Unbound goes into administration

[vivdunstan]

Full details on The Bookseller website. They lost me when they stopped offering DRM-free downloads of ebooks. Even after buyers preordered ebooks on exactly those terms. Also this seems a *curious* plan to set up a new publisher, with the original founders.

Comments

[sir_guinglain]

Pre-packaged takeovers are slippery devices... but I do wonder what happens to existing orders from Unbound, as there is one book to which I subscribed years ago. I'm sorry their model has failed.

[vivdunstan]

They changed their website a year or so ago, and customers immediately lost access to historic orders and past ebooks. At the same time Unbound no longer offered DRM free ebooks, only a version wrapped up in an extremely poor app.

As a many purchases customer I was extremely annoyed back then. And am again this week. But I’m more concerned now about the many Unbound authors owed royalties, who have been unpaid for a very long time.

I have very little sympathy for Unbound, especially if they’ve pulled a dodgy but legal move to rebrand in a new form.