent sharing... What I would like to do is sell the book from my site, customer pays and they get to down load it and can't share it with their friends. So, I need to know at least what this 'code' is, a name, something. Plus I've tried to figure out how to take MasterCard and Visa to no avail, I've figured out PayPal and Google Pay but the customer just can't put in their card number, they have to sign up to use it.

SteelCurtain - What's a tracker? So give away the 1st one and the 2nd one. I think I can write another, but one at a time. Please explain, I don't understand the concept. Say, I have my site set up to sell PDF's, you don't think one person will buy it and share it like a pyramid scheme through each of their groups? One thing is, is that if I sell it it is better than the retailers rules where they put it up on a share site, give it away at their discretion, and take up to 70%.

Aractus - Public Libraries Act 1850 ? Can you explain what you think it is about so that when I try to read about its complexities again I can understand what your getting at? UK laws are new to me. I've always had a love hate philosophy with libraries. I found out the day before the cut off time (3 months) that you are suppose to hold off publication and let reviewers and the library system have your book first. So now no one will review it or will buy it for their shelves, I even took it to my local library and they were really happy and offish cause they know I'm an atheist and they don't want it there, they didn't even know what it is about, one just said 'Hawkins..' and they both kinda looked at each other.

Pony - Hmmm. I know Patent Law much better, I suppose that sucks too, right? I have a big problem with Sonny Bono, Disney, and our payed-off representatives with this 1922 block on copyright law ! I really don't understand completely cause isn't Disney a Japanese company now? How long shalt Mickey Mouse hold a gun to the heads of our law makers? I mean who really cares if someone makes mickey mouse's without Disney getting their $ after 94 years ! Plus holding back all those books with him.

SnakeOilWarrior - Digital Millennium Copyright Act? Now this I'm really confused over. Seems like the internet is alive and well with this impeding doom just fine. I wish you also could explain what you think it is about cause that looks like a huge document. I guess it is just me cause I use to work for the Just Ice system and have always tried to stay out of trouble. I went to extremes in my book not to have any copyrighted material cause I don't want to end up in court. I really don't understand the internet laws at all, I've seen many many sites that use pictures all the time I know are copyrighted and nothing seems to happen. I would love to use images of ancient artifacts from museums but legally can't, I get a bit up set because if they are publicly funded, we should be able to use a silly photograph of it ! Hey, if the professional photographer wants his money that is fine, but let in an amateur to shoot the object also! To me it is intentional suppression of knowledge, who cares if there are pictures of priceless objects out on the net? Plus they only let the Academia that is stripped of originality near the stuff and they can cite it all they want cause they answer their club emails, me they block.

[Aractus]

Well let me answer your question for you: Yes, ibooks can have their DRM stripped fairly easily, and no there isn't an "uncrackable format". But as SteelCurtain pointed out, that shouldn't necessarily be seen as a threat. Most people will want to pay for the content if they can.

Public Libraries give people free access to books. Most people only read a book once, or maybe twice after purchasing it. But a book in a Library can be read hundreds of times, thus the publisher only receives a tiny fraction of the amount "per read" when compared to selling new books. They didn't want this, and wanted to prevent libraries giving away free access to their IP.

Same thing again in Australia in 2001. Video Retailers Assoc. v Warner. Warner Home Video, and other publishers, had begun illegally printing "this disc is not for rental" onto DVDs. They claimed they have the right to enter into a rental agreement for their products, but the court found they did not. Subsequently they were forced to bin tens of thousands of DVDs and reprint them without that phrase. I actually have, as it happens, a Sony bluray that I bought which reads in the fine text "Unauthorised copying, hiring, lending, public performance, radio or TV broadcast of this BLU-RAY is prohibited". That text is an abuse of the law - it may not be very prominent, but it makes claims which they cannot make, and I'll be writing a strongly worded letter to Sony to demand a reprinted disc, which doesn't claim that I don't have a right to hire or lend it. But the point I'm making is not only did publishers believe they have a right to demand their retail products can't be put onto video library shelves, but they actually printed this on discs and on covers illegally, and forced the Video Retailers Assoc. to litigate in the Federal Court to have them stop.

What do you think Warner did after this? Well they then decided they would create a "rental disc" that would be released 2-3 months before the retail DVD and charge a much higher wholesale price for it. It's not at all what the copyright law wants them to do, but it can't really stop them either. So they're allowed to do that. What they aren't allowed to get away with is what's called two-tier sales, where you sell the same product at the same time for two different prices.

[Tiberius]

Ultimately there's no way to prevent sharing, because at some point you have to put trust in someone, and trust can always be violated.

Take eBook DRM (the "code to prevent sharing" you speak of). It tries to prevent the eBook file from being read on other systems and/or devices, however at the same time, the eBook formats are either open source, or have been reverse-engineered. So whilst Amazon will prevent you from opening DRM protected content on your Kindle, you could simply download a eBook reader that ignores DRM and open the eBook there.

By all means, add DRM if you think it's worth it, but unless you have evidence that you are losing income from your book being shared, it's probably not worth the bother.

[Aractus]

Actually I don't think DRM can be ignored, unless I'm mistaken, it can only be stripped (i.e. a copy made without DRM) if it's on an authorised device already.

[bennyboy]

I've noticed that there are some computer techs. here.   I was wondering if someone can direct me to how I can convert my book to almost all E-books and able to sell it myself.  I've looked into it before and it is confusing with all the different types of readers and security codes.  Plus it seems all of them can be hacked.  I don't even understand why PDF's can be water marked and yet easily 'washed', why embed it when it can be erased?   I can have it done, but still I think I have to go through a retailer and they want a large part of the pie.  I haven't tried to run it though one of those free converters because there are around 200 images and a lot of long unfamiliar words that are surly to come out like ooobtttcccsk.  Is there a way to sell downloads myself without it ending up free around the world?  That brings up another problem with the retailer, they have huge complex contracts and give away your book and let people share them AND the contract is open ended, meaning they can change it anytime they want.  Reminds me of my last job wherein I had to sign piles of paperwork that I can't sue them and have to give 30 days notice ect. ect., but they can sue the crap out of me and can me in a heart beat, makes one feel loved.

Your contract isn't one.  Any contract which allows arbitrary amendments is really just spittle in the face.

As for DRM, it's the digital equivalent of a picket fence in the park.  It says "Hey, I don't want you to copy this," but it doesn't actually stop people from doing it.