It seems strange that books, usually considered low-tech, became routinely downloadable only after music and film, but there is a simple reason: paper cannot be downloaded (yet) and ebooks need a reading device at least as good as paper. So even though ebooks exist since the 80s, the age of ebooks started only in 2007 with the Kindle, the first successful ebook reader and a real game changer.

If a book is popular, or if even just one reader finds it good enough to spend some time to make it available online, you will be able to find and download it in open standard EPUBformat (.epub extension), or Kindle-compatible MOBI format (.mobi extension). Sometimes, especially for technical or “serious” non-fiction books, you can find only a PDF copy, but PDFs are perfectly readable on iPads, iPads mini and most tablets. Not yet on Kindle-like devices, but there are good conversion tools such as the free and open source Calibre.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) locks don’t seem to be a significant obstacle. New books are often available as perfect DRM-free copies of commercial ebook editions, often unlocked with free DRM-cracking tools. Of course publishers try to make their DRM locks smarter and more solid, but hackers are smarter than 9-to-5 workers, and it just takes some googling to find new DRM-cracking tools and updates. Old books (think of vintage science fiction novels written decades ago) are patiently OCRed by fans and converted to electronic formats. This may introduce copy errors, but usually the result is perfectly readable. Often hacked downloadable copies are the only option to read old books out of print, for which the hackers and uploaders must be thanked.

I will not share detailed information and directions, but chances are that, if you really want to read a book, you can find a downloadable copy online.

This worries me. Yes, this worries me because I could live without music, and perhaps even without film, but not without books, and I know perfectly well that I depend on those who write the books that I read. If they stop writing, I won’t have anything to read.

Writing a book takes time, Time, TIME, effort, and energy. Some authors can write good books without leaving the day job, especially at the beginning of their career when they are young and strong, but professional quality writing is really a full-time activity. If a writer has to choose between writing and putting food on the table for the family, of course they will stop writing and choose the family. So I am afraid that not paying for books will make good books very scarce, and we readers will lose.

So what can be done?

One simple thing that we can do, is to pay for books;-) I am a big fan of Smashwords, the online distributor of indie ebooks. A book that I bought recently on Smashwords is very good (see my review here), and costs 0.99 US$, much less than a cup of coffee. Another reason why I buy books at Smashwords is that they sell DRM-free books.

I just hate DRM because I think technology should make things more usable, not less, and what happens with DRMed ebooks is that they become useless when you cannot read them on your favorite device. For example, my old Kindle, bought second-hand in the U.S., has no WiFi and only works with U.S. wireless networks, so I cannot directly download ebooks.

I don’t buy often from mainstream publishers via Amazon because: 1) I prefer ebooks to paper books, 2) I don’t buy DRMed ebooks, and 3) mainstream publishers are often too expensive – I remember my disappointment when I found out that the Kindle edition of a book that I wanted to read was actually MORE expensive than the paper edition – and very little goes to the writer.

But I always buy from Smashwords and other sellers of reasonably priced, DRM-free ebooks. So my advice to writers is, give preference to publishers of cheap, DRM-free ebooks.  Smashwords is a self-service WYWIWYP (What You Write Is What You Publish) publisher, but there are small publishers that offer editing and promotion services as well, for reasonable fees.

Rudy Rucker, one of my favorite science fiction writers (see my review of his last novel The Big Aha), gives an example of how publishing should be re-engineered:

2) The full text is available online (see also Notes for The Big Aha, a writing journal as entertaining as the novel);

3) It is published and sold, without DRM, by Rudy’s own publisher Transreal Books;

4) Instead of going to a traditional publisher for a cash advance, Rudy funded the writing phase via Kickstarter (I am sorry that I missed it, I would have loved to contribute).

Of course, any DRM-free book will be given to friends and spread on the torrent networks immediately. Smashwords books include a notice: “If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author,” but how many readers do that?

Someday writing may be considered as a public utility, and writers compensated with public money, perhaps proportionally to how many copies of their works have been downloaded.

But there is a better solution:

Let’s just give a basic income (aka BIG) to everyone, no questions asked, no paperwork, no conditions, no bureaucracy, no bullshit. Let’s give everyone the means to have a modest but decent life. A basic income would not be a “disincentive to work,” but an incentive to do important work, like art and creative writing, and to try to make the world a better place.

This is, of course, not the only problem that BIG would solve. It is evident that automation can only further reduce the need for traditional “jobs,” and an age of massive unemployment is coming fast. When I watch politicians on TV (not that I waste too much time paying attention to them), I find their calls for “jobs” surreal. The truth is, less and less people will be “employed” in the traditional sense, and BIG seems the only viable and sustainable solution.