Still working on Xia. Right now, it’s going a bit slower than I’d like. Yesterday I cut some stuff, I think only temporarily, but I haven’t found its new home yet, and then rearranged some chapters which worked out really well, actually. I’m always glad (even when I have to remind myself of that) when I cut words that don’t pull their weight. I did some of that yesterday and tonight, but wrote a bunch of new ones.
And, let’s see, yesterday I tried to buy one of Harlequin’s Spice Briefs (sorry, no URL I’m too tired to find it) because my awesome friend Alice Gaines wrote one and I seriously wanted to read it. I couldn’t. I had no idea their e-commerce site was so awful. Wow. They’re really not doing themselves any favors. Not only do they not take all types of payments (No PayPal? No Discover?? Huh?) but it doesn’t work. Limited formats, too. But the part that got me frosted was the DRM. No Printing. What?? If I’d been able to complete the transaction (which I was not) I wouldn’t be able to print it, stick it in my binder of ebook goodness and read in bed. OK, so that’s pretty dumb, but I don’t think your average buyer is going to print it out and then copy it for all their friends. But I get that HQN is dumb about this. Most trad publishers out there are about this. But there’s also no reading aloud. WTF!??
So, I assume what they mean is if you’re vision impaired and want to have your text reader read it for you, no go. How stupid and anti-Americans With Disabilities is that? Isn’t that limitation illegal? That also means I wouldn’t be able to invite five friends over and read the story to them. Why not? I can invite those same five friends over to watch a movie. That’s not illegal yet. If I want to read a freaking book out loud to my friends, I can. What if I want to read out loud to myself? Like they could stop me. What about people who move their lips when they read? What if they accidentally whisper? Are the HQM DRM police going to come over and put them in jail? Can’t we outlaw annoying cell phone conversations first?
In short, HQN has stupid and probably illegal DRM on their ebooks. They only offer three formats. There’s about 10 people with Mobi readers. Wouldn’t it have been smarter to turn down the marketing bucks from the Mobi people and offer more formats? AND they have a shopping cart application that is flat out broken. AND they only accept two methods of payment.
Ellora’s Cave takes PayPal. They offer I think 5-6 formats. No DRM that I’ve ever seen. I print them out in a two pages per sheet small font, duplex and save them to read in bed. I’ve probably spent something approaching $100.00 of EC hotness. I have spent $0 on HQN. Which publisher do you think is laughing all the way to the bank?
And worst of all, I couldn’t read Alice’s story.
I’m tired. off to bed.
