“DRM” means digital rights management. Essentially, DRM locks a digital book file (or any digital file) so that it can’t be easily moved between devices. The idea is that it stops piracy. What’s clear now is that it doesn’t stop piracy – people who pirate digital books can break DRM very easily. What DRM does, then, is inconvenience readers who have bought a legitimate copy because it keeps them from moving the file from phone to tablet to e-reader to computer.

When I first began to re-publish my backlist, I used DRM because my publishers had always used DRM. I really didn’t know much about it, and just replicated the processes I knew. By the time I published to platforms other than Amazon, I knew better and didn’t use DRM. My newer titles don’t have DRM either. Having DRM on a book file isn’t something easily changed – it’s not just a toggle – so the book has to be unpublished and then republished as a new title. It seemed complicated and I heard horror stories.

This fall, we’ve been updating all of my book files, formatting them all over again and updating the end matter. As the new files are available to be published to Amazon, I’ve been removing the DRM. It’s actually a much smoother process than I’d anticipated. We’re almost done. Right now, these titles are newly available at Amazon without DRM:

The Moonstone
Once Upon a Kiss
Love Potion #9
The Last Highlander
The Time Travel Romance Boxed Set
The Beauty
The Warrior
The Beauty Bride
The Rose Red Bride
The Snow White Bride
The Ballad of Rosamunde
The Jewels of Kinfairlie Boxed Set

Still in the works are The Countess, The Temptress, The Bride Quest II Boxed Set, The Rogue, The Scoundrel and the Rogues of Ravensmuir Boxed Set. I’m hoping they’ll be all done by the end of the month. 🙂