It's Almost Like I Was Psychic! DRM Part 2

When I wrote about DRM yesterday, I didn't think the next DRM shutdown would come the next day (actually, later that night) and affect me. This just in from Fictionwise:

... Overdrive, recently gave Fictionwise notice that they would cease serving files to Fictionwise customers as of January 31, 2009. That means that eBooks purchased from Fictionwise via Overdrive's servers will no longer be downloadable after that date.

Read the full story here. Basically, you have until the end of this month to download and make copies of any books you have purchased at Fictionwise and back them up at your end. After 01/31/09, you will be unable to download these books in the format purchased.

The good news is, first, only about 4% of the books sold at Fictionwise were served by Overdrive (some customers have reported having none and I had only two of my books affected). Second, Fictionwise has already started replacing the books with ereader formatted books at no charge (sorry, no other format for this - they can do ereader because they own the format and don't have to pay an access fee to do this). They don't have them all replaced, as each publisher has to be contacted and an agreement worked out individually, but this was a fast response to what could have been a huge problem (and PR nightmare).

So, have your books been affected? Has it changed what you will tell the Federal Trade Commission in their “town hall meeting?

It's obvious some Kindle users don't care about DRM. Of course, Amazon now promises your books will stay downloadable forever, but what about how long your Kindle will be serviceable, since the books can't be read anywhere else. What else explains that Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan by Suze Orman, at a Kindle price of $7.99, is now the #1 bestselling Kindle book in three categories and the #5 of the overall Bestselling Kindle books? Despite the book being a completely free Download at Oprah.com, for an entire week (including today)? Sending the PDF to you Kindle would cost at most 10 cents (but is actually free, as Amazon still doesn't charge for this service).




#1 Finance
#1 Finance & Investing
#1 Financial Planning.
#5 The Kindle Bestsellers

BTW, for those who think the Amazon Bestsellers list and the Kindle Bestsellers lists are the same thing, this is one where Suze hasn't even broken the front page of the print book's list, nor is it listed on the National Bestseller's page. You can find the Kindle Bestsellers only from the Kindle Store tab, which, sadly, isn't the place you land when you use the categories menu to go to the Kindle store. Instead, you land on the order a Kindle page and most people then go to the Kindle Books page and browse bestsellers there (where print books have a big influence on rankings). Suze's book hasn't even broken the top 100 there.