Hi all,
I hope i’m allowed to ask this, but i was wondering; do you buy your ebooks free from DRM? If so, where can you buy them, preferably globally?
EDIT: thank you all for your valuable comments, it’s much appreciated! Have a great weekend :-)
OP, you should consider editing your post and list the legal sources being suggested here.
I’ll add Smashwords. None of their books have DRM and they also act as a distributor for other outlets (B&N, Amazon, etc) and even give away ISBNs for fledgeling authors. Author have an incredible control over their work through them.
Lastly, allow me to leave two cents on the entire DRM debate.
I’ve trying my best to write and eventually publish my work. I could not care less for editors and publishers as they take the lions share for an authors work. What I care is recognition for what I’ve written.
Any author would be very lucky to have their book “pirated”; what best free publicity? Even you manage to sell 100 million copies of your book, you are still unknown to the majority of the world. Books are expensive for many.
I wish I can have, someday in the future, a fan writting me an email saying they got my book from a pirate site because they couldn’t afford even my work in ebook format and I’ll thank them for their support. At least whatever shit I write will be enjoyed and will have made someone happy.
DRM is a cancer. True fans, somehow, sometime, find a way to get a copy. And those who can’t or won’t for any reason, if they enjoy, they share and eventually new fans come.
I want to say that Tor Books releases DRM-free ebooks by default, and most of the authors I like these days are published via Tor. (And Tor being a SFF imprint is relevant to this sub.)
So I kind of get DRM-free eBooks by default.
The books I buy don’t typically have D’s that need their R’s M’d. If you know what I am saying.
libgen
I use Libby to borrow ebooks, they let you download epub version with DRM. Then I just strip the DRM with calibre and immediately return so i don’t take up the library copy anymore. Then I use the DRM-free epub I get from calibre to read whenever I have time, no 3-week time limit.
I need to learn how to do this. Not the borrowing books part, I’ve got that down. It’s the other part I don’t know how to do.
I don’t know if it’s a grey area legally. I dont buy the books, but i still have a permanent copy available whenever I need to.
And of course, you ethically delete the file once you have finished reading it.
Nudge. Right?