Sometimes it seems like someone on the inside at Barnes and Noble is secretly trying to take down the Nook business from the inside out.
That’s about the only thing that could explain the continued bad decisions that keep sending more and more people away from Barnes and Noble’s Nook devices and Nook books.
This time around, B&N has changed how their Nook book DRM key is generated.
This hasn’t stopped people from being able to remove the DRM from their Nook books; it just makes it a little bit more of a hassle. The main thing that the new DRM is doing is sending what few remaining Nook customers that are left away because they don’t want to deal with B&N’s nonsense anymore.
This comes after Barnes and Noble inexplicably removed the option to download purchased Nook books from user accounts last fall. They decided they didn’t want customers to have access to their purchased books anymore; they only want books to be accessible through Nook apps and Nook devices.
Could you imagine the uproar if Amazon suddenly removed the option to download Kindle books? Even though most people don’t use the download option very often, having it taken away without warning would send people into such a frenzy that it would probably break the internet.
But somehow Barnes and Noble thinks they can get away with it despite the fact that Nook revenues have been steadily declining year on year by huge margins.
B&N is so out of touch with Nook customers that it’s actually pretty sad. All they see is the bottom line and what they want; it’s like what the customer wants doesn’t matter to them at all. They are going to do things their way. Take it or leave it. And clearly, most people are leaving.
New DRM Key – What it Means
If you’ve used one of the alternate methods to download Nook books now that Barnes and Noble has taken away the option and you’ve had trouble removing the DRM from a Nook book, that probably means it’s using the new DRM key.
The new DRM code isn’t being used for everyone yet; it appears to change when you update your credit card info or other details on your Nook account.
B&N’s DRM used to generate a unique DRM key from user’s credit card numbers; now it’s being generated and stored in a different way.
To get access to the new DRM key, you need to download the Nook books using the Nook Study program, which can be a bit difficult because it doesn’t work very well. But once you get the new code you can use a different method to download.
All the information about working around the new DRM code for Nook books can be found in Apprentice Alf’s latest DRM-removal tools package. The new 6.1.0 version of the tools includes help with getting the code and how to liberate your purchased Nook books from Barnes and Nobles inept grasp permanently.
Sad indeed. I started my experience with and love for e-books with a Nook Simple Touch, a groundbreaking device, but finally switched to Kindle with the introduction of the Paperwhite. I’ve never looked back or regretted my decision. Amazon offers support, updates, great suggestions, Goodreads, etc. And the device itself is just so much better than Nook now. Good luck, B&N, I wish you the best (truly). But you’d have to make major changes and innovations to get this customer back, at least for e-reading.
Colson Whitehead’s article in the New York Times Magazine yesterday seems apropos:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/magazine/the-loser-edit-that-awaits-us-all.html
But the NOOK loser edit is going to be awfully long.
The social DRM was one of the big reasons I once preferred them. Now they’ve lost me for good. Especially since they no longer have any good devices.
All I can say is that I’m glad I’ve disabled all B&N features on my Nook. With those links broken, I just have a happy little Android tablet which is affected by no company’s bad choices. 🙂
I still like my Nook Simple Touch, and will likely continue to use it to read books from Project Gutenberg and the like. That being said, I bought the Nook to support what I thought was the more customer friendly store. In the last six months it has become crystal clear that B&N is now the least friendly of the big three. I now also own a Kindle Paperwhite and most of my books will be purchased from them in the future and I can’t imagine buying a new Nook unless B&N does a dramatic reversal of course.
What a pain in the butt… glad I downloaded all of my 450+ Nook books six months ago before this mess happened. They’re killing themselves.
But you can try removing DRM from your Nook books.
Is someone able to explain step-by-step how to remove the DRM and download Nook books to my PC. I’m a bit of a simpleton when it comes to this stuff, however, I take instruction very well;) I am switching to KIndle after being a very loyal and satisfied customer of BN/Nook however, now that my book count is over 100 I worry that I will not have access to them in future. I have a PC and a Nook Touch. Any help would be appreciated. It’s a tremendous shame. BN has handled this so poorly.
These two guides can get you started:
How to Download Nook eBooks Now That B&N has Removed the Option
How to Remove Adobe DRM From ePub and PDF eBooks
The second guide isn’t for the Nook specifically, but the process is basically the same and you can find additional info for Nooks books at the referenced Apprentice Alf site. I think the latest version of the Tools gets the new B&N key automatically if needed.