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I don't mind supporting authors, but I'd preferably like to avoid supporting DRM. What publishers or authors out there sell their books without DRM?

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[-] ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz 25 points 3 weeks ago

Cory Doctorow sells his books DRM-free (e-book and audiobook) on his webpage. Some of them are even pay-what-you-want.

[-] Yingwu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 3 weeks ago

It's always the sci-fi authors haha

[-] ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz 13 points 3 weeks ago

He also writes non-fiction. You might be familiar with the term "enshittification". He is the author who coined that term.

[-] Yingwu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 weeks ago

My favorite word as of recently. Super cool.

[-] ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)
[-] Yingwu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 weeks ago

Appreciate it!

[-] e0qdk@reddthat.com 12 points 3 weeks ago

Tor Books and Baen Books, IIRC. You can get DRM-free Sci-Fi from authors that publish with them.

Most ebooks I read are free out-of-copyright content from Project Gutenberg or freely published stories (e.g. fanfic, web original content) though.

[-] Yingwu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 weeks ago

Nice, awesome. Yeah I use Gutenberg and Standard eBooks liberally.

[-] mesamunefire@piefed.social 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Baen library is pretty great. They have been around for a very long time. They give you all the drm free files for books.

Check out their free library for some free books.

[-] Yingwu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 weeks ago

How's the general quality of the books they publish?

[-] mesamunefire@piefed.social 5 points 3 weeks ago

I'm a fan. They give you the full epubs + many other formats you never think about like pdf, html, txt, etc....

Just click on any of the books to give it a shot: https://www.baen.com/categories/free-library.html

[-] Limonene@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

Greg Egan's books are on Smashwords, which is DRM-free. Most of them have the first chapter available on his website, which is good because some of it is REALLY hard sci-fi. I chipped a tooth reading Dichronauts (metaphorically speaking). Scale is more accessible. Diaspora is my favorite.

[-] Yingwu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks! How's the quality on the rest of the website? Many books just look like sloppy erotic novels...

[-] Limonene@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago

Oh wow, I just now visited the rest of Smashwords, and yeah, it looks like mostly cheap romance. I've already read a lifetime supply of that as a kid, from fanfiction.

[-] jonathan@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 weeks ago

If you're interested in audiobooks too, https://libro.fm/ is DRM-free.

[-] other_cat@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 weeks ago

Juliet Marillier.

[-] white_nrdy@programming.dev 4 points 3 weeks ago

https://www.ebooks.com/en-us/ has a filter when searching for DRM free content.

[-] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago
this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2025
53 points (100.0% liked)

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