Securing PDFs ebooks with security software

So I’ve been selling my books in e-book PDF format since 2002 and let me tell you, I’ve learned a lot about security software for PDFs after having to deal with several different companies.

At first my books that were made into PDFs were never secure, and therefore had no PDF protection at all other then what Adobe had to offer which isn’t much.

This meant that anyone could pass them along to others and I would be losing sales, or someone could sell my book as theirs and once again, I would be losing sales.

Eventually I started on the hunt to finding software called Digital Rights Management (DRM) that would protect my PDF ebooks, but all I encountered was stress.

1. The first company I went with back in 2002 was a programmer out in New York. His software was difficult to use at times, and if he did respond to e-mails, it took him weeks. Getting him to return my calls was also a challenge, but I found out later on that I was really lucky, some of the companies who purchased his more expensive package at $2,500, never received even one phone call back.That’s what happens a lot of the time when you deal with geeks who are running a company. 90% of them aren’t real business people, they just launch a product or service and everyone suffers because they have no customer service skills, and their customers usually end up being very stressed.I remember twice being petrified when I couldn’t do something with the software or I couldn’t provide my books to my customers after they had already paid for them. This was because of their ongoing problems.

   As you know, I’m HUGE on customer service, so if my customers couldn’t open their book because of this PDF security software, I knew I was ultimately responsible, and would end up looking like a fool.

   After using him for around a year, I switched to a new ebook security software company.

2. While I had paid a flat price of $199 for the first guy, this new securing PDFs ebooks company charged per month. I knew I was going to be paying out a lot more money every year, but protecting my ebooks was and is very important to me. I had to hire someone to encrypt all the files, and it cost me around $300 to get that process done and uploaded onto my server so my customers could download my books and then open them with their key.Just to be clear, my e-books aren’t just one file as many other authors’ ebooks are. I don’t really consider them books anymore, they are more like business kits. Anyway, within the first 6 months or so, I started to have problems with this company. They were having problems with their software, and me and my customers were paying the price. The owner would NEVER pick up the phone, I think I got him on the phone once in the 3 years I was with him, and once he sternly told me for the price I’m paying of course there is no phone support, ONLY e-mail support. I was shocked he spoke to me in that manner. He was not a very nice person in my opinion. He had that arrogant attitude as if he was my customer and I was to bow down to him. Not that I think customers should be arrogant, but I hope you know what I mean. I took an instant dislike to him.Then the tech support person he hired (may have been his girlfriend) was terrible. She could never understand a word I was saying, and every time there was a problem, me or someone in my company figured out the solution to the problem before she ever did. At first I thought it was just her having a bad day, but then it happened over & over again that she could barely comprehend what was being relayed to her, and no, I don’t think she was from overseas, I’m pretty sure she lived in Canada like the owner did.

   I complained about her to the owner, but all he did was stick up for her. LOL, of course, why listen to your customers. They aren’t right, your ego is. I was basically held hostage by this company because I couldn’t find another PDF security software company that offered a great service to secure my ebooks at a price I was willing to pay.

   Some of the larger companies were charging like $10,000 – LOL, yeh right, no small company is going to pay that kind of money. Eventually I had my assistant dealing with that techie, but he had the same problems I did. Granted there weren’t problems every week or every month, but when there were problems, they were HUGE.One year I had to work through my New Years Eve trying to fix the problem because I had two customers waiting days for their business kit.

   The owner passed the problem onto his techie and while she did “try” to help, in the end, he & her blamed the problem on me because I was clueless on what to change/fix on my end since I’m NOT a techie person nor should any entrepreneur have to be.

   Just to be clear here, there was NO warning they were even going to be changing things around, this was all a last minute. A bit of advice to ALL companies:

   NEVER make technical changes to hosted software that affects your customers in real time:

   a) before you have given them at least 1-2 weeks notice
   b) just before any kind of holiday
   c) during peak hours, meaning all changes should be made in the wee hours of the morning when most of your customers are asleep, & so are their customers

   The owner & the techie went off on vacation for New Years leaving me holding the bag. The owner even had the nerve to tell me I was cutting into his vacation time & I should be so happy with his level of support because I was keeping him from the holiday season.

   At night time either very close to midnight or after the New Year, me & a new team member finally figured out the problem together within 15 minutes. Once again, his techie didn’t communicate clearly to me, she didn’t tell me exactly what to do, so what took days & hours of stress was really a 15 minute fix.

   I was furious, but had no choice but to stay with them.

   After searching around looking for a new company two more times because I wanted to replace this one, we gave up, but eventually we tried searching again for PDF Protection, or Digital Rights Management (DRM) and we finally succeeded.

3. I was VERY excited to find another company that seemed not only good, but they were less expensive because they charge you for tokens (1 per key), they don’t charge you per month.It took a while to investigate them, understand how they do things (their system was easier), get the files re-wrapped, and the instructions written out for customers, but we FINALLY started using them and I have to say I’m impressed. I am also pretty sure my books are more secure with them then they were with both the first and second PDF protection company.They return e-mails within 36 hours or so & on the odd occasion within 24 hours, so yes, they can be a little more swift, but they may just be going through some growing pains because they just recently launched a new product.I don’t find the tech support person very friendly, but that’s fine, so long as the problems are solved, that’s all that matters.They have even credited me tokens when their system had problems, which was very nice of them.They have also taken some of my suggestions and hopefully development will be implementing them soon. Their user interface is very clean and easy to use once you know what you are doing.

   If there are any problems I encounter, it’s either because my customer doesn’t read the instructions properly, which is obviously the customer’s issue, not ours or this Digital Rights Management (DRM) security company’s.

   Like I mentioned, if their system is causing problems, they fix it immediately and credit me any tokens I may have lost.

   So I’ve been with them long enough now so that I feel comfortable referring them to you if you are selling ebooks online. (Sorry, they are no longer in business and they ended up being a huge problem 1-2 years before they folded)

That new product they launched I don’t need, but if you are looking for a way to sell your e-books via your own site, etc. then they now offer this monthly service that covers everything so you can start selling almost immediately.

I already have my own sites, download area and shopping cart, so I don’t need all of that, but if you are new at selling ebooks, you have to get this entire package, because there’s no other way for your customers to purchase, download, & then open their books or files. Oh, & they help teach you about how to market your books to sell, so essentially they are teaching you how to start an ebook business, and remember, securing e-books is not the only thing this software can do, if you need to secure PDFs for your company, it’s the same process, it’s just PDF files, not books.

So once again, here is the link you can go to and check it out… (Sorry, they are no longer in business and they ended up being a huge problem 1-2 years before they folded)

Let me know what you think. Just shoot me an e-mail.

I really hope you enjoy this PDF ebook secure software company when it comes to Securing your PDFs and ebooks. I’m really happy I no longer have to worry about this most important crucial element of selling ebooks online.

Michelle