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Comment Threads

• Charlie Stross commented on PSA: Where is the ebook edition of "The Merchants War"?
  And I have pirated legally purchased copies of my own ebooks in order to get my hands on the final, corrected, copy-edited text. (Hey, what can I say? It's cheaper than paying a typesetting agency $200 a pop for the InDesign files!)...
• errolwi commented on PSA: Where is the ebook edition of "The Merchants War"?
  On the downside, Apple threw their file specs at the publishers weeks before iBookStore went live, and demanded a significant catalogue at launch. This works really well (NOT!) with the wondrous iTunes, which will only let you download a file you have bought once, so you can't get a later better-proofed version....
• Sean Eric Fagan commented on PSA: Where is the ebook edition of "The Merchants War"?
  Amazon also doesn't like Topaz-format because it's larger, and they still have to pay for the bandwidth on the cellular connections....
• Charlie Stross commented on PSA: Where is the ebook edition of "The Merchants War"?
  Huh. "The Quiet War" by Paul MacAuley is a regular AZW (mobipocket) ebook on Kindle; its sequel, "Gardens of the Sun" (published a year or so later) is Topaz. My (cough) problem with Topaz is ... I won't buy a DRM'd product if I can break the DRM on it, thus ensuring that (a) I'll still be able to use it in 12-18 months' time, and (b) I'll be able to read it in my preferred e-reader (I don't like the Kindle software). Mobipocket? No problem. Topaz? not so good ... and there's no way of knowing in advance which...
• Charlie Stross commented on PSA: Where is the ebook edition of "The Merchants War"?
  Greg, regional licensing for books isn't going away this year ... it's probably going to take a decade or two, and even when it's gone for all new acquisitions it won't affect backlist titles (i.e. older works). Likewise DRM. From a purely pragmatic point of view the best solution is to figure out what DRM formats you can crack, then set up accounts in both UK and US to buy the ebooks you want, and crack the DRM for your own personal use. Charlie-Bob notes with interest that the Kindle app for iPhone runs happily on an iPod Touch, even...