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Just a heads-up: when you buy the book, the PDF will be watermarked with your name, email address, and transaction ID in the footer of every page.
by girasquid 14y ago
Just a heads-up: when you buy the book, the PDF will be watermarked with your name, email address, and transaction ID in the footer of every page.
- nathanbarry 14y agoI am launching my own book in the next couple weeks and was planning to do the same. Is PDF watermarking something people find annoying? If so why?
- girasquid 14y agoI find it extremely annoying - if I'd known about it beforehand, I wouldn't have bought the book. It's intrusive, doesn't add anything to the reading experience, and communicates that you don't trust me enough to not watermark something I purchased from you legitimately.
- nathanbarry 14y agoThanks for the feedback. I think people (myself included) can get so caught up trying to limit piracy that we don't think about how it makes the user feel. I think that having it on every page is definitely over the top. Would you still be annoyed if it was just on a single page? Say with a thank you for purchasing message?
- evilduck 14y agoI agree, it's obnoxious on every page. On one page at the beginning or end would be fine, or better yet, non-visible metadata/stenography, but stamping my name on every page is like putting the FBI warning on movies. The only people who see the FBI warning are the legitimate purchasers. Stripping my name off each page of the PDF is a trivial technical challenge, something a dozen lines of Python could probably fix, but it's highly annoying that it's even necessary if I legitimately bought it. It's also about how you apply it. PragProg is pretty subtle, Packt Publishing is (or was, it's been a while) was in your face about it. I've been on the fence about buying this book for the last hour, and this is a factor that has me leaning towards not purchasing (besides there being few unbiased comments on the contents).
- girasquid 14y agoIf you have to do it, that's probably the least offensive option.
- sideprojectbook 14y agoI'll turn off digital stamping when it's updated next week with the mobi/epub versions, or at least make sure its limited to one page unintrusively.
- girasquid 14y agoCool - thanks!
- nickbarnwell 14y agoThat would be an ideal compromise in my opinion - for what it's worth the inclusion of the watermark on every page bothered me as well.
- dinkumthinkum 14y agoSeems like watermarking with something like a QR would be better, maybe less aesthetically weird as well. Although, no watermark I guess would be better, just an idea. :)
- eaurouge 14y agoPragProg watermark their e-books too. I see nothing wrong with it.
- subsection1h 14y agoOther publishers I buy from, such as Manning, also add watermarks. Personally, I couldn't care less.