OK so this isn’t exactly hot off the press but I did put it in the microwave for you, so it should at least be warm. Wired recently had a chat with the folks behind Stanza — specifically about the iPhone version of the super duper e-reader. I’m a big fan of the program (“oh really, we couldn’t tell!”) and so the interview caught my eye immediately.

The focus of the piece was really on the newest update to Stanza which features a built-in browser and the addition of the FictionWise bookstore so that you can buy books right on your iPhone. Sah-weet! Or is it? There was a tidbit in the article that I found to be a really buzzkill and now I’m probably not so hot about buying e-books for a while.

Instead of saying it outright, I’ll just quickly quote from the article:

I asked Choksi why e-books cost the same as their paper equivalents, despite the the savings on printing, shipping and storage. “Printing and other costs of physical books has been replaced by DRM costs,” he told us, “also, support with ebooks is pretty high as well.”

My reaction? Aaaaaaaaaargh!!!! The really cool aspect of e-books for me was not just the portability, but what I expected to be lowered costs overall. I mean, c’mon, the books are all typed up anyway so that they can be published — so how much does it really cost to convert them into an .lit file (or whatever you use), slap a cover image on, and separate the chapters. My cat could do it and I pay her in tuna balls and water!

But let’s put the arbitrary whining aside and get to some factual whining. I was looking to buy the next book in the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher and wanted to see how much a copy would cost. It’s a whopping $25. Now I can understand paying around that much for a great mobile program, but I really, really can’t justify paying $25 for something that was already typed out and ready for conversion. I should be saving a lot, but apparently all the money saved is going towards locking the books down.

What’s more, I quickly googled the price of the hardcover copy of the book and found it for $18 at Indigo.ca (and that’s in Canadian!). Tell me again why I can get the hardcover for less than the e-book?

Anyway, there are already a billion rants about DRM on the internet so I’m not going to take this further, but I do suggest you give the Wired interview a read. Stupid, stupid DRM!

Whole Wired article right here.

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