Rebellion Publishing: DRM Free Since 2006

‘DRM Free since 2006!’ It falls some way short of being a sexy headline, but how do you compete with other publishers apparently news-worthy headlines about going DRM-free in 2014, when it’s been 8 years since Rebellion took that decision?

Rebellion Publishing may not be one of the instantly recognisable names in the UK book trade, but for fifteen years we've been the home of the British institution 2000 AD, and first published our perennially bestselling graphic novel collection, Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 01 back in 2005 (we publish volume 23 this summer). The following year we founded our first fiction imprint Abaddon Books. And in those pre-Kindle, pre-Twitter days, when digital rights management was something most publishers assumed was a music industry issue, Rebellion also started selling digital files for download with no DRM.

How was it that we took the step that most digitally-savvy publishers came to many years later? We had one big advantage, Rebellion is also a tech company, one of the leading computer games developers and publishers in the UK (our latest, Sniper Elite III, is out at the end of June). Our founders and owners Jason and Chris Kingsley understood how important ownership was for a digital consumer, how being able to buy something and keep it was a vital part of the trust relationship between publisher and reader, and gamer. You bought the digital copy? Well that’s yours to keep forever, and not just until you change device or operating system. It can be put  like this: we value the support of legitimate customers more than we hate the activity of people who steal from us.

In the years since 2006 we've acquired the SF imprint Solaris books; begun simultaneous publishing in the UK and North America; launched the children’s and YA literature imprint Ravenstone; started our standalone ebook shop rebellionstore.com to go alongside 2000adonline.com; and have seen our books feature on the best-seller lists time and time again.

So, as a leading publisher of comics and genre fiction in the UK it’s great to have had Tor and others join us in the DRM-free world. The others will be along soon, we're sure.

www.rebellionstore.com

SFX Weekender: Work Hard, Play Hard

Howdy all,

So after a slight break to go home and life a semi-normal life, onto part three of the Solaris SFX Weekender blog post: Work Hard, Play Hard...

(Check our The SFX Weekender, or What the Hell Happened, Mr. Moore? and The SFX Weekender: The Talent for the first two instalments...)

It wasn't all just cosplay, dismantled TARDISes, novelty biscuits, panels, authors and wacky hats, you know. Jenni, Ben and I were there, as were our chums from 2000 AD, and we spent much of the time, as previously mentioned, flat out like a lizard drinking.

Actually, that's a bit of an Australian idiom. We were dead busy.

And when 8pm rolled around, and we'd exhaustedly dragged some food into our mouths (including the most farcical attempt at sorting out a curry on Saturday night you have ever seen, which ended up in us giving up and having crappy burgers from the stand in Pontin's), it was time to start drinking immoderately and meeting some fine people.

Let the games commence!


Books! That's right, we do books. We were there, in fact, selling books. Here are some books we were selling. We brought about twelve boxes with us, and took about four boxes back. Which was good going.


Keith and Pye on the 2000 AD stand. You may be aware that Pye (left) also does a load of our covers for Solaris.


Then drinking! Here's Jenni, some of Pye, a friend of mine called James who pitched in and helped us out for a lot of the weekend, and the hair of a woman from Simon & Schuster we'd met called Emily. Emily, it seems, did not like having her picture taken. Or really wanted to do a Cousin It impression for us.


And it's the next day and we're selling books again. I'm employing a psychological warfare technique based on talking breathlessly at you until you cave in and buy one of my books. We worked out afterwards that once I made eye contact with you and started talking, you had about an 8% chance of leaving without a book. To be fair, in one case I talked at a guy for around twenty minutes until he cracked, but crack he did. They all did, in the end.


2000 AD's Leigh Gallagher sketching for the fans.


And back to the pub! This time with Leigh and Forbidden Planet's Danie Ware. Note my expression of abject terror. Or I was trying for terror, anyway; I was a little the worse for wear by this point.


And here's Pye, Leigh and another woman we met at the event, Celeste from Live Nation.

So there we are. Our labours, our joys, our authors, our panels, weird cosplayers, and some excellent people we were very privileged to meet and take a cup of drink with.

We had an absolutely blinding time (literally; my vision actually grew a little hazy at one point), and are properly looking forward to next year.

Many thanks to our hard-working authors, our friends, and the SFX crew.

Cheers,

David
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SFXWeekender Tomorrow!

We're heading off to SFXWeekender tomorrow!

This time tomorrow I'll be driving a huge rental van somewhere along the M25, shouting at other drivers, The Bloodhound Gang blaring out of the stereo.

Then this time Friday I'll be nobbing with the stars of science-fiction and fantasy, getting on down and generally having a good time.

If you're coming, make sure and drop by the 2000AD/Abaddon/Solaris stand and say "hi." We'll be chuffed to chat.

I'll try and sling Twitter (@SolarisBooks) and blog posts up periodically over the weekend.

Cheers,

David