Back It Up

Image by @felipepelaquim

This post is a little different than my usual, but as someone who loves eBooks, there’s an important issue I need to take a moment to acknowledge.

Beginning February 26, 2025, the option to download an eBook purchased on Amazon and transfer it to another device via USB will no longer be available. That means we have about a week (from the time of writing this) to back up previously purchased eBooks in our digital content libraries.

Amazon hasn’t made a public announcement about this, and I only found out about it today. I don’t want to get into conversation around digital rights management (DRM) – as both a professional musician and an author, I am profoundly aware of the intricacies involved in protecting intellectual property – and I am in no way advocating for piracy here.

But what Amazon is trying to do is actually, in my opinion, unethical and questionably legal.

It’s essentially like saying “you can only read the book in the store in which you purchased it” (literally years after some purchases were made), and in my opinion, that’s crap.

Yes, the licensing model is a known, and well-understood thing in other contexts and marketplaces, like music or video games for example. In fact, if someone purchases a video game, whether physical or digital, they make their choices for purchasing based on the platform they plan to play it on (you can’t buy a digital version of a game on PlayStation and play it on xBox or Steam, it doesn’t usually work like that).

But with video games, consumers are well aware of this limitation from the beginning, and aren’t expecting to play the game outside of the platform they purchased it in (and gamers definitely have their favorite platforms!). They also have their games saved in hard drives rather than simply relying on wifi and the platform’s cloud to back them up. Ebook purchases haven’t always been so clear cut in the past regarding what platform the book is read in, which is part of why I’m writing this post today.

Our society seems to have shifted more and more toward “renting” rather than ownership where many things are concerned, and as a consumer, I can see how sometimes that’s just the thing we want. Maybe we’re curious about an artist or story, but don’t want to actually own the music, the book, or the movie. Nothing wrong with that, just stream it (music/shows/movies) or borrow (books) from Kindle Unlimited or a library (if the book is available there).

That shift in our culture is actually part of what motivated me to make the Pine Haven Shifters series available in Kindle Unlimited – some people don’t want to take a chance on a new author at full price, and having the option to read those books without making a full-on purchase has brought many new readers into my world who might not have tried my books otherwise, which I’m incredibly grateful for and pleased about.

Likewise, I’ve consumed many books, shows, and music through subscription services that I might not otherwise have explored without them. As a participant in those programs, I am aware that I am borrowing the product, and unless I choose to actually purchase it (the book, the song, the movie), I do not own it.

But, in my opinion, if you’ve purchased something, whether it’s a physical or a digital product, it should be yours. Period.

So, if you’ve purchased any of my ebooks through Amazon and would like to make sure you continue to own them, please take a moment to back them up by downloading and transferring to your computer this week, if you’d like.

If you have my ebooks through Kindle Unlimited and would like to own them, now is the time to purchase them and download and transfer to your computer so they remain yours no matter what device or digital platform you’d like to read them on later.

Also, considering some of the legislation currently being bandied about in the US (which surely won’t pass as currently written, right?), it might be a good idea to back up your purchased ebooks no matter what platform you use, or plan to use in the future.

While I am an author, I’m also an avid ebook reader. This affects all of us.

Since I have several novels currently in the works (I invite you to join my Insider’s Community below for sneak peeks and all the latest!), I’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on things and weighing options with my readers in mind as I move forward with future publications.

Interesting times, right?

Here’s to doing our best with what we have moment to moment, and to taking care of our things, including backing them up while we can. You bought it. Here’s to keeping it yours.
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