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Continuing discussion on a previous post...
What would make you take a chance with an unknown small publisher to purchase directly from them? Formats available, no DRM, payment methods, what? (Yes, I have a reason why I'm asking, no I'm not going to share it right at this moment. *vbg*)
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That is in order. If I really want the title and that particular publisher is the ONLY one carrying it, then that trumps all others.
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My friend's List
Publishers (Llewellyn, Imannon Press, New Page Books in particular (Reviews of their titles))
Random browsing on the Internet
I typically do a bit of research to find the cover blurbs, possibly an excerpt and then I look and see through Google if there is an ebook out there of it.
If it's free, I'll download it and read it, purchase later if I plan on reading it again. Sometimes I ask the publishers for review copies of the ebooks (see list above).
Then if it's an author I already like, or a genre I already like (such as Star Wars or so on) I'll do the same process, look for an ebook.
So it's not really any particular place to read up on it.
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How sad is it that you have to search all over the place to find that info (blurbs, excerpt, formats available), and you can't just find it in one place, like the publisher's site. Logic is not many companies' strong points--I mean, sheesh, why would you want to give potential customers all the info they could possibly want before purchasing in order to, y'know, encourage them to make the purchase. [/sarcasm] Geez. *g*
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I tend not to trust a publisher's site on their books since they want to sell books, that's their job. So they are only going to show the best and brightest. So I still hunt around for ALL the reviews to see what is being said that's negative about it.
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But really, you should be able to get all the other info (not reviews, I'm with you on that) on the publisher's or author's site, and not have to rely on Amazon or elsewhere.
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Most times when I look at a publisher's site they only have a couple sentence synopsis and that's all. I do use the cover blurb as a guideline.
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What sort of information would you like to have about formatting before buying? A note saying all HTML formatted files are valid XHTML, that sort of thing?
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Mostly I just look for what kinds of formats are offered. I buy .lit so usually it's not a problem for me to convert it and keep all of the formating intact. If I were buying other formats, knowing that sort of information would be good. For example, the HTML file I got from the publisher I mentioned, was some fancy IE file that had all the pictures encoded somehow. Great if you use IE for everything, but didn't open in Firefox and couldn't be converted as is for my Sony. For pdfs, knowing the size and what it's optimized for would be good. Samhain does two different pdfs - one for screen reading and one for Sonys. If you did end up DRMing stuff, knowing what software you'd have to have would be important. I've heard a lot of bitching about Adobe's Digital Editions and compatiblity.
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People who code only for IE should not be allowed on the internet. I'm just sayin'. Sheesh.
(And we're definitely not going to do DRM on any format. I'd hurt something if I did, given how much I bitch about it. *vbg*)
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Formats helps for repeat business--I can't read .lit docs without converting them, and I'm not sure I can download them at all because I don't have the software to register my computer as a .lit device. I prefer epub. Or rather, I prefer zipped HTML and I'll put it through my own software because I don't trust a lot of the choices publishers make about formatting. But if they're well-formatted books (no half-inch margins for my 4" wide screen), epub is simplest for me. PDF is okay because I love PDFs and I can convert them easily--but a lot of other people don't, and can't.
Taking PayPal helps. I don't want to give my financial information to dozens of sites, and I'm less likely to make that initial purchase if I have to give info to a site I might not buy from again.
Good site code. Good searches, good shopping cart software. Not that I consider these "important," exactly, but if anything at all is glitchy, I'm less likely to remain at the site. (I use Firefox 2.20, and have dialup internet at home; "glitchy site" is fairly common for me to run into. And I'm unconcerned with rebuttals of "well, you should upgrade to DSL!" Businesses that rely on high-speed connections obviously don't want me as a customer, and I respect that choice.)
Included in "good site": good grammar & spelling on the blurbs, no annoying blinky stuff, limited/no flash, easy-to-read layout. Links to info pages like "These are the formats we use, and here's links to the software you'll need to read them" and "Here's our bonus purchase policy spelled out in great detail" and "Here's our returns/bad file credit policy" are also good things, and would help me believe the site was worth risking my money at. "Click here to send email to our customer service dept" is not a good thing. (Well, not if it's the *only* customer service info.
Recommendations. I bought from Freya's Bower because one of the authors was recommended on some of my email lists. I'd never have found the site by random browsing, and wouldn't have bothered buying from them.
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Businesses that rely on high-speed connections obviously don't want me as a customer, and I respect that choice.
Exactly. And me, too, with the voting with my feet because of a crappy site. (I can't tell you how many times I've had to talk someone through the whole standards/browser/connection speed when working on a site--man, what a long discussion. The argument that usually ends up making my point? It's not about being good citizen and having a site that's accessible to all. It's almost always the "you're losing sales with that site" argument. Arg.)
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1. After all the above, title is king for me too. If the book is available at another shop I usually buy from, I'm 90% more likely to get it at the site I know.
2. Formats available. I am not very familiar with Calibre or other hardcore conversion software atm (something I'm longing to remedy when I suddenly magically have tons of free time *g*), so I want .mobi/.prc, or something malleable like HTML or DOC/RTF.
3. Price. Above $20, I'm not even going to bother with a small press unless it's like, three novels in one or something. $10 will get the book a first look. If it is cheaper at a more familiar site AND available there too, I'll grab the book from the site I'm more familiar with.
Practical illustration: I bought a book from MyBookstore & more just about 30mins ago, but only because Smart Bitches had heavily recced a Samhain book available only through MBaaM (afaik). I HATED, as in, DESPISED whatever software they were using to run their glitchy shopping cart, but I bought the book because it was cheap (~$6), recommended, and because I was just in that mood tonight :). In a less book-happy mood, I would have been put off by the bad shopping cart software--maybe have looked for the book elsewhere, or abandoned the purchase entirely.
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I haven't bought anything from Samhain/MBaM, but I sympathize with you on the site thing. That's the single most annoying part of most sites from the user's end. (And speaking as someone who has spent the last two months evaluating shopping cart software, I can tell you how much they all suck. Geez. I finally found something that I can drop in on my already designed standards-compliant site, but sheesh, what a mess.)
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Personally, I really like no-drm because I'm never happy with the formats other people make so I like being able to run ebook through Calibre and give myself 1px margins on LRF files.
Necessary formats. Mobi, Epub, Lit, LRF (okay that's probably not necessary but it'll be nice) and HTML.
payment methods. I like paypal.
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Baen's one of the few publishers (Harlequin's another) I think that will actually make it through this transition intact, because they get it. Unlike 99% of the publishers in New York who are still hung up on some mistaken idea that they're the arbiters of taste and the guardians of the gate and things should be done their way because they've always done that way! *rolls eyes*
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I really don't get why more publishers don't sell ebooks like Baen???
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Because most publishers (like many companies) are listening to marketing people, who are screaming about theft and giving things away for free. They don't understand the economy of small scale (sell lots of items at a low price, as opposed to selling a few items at a high price) at all, which is what ebooks are and really should be all around.
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