When I bought my first physical eReader, I was devastated to learn that I didn’t actually own the books I purchased. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo primarily sell you licenses to read digital books, which they’re free to revoke at any time.
Ever since finding this out, I’ve made it a priority to seek out DRM-free books and comics instead. While I can’t purchase most bestsellers this way, I’ve still come across far more than I could ever read. Here are the top sources.
For many gamers, Humble Bundle needs no introduction. It made its debut in 2010, offering bundles of indie games with a choose-your-own-price model and a lack of DRM. A proportion of each bundle goes to charity unless you tell them otherwise.
The organization now offers a rotating selection of book bundles in addition to games. At any given time, you can select from a half-dozen bundles on topics ranging from science fiction novels to home improvement guides. Humble Bundle is also a great way to amass a large collection of DRM-free comic books and manga. These cheap deals are one of the advantages ebooks have over physical books.
The folks behind Story Bundle saw what the Humble Bundle folks were doing with games and decided to apply the same model to books (back before Humble Bundle decided to also get into books). The formula is the same. Choose your own price and get a bundle of books, with a portion of the sale going to charity.
While Humble Bundle now attracts major publishers, Story Bundle still keeps the focus on independent writers. It’s a good place to stumble upon works you’re likely to have overlooked otherwise.
Like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo, Google primarily sells books restricted with DRM. What sets Google Play apart is that when a publisher doesn’t restrict their books, Google will make this information clear. You will either see “This book is DRM restricted” or “This book is DRM-free” listed among the details when you check the “About this Book” section of a book in the Play Store.
Google also provides a straightforward way of exporting the books you purchase. When you access your Play Books library in a web browser, click the three dots next to a book and select the “Export” option. Ebooks will usually be available as EPUB files, while comics are offered as either EPUBs or PDFs. As someone who reads ebooks directly on my phone, I like being able to purchase books, export them from my Google Play library, and read them all on the same device.
Image Comics is one of the largest comic publishers in the US. The company used to sell DRM-free comics directly through its own website. While that option is no more, digital comics that come from Image Comics remain DRM-free.
When I want to read a new digital comic, I search the Image Comics website for something that catches my eye and then head to Google Play to make the purchase. It’s easier than browsing Google’s store directly, where you’re more like to come across Marvel and DC titles that will not let you download a non-restricted digital copy.
The Tor Publishing Group, like Image Comics, doesn’t sell books directly from its own website, but its entire library is available DRM-free. Tor offers a massive selection of predominantly fantasy and science fiction novels.
Tor offers casual fare for readers of both genres, but you can also find multi-volume fantasy epics and hard sci-fi alike.
The largest manga publishers aren’t keen on distributing digital copies of their bestselling titles without restricting where you can read them. Fortunately, that doesn’t mean there isn’t manga to be found. If you grow impatient waiting for manga to appear on Humble Bundle, consider J Novel Club.
J Novel Club contains plenty of series for you to follow. If you become an avid reader, there’s a subscription option available. Each month you get a certain number of credits to apply toward a purchase, which you can get for a discounted rate. You can then read this manga on your eReader or tablet.
Like Tor and Image Comics, Blackstone doesn’t let you purchase books directly from the publisher’s website. Yet the site is a good place to search through the catalog and see which ebooks catch your eye. This is a mainstream publishing company, one of the relatively few willing to sell you a New York Times bestseller without DRM.
When you’re ready to purchase a book, the site links you to other publishers. Again, I would stick with Google Play and export the EPUB immediately after purchase.
Project Gutenberg is a well-established source of DRM-free ebooks that are in the public domain. These aren’t modern books by any means, with most being well over half a century old. The bigger issue, though, is that formatting can be all over the place.
That’s where Standard Ebooks comes in. This initiative takes a selection of titles from Project Gutenberg and applies a coat of polish. Each book gets a consistent theme and is supplied with a cover, usually a work of art that is also public domain. This is a good source of classics that are not uncommon to see resurface in a new edition at Barnes & Noble every few years, such as works by Agatha Christie and Walt Whitman. You can also read the inspiration behind classic Disney films, such as Bambi and Tarzan.
It’s not too hard to remove DRM from an ebook, but it’s nice not to have to go through that effort. It’s good to support the publishers who don’t try to limit how we reach our books. The music industry learned that it could sell us unrestricted MP3s and still turn a profit. Hopefully, book publishers eventually figure this out, too.
