Major publishers are notoriously fickle about embracing new trends and give sloths a run for their money. We have seen this transpire with eBook subscription services and getting involved in digital libraries. The Science fiction community has been one of the most agile, and many companies such as TOR have completely embraced the DRM-Free mentality. Saga, a division of Simon and Schuster has just announced they are also going DRM-Free.
Saga is being billed as an all-inclusive fantasy and science fiction imprint publishing great books across the spectrum of genre, from fantasy to science fiction, commercial to literary, speculative fiction to slipstream, urban fantasy to supernatural suspense.
Saga’s first list will be released next spring with four titles by Ken Liu, Genevieve Valentine, Lee Kelly, and Zachary Brown. The eBooks will be available at all major e-book retailers and simonandschuster.com.
This is a good move for S&S to take a gambit with a new imprint that actually hasn’t sold any books yet. I think the most important aspect of this story is that the publisher is setting up an internal infrastructure to monitor the ramifications of going DRM-Free and how this will effect eBook piracy. Will readers embrace Saga just because its DRM-Free? Will the media give them kudos and endless free publicity like they did TOR? This all remains to be seen.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.