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In which B&N misses the point entirely

December 28th, 2009 by masukomi

B&N has already screwed the nook with all its caveats. Today I discovered that they’ve also made a rather significant cock-up in their iPhone eBook reader too.

As you probably know from my post about the Kindle I refuse to buy any DRMd book and not because I hate DRM. But there are still thousands of free eBooks out there, especially all the classic public domain books from Project Gutenberg and Google Books. So, being curious about the iPhone versions of the Kindle and B&Ns eBook reader, I decided to give them a try and download a couple free books on them. Both kicked me out of the app and into the browser when I wanted to find a new book to download, which sucks from a user experience standpoint but is understandable in that they already had it written and it saved them from having to pay developers to make and debug an iPhone version of the same thing. But, when I attempted to actually download a free book from B&N I made a rather frustrating discovery. You can’t get a book from them unless you give them your credit card number even if the book is free.

Now, I know some of you think I’m being picky here. Most people won’t be going for the free books anyway. And that’s true, BUT it misses the bigger picture. Most people haven’t tried eBooks yet. Testing it out on your iPhone or computer is a great way to see if you like the basic idea without having to spend over $200 on a Kindle or a Nook only to find you really miss paper. Plus, if you’re still unsure, a free eBook makes testing the waters even easier. But, if you go to try it out on a free eBook and they tell you “sorry, we need your credit card for that free thing” you’re probably going to do what I did, and say “screw that” and walk away.

I’m not sure if this problem exists with Kindle for the iPhone or not, Amazon’s already got my credit card number, but both companies should be making this process totally painless. They should be going out of their way to encourage people to download the public domain books they have available. “Here, see how cool ebooks are. Try out any of these thousands of titles totally free on your iPhone!” People will try them, and say “Hey. This is pretty nifty. I should totally try it out with a book I actually want to read.” Because, let’s be honest, most people don’t want to read the classics, and the handful of us that do probably read an order of magnitude more books that have been published in the past 20 years.

The Kindle, the Nook, and their ilk all use eInk technology which is reflects, rather than emitting light, just like a piece of paper. It’s as easy on the eyes as reading paper and uses an incredibly small amount of electricity, but you first need to convince people that it’s worth the cost, and the free eBook readers people have on their iPhones and computers are an excellent for these companies to show people the value of electronic books (even if they do screw you with DRM). iPhone and computer eBook readers are, in the long term, going to be a minority of sales because it sucks to read off of a computer screen. But they’re treating them as if they’re equal to the eInk readers, when really, they’re just backups, or taste tests….

Whilst a crude statement, Amazon and B&N should be learning from the drug dealers of the world. They don’t just have free samples available, they go out of their way to make sure you get a free taste of what they’re offering, because they know you’re going to like it and want to come back for more, and then they start charging. Amazon and B&N have truckloads of free samples (public domain books) with name recognition: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes, The Art of War, etc., etc.. These don’t require special agreements, contracts, or payments. They’re free to everyone. And yet they hide them behind closed gates. “Nope, can’t get any free books until you give us a credit card” They don’t even promote them “What? The free books? Oh… yeah, I think we got some in the back.”

Give us the free drugs you idiots! It’s almost as if you don’t want me to buy your stuff.

[UPDATE: They responded to an e-mail inquiring about how to get the free eBooks without a credit card]

Thank you for your inquiry regarding free eBooks offered on bn.com.

We provide free eBooks to enable our customers to test the Barnes &
Noble eReader on their device of choice. All publishers require that
the eBooks they submit, including free eBooks, are encrypted for each
customer. The ?unlock? device is the billing name and credit card
number of the primary credit card on your Barnes & Noble account.

When you click on ?Get Free? for one of these titles, the default credit
card stored on your account will be authorized for the transaction or,
you will be prompted to set up an online account and provide your
billing name and credit card number. Depending on your credit card
issuer, this transaction will have a token authorization amount ranging
from .01 to $1.00. This authorization will be credited at checkout.

We hope you find this information helpful.

And I responded to them….

Your public domain eBooks were, in most, if not all, cases NOT
submitted by a publisher. YOU get them from Google and Google does NOT
require them to be encrypted. Google provides them free, and
unencrypted, to anyone who asks.

Even ignoring that fact, requiring a credit card in order to enable
“…customers to test the Barnes & Noble eBook reader of their
choice..” makes no sense. These are two ideas that run at cross purposes.
Furthermore, your free eBooks are used for FAR more than enabling
people to test your service as they constitute a massive percentage of
the eBooks you claim are available for the Nook.

So, again, since your public domain eBooks are, in most cases, not
submitted by a publisher and do not require encryption, why do you
require my credit card? If nothing else I should be able to read the
ones you get from Google without encryption since we know that Google
doesn’t require it.

[Update 2 they responded to my response]

Ebooks are encrypted for copyright protection purposes. This is why
Barnes & Noble requires that eBooks, including free eBooks, are
encrypted for each customer. Currently, the ?unlock? device is the
billing name and credit card number of the primary credit card on your
Barnes & Noble account.

Please note that for security reasons Barnes & Noble does not store your
card information in the eBook or on your device.

Visit www.bn.com and click on the options that appear in the upper
right-hand corner to view information about your order.

We look forward to your next visit.

And I responded by pointing out what should have been obvious….

I think you are unclear on the concept of “Public Domain”.
The copyright on the books we are discussing has expired long before
you ever started selling ebooks.

There is NO copyright to protect on these books, and as we have
previously covered, there is no publisher requesting encryption for
them.

One Response

Anthony K writes:
December 30th, 2009 at 8:58 pm

How frustrating. It sounds as if you got a canned answer. Obviously the public domain classics, seemingly with the exception of the Lovecraft novels, shouldn’t be DRM’d. I’m still curious about the Kindle. Panda Cat wants one. And I’m tempted by the possibility of not having to leave the house in order to buy my regular stack of magazines and newspapers. I’m still trying to sort out whether one can simply drag and drop a non DRM’d ebook from a source other than B&N or Amazon, say in PDF format, onto a Kindle or a Sony eReader or an iPod Touch/iPhone and read it. I’ve got droves of ebooks –– mostly technical documents, as they’re often included on CDROM with an actual book.

In time, we’ll see the market follow the same pattern as the digital audio player market. The iPod wasn’t the first DAP, but it dominated the market early and was extremely locked down and expensive until the Koreans and Chinese started making unencumbered knock-offs. With iTunes today, I can download a lot of content – audiobooks, video, etc, without paying or presenting a credit card, and it’s not a difficult search to find this material. I can also create my own content and provide it to others. Still, I don’t imagine B&N or Amazon one day offering us e-zines — you know, those handmade xerox produced homebrew alternative mags we all read as teens. But meh to them anyway.