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Ebook piracy and why authors should embrace it
message 51:
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Samantha
(new)
Sep 05, 2012 11:53AM
oh now selling someone else's work... now that is just messed up. That's like the lowest of the low right there. How can someone unless of course you are a legitimate book selling source of course, sell off someone else's work? That there is just shameful, there are legitimate sources of gaining money.
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There is a site that I heard is selling author's work without permission. It was on another thread, I don't remember where.
It's important to remember that the most pirated books/films/games, tends to be those that are already popular.No-one knows about me, so hardly anyone will have pirated my work, simply because they don't know that it exists.
If I start to get more popular on the retail side, then I would fully expect the rate of piracy of my work to increase.
If I start getting more popular on the piracy side of things, as in people not only downloading the books, but also reading them en-masse, then I would expect more success to follow on the retail side.
On my first free promo weekend with KDP Select I had 14K free downloads. It's all about promotion, spreading the word, exposure, whatever you want to call it. I didn't get a dime from any of those downloads. What I did get was word of mouth and a serious increase in rankings for the days and weeks following the free promo.If I uploaded my own work to torrent sites and got another 14K downloads, how is that any different from a KDP Select promo?
Bottom line: If people like your book, they will talk about it. They will discuss it with other people. Word of mouth will spread your work to the masses.
Well said Richard. Perhaps there's a bit of confusion about this thread. Yeah, the title mentions "piracy" but what Michael has done was to upload his own work - voluntarily! I don't see anyone advocating the actual theft or distribution of an author's intellectual property. As Terri pointed out earlier, there is a vast difference between an author submitting their own work for free, and others pirating the work of an unsuspecting/unwilling artist. Apples and oranges really...
To stay on topic, we are basically talking about different avenues of exposure for our work. If we give it away for free, does it really matter by which venue we do so? Whether we give it away for free through GoodReads, Amazon, Smashwords, or our own website, the objective is to gain exposure - an audience. Market studies clearly show that "word of mouth" is the most effective form of advertising, far greater than any "paid" ad or promotion.
Richard wrote: "On my first free promo weekend with KDP Select I had 14K free downloads. It's all about promotion, spreading the word, exposure, whatever you want to call it. I didn't get a dime from any of thos..."EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!! Point well made!
I was the last comment a month ago and then boom out of no where its back up and running haha.
It's your animal magnetism, it's irresistible.
Stefani wrote: "When I take a paperback book and give it to 5 of my friends to read after me, is that stealing? They aren't paying for it. If I go to the library to check out a book to see if it interests me, is that stealing because I didn't pay for that either?"Sorry if someone else already stated this, but the problem here is that the libraries paid for a physical copy of a book, a legal copy. When it's lended out, they get it back or the person that lost it pays for it. But it's still one single book. Same with your physical books, you paid for a copy, and when you lend it out it's still one book. The legality issues with eBooks comes into play because once you send an eBook to a friend, or download a pirated copy, that's a SECOND copy of the book. It's no longer one book, but now two. Publishers don't get their piece of the pie, nor authors.
Part of the price issue (why eBooks can be so expensive) is that it's not just the cost of one little file of information (one book). Money is usually spent by the publisher or a self-published author for a cover, for formatting, for editing (I hope), possibly promotion... so all of these costs are only paid for by selling the books. When they are pirated, no one is getting reimbursed for these costs, and the book is 'copied' numerous times.
Also, in the case of publishers- they are all about legal numbers. They don't care if an author is popular in piracy circles, if their legal copies don't sell. If their legal copies don't sell, a publisher will drop the author. In the case of authors that right series, we may never get that next in series if they are dropped by a publisher. I doubt an author that has been dropped will be as eager to continue writing to placate their fans for free. Do you want to go to work and not get paid for your work? Would you spend months on a project if your work told you it's an unpaid gig and you will make nothing from it?
Richard wrote: "On my first free promo weekend with KDP Select I had 14K free downloads. It's all about promotion, spreading the word, exposure, whatever you want to call it. I didn't get a dime from any of thos..."There is a distinct difference between choosing to put your work for free on a site, and having someone else make that choice for you. You choose to give away things to charity, people don't come to your house and pick out and take things to charity while you are gone. Piracy is stealing. You're (metaphorically) sneaking into the author and/or publisher's house and taking things from them (stealing) without leaving any compensation. Some choose to make their books free, and that's great. I LOVE free books- but I love free legal books. If they want to give them to me, yeah for me and other readers. But when we take that choice away from them, and someone posts a book on a piracy site- they've just stolen from the author.
Well said Alana. Thanks for making the points. Authors who choose to put their work out for free is fine. No one else has the right to do so. And yes, it is flattering that people want you book so bad they got to free sites. But it doesn't help your end game.
I'd say that it's almost impossible for an author to be heavily pirated, yet not commercially successful.It just doesn't make sense.
I know a few.
Both of these authors books were downloaded a ton on one site alone.
Both of those books have over 500 reviews on Goodreads, I'm sceptical with the notion that the authors didn't have any commercial success with them.Also, 'downloaded' is very different to 'pirated, and then read'.
What sort of numbers are we talking here?
I'm not sure if it was this particular book, but the author of this wrote an article mentioning around $5,000 (maybe it was more) in lost royalties from illegal downloads/pirated copies
and another friend of mine 
was pirated. She never told me how many copies were downloaded
Michael wrote: "Also, 'downloaded' is very different to 'pirated, and then read'."Downloaded=Pirated essentially
Just like the little girl that got slapped with a lawsuit because she downloaded children's songs and stuff off napster years ago. Once you download a copy, you are part of the piracy
Alana ~ The Book Pimp wrote: "
I'm not sure if it was this particular book, but the author of this wrote an article mentioning around $5,000 (maybe it was more) in lost royalties from illegal downloads/pira..."
But this book is hardly ONLY being pirated and not selling...it has over 10,000 ratings and 2,000 reviews on GR. That's HUGE! And while the author can say, yes $5000 was downloaded in pirated copies...but the author has no idea if those people then went out and bought a copy, or bought a copy of the next book, or maybe they raved about it to 20 of their friends and some of them went out and bought a copy.
I am not saying it's right for someone to pirate it, but I think the revenue lost because of it is greatly exaggerated and is based on sheer pirated downloads alone, which is not extirely accurate.
That Obsidian book has over ten thousand ratings! How could it not have had any commercial success?Accurately calculating 'lost' royalties is almost impossible.
Alana ~ The Book Pimp wrote: "Michael wrote: "Also, 'downloaded' is very different to 'pirated, and then read'."Downloaded=Pirated essentially
Just like the little girl that got slapped with a lawsuit because she downloaded ..."
Right, but a copy that is downloaded and forgotten about, isn't a lost sale for the author.
Michael wrote: "That Obsidian book has over ten thousand ratings! How could it not have had any commercial success?Accurately calculating 'lost' royalties is almost impossible."
Okay, let me re-define it then. If the number of people that downloaded the book for free had bought it instead, then those royalties were the perceived 'lost' amount
Right, and that's an incredibly flawed way of looking at it.I could go and download the entire works of Stephen King, in about 10 minutes flat. Maybe I'll read one of them, maybe two, and then I'll move onto something else (whether bought, or pirated), and not touch that collection again.
Stephen King hasn't lost 65+ books worth of royalties from what I have done.
Michael wrote: "Both of those books have over 500 reviews on Goodreads, I'm sceptical with the notion that the authors didn't have any commercial success with them.Also, 'downloaded' is very different to 'pirate..."
Downloaded from a ePiracy site.
*Sigh* The point is, if you are an author feel free to give your books away and tell people to post them on free sites. But to say its okay for people to post anyones work for free is wrong. PERIOD.The same author Alana mentioned had someone post her story as their own and go out and sell it. Is that free publicity too? I DON'T THINK SO.
Michael wrote: "Both of those books have over 500 reviews on Goodreads, I'm sceptical with the notion that the authors didn't have any commercial success with them.Also, 'downloaded' is very different to 'pirate..."
They are indie authors from what I know.
I never said that it that was okay to do those things - my point in the article, was that authors should embrace it, rather than fight it.
Well at least we can agree on something.
Alana ~ The Book Pimp wrote: ..."I agree with you.
I did make the distinction of uploading my own work when comparing it to the KDP free promo. If I make the choice in both circumstances, it's the same thing in my opinion. Why is KDP considered "promotion" and not "lost revenue" when uploading your own work to bit torrent does the same thing, which is giving away thousands of copies for free?
Someone else doing it for me without my consent? Yeah, not cool. I agree completely.
I personally think that a true artist should be more concerned about whether or not their work is being read and ENJOYED rather than pirated. There have been so many times when I've wasted money buying a book that sucked. My library is full of them and I can't even give them away. So when I can get the book free, it gives me an idea of the writing style of the arthor. If its good, I run the Barnes or amazon and buy everything they wrote and tell everyone I know about how good it is and so on and so fourth .So if you're a well written artists piracy won't hinder sells. Heck, in many cases its not the writers doing the complaining but rather the publishers that hide behind reasons to jack up prices. It all comes back to greed and power.
Richard wrote: "Why is KDP considered "promotion" and not "lost revenue" when uploading your own work to bit torrent does the same thing, which is giving away thousands of copies for free?..."Endless book promotion without being tied to the Select programme. Like it :-)
If I make some quedips and I normally sell them but I decide to give some away, fine, but if someone takes my quedips without my permission that's stealing, even if I can make more quedips than I need, or the quedips are so flavorful that people develop a taste for them. Even if I can see that I increase my sales of quedips when people decide they like them (and believe me I am desperate to sell quedips, and have them eaten and enjoyed) I wouldn't want to support their theft. Such laxity might encourage people to feel like it's okay to steal other things, like bicycles, and books.As ever, this is a matter of opinion. It's an interesting topic of ongoing significance.
S.J. wrote: "quedips ..."Gasp. Even Google hasn't heard of quedips. ... Quedips?
Miles wrote: "a metaphor I presume..."No, no, no. That can't be. Quedips exist for me now, in all manner of exotic flavours. ...
Mod
I'm one of these people who refuses to pirate anything (I actually still buy CDs - no one else I know has paid for music in years) and while I don't agree with piracy I feel that it is a personal choice. For example, anyone who asks for a copy of my book for free can have one, plus I use Amazon free promos often to give away books. There are a lot of readers out there and a few freebies don't matter. However, if someone else was pirating my book, that I would have a problem with.
Midu wrote: "i'm intrigued,Natasha! what might the imaginary flavors be? lol"Not entirely sure, Midu, but they're blue and yellow and so tangy that my cheeks hurt ;-)
Chris wrote: "I'm one of these people who refuses to pirate anything (I actually still buy CDs - no one else I know has paid for music in years) and while I don't agree with piracy I feel that it is a personal c..."My point exactly. I might give my quedips away, but I don't want them stolen.
BTW, quedips come in a multitude of flavors, all delicious and colorful beyond your wildest imagination.
Mod
I'm going to ante back in on this topic. Book Piracy to me is one of those things that can be seen as a good thing and bad thing. Bad obviously in the sense that people are getting a hold of your book for nothing without paying for it but in a good sense someone is actually reading your book and maybe they write a review or like it so much that they go and buy a copy..maybe a bit of a stretch but hey stranger things have happened and it would be light to a bad situation turned good.Another reason to perhaps embrace it is because a lot of authors do giveaways and yes there may be a huge difference in an author giving someone their book knowingly for free but at the same time its..hmm I'm not sure where I am going with this point but if you get what I'm tryna say then great! lol. Piracy is bad yes but I think in some cases it can be good.
From a personal standpoint I would not blame readers one bit for pirating my book since my publishing company(the notorious PublishAmerica) is pretty much stealing money from people with my book at 16.95 a pop. It's actually why I recommend buying from Amazon to people so they save a little bit more money but they get a good book at a good reasonable price. Perhaps there's another reason people pirate because they are good at it and because if a book is priced highly they figure hey I'll just take it, no I don't condone this behavior I am merely thinking of other reasons behind why they might. I don't know though that's my thoughts on it.
This debate along with all the righteous indignation that goes with it drives me absolutely insane. If a reader said to an author "you know I am a huge fan of yours and I love your books but I am a single mom and can't afford to buy them but I make sure I get a copy from the library or a friend" most authors are flattered by this and glad someone has gone out of their way to read their work and are pleased...yes. Now use the same sentence from the single mom but instead of borrowing from the library it was downloaded instead...now here comes the indignation. Oh no you can't do that, that is stealing!Really the result is the same someone read your book and you didn't make a penny from it. Now you're going to say "but the friend/library bought a legitimate copy" guess what so did the person who uploaded to a torrent site. How do you think it got there in the first place.
Now let's continue with the Stephen King example someone used earlier, he has what 65 books in print and your local library probably has a copy of each and let's say again that each is lent out only 10 times per year. This is conservative considering it is Stephen King, that is 650 books per library that neither he nor the publishing house will never see revenue from...multiply that by the number of libraries in the US alone and that is MILLIONS in lost revenue...but hey the library bought one legit copy so it's all good.
Now most indie authors don't have a book in the library someone can borrow and there is no system even comparable to a library for ebooks. So what's the alternative...downloading. Now not every person who downloads a book is someone who can't afford to buy them but neither is every person who checks them out of a library.
Now you can rail against piracy and bitch and moan how something needs to be done and point out how they shut down Napster but the fact is that did nothing to stop file sharing. The other option is embracing it and using it as a means to market your books. Wrong or right at the end of the day it's not going anywhere.
Right, I actually do agree with the arguments about looking at the positive side of piracy (I won't say pro-piracy, because the sentiment I most agree with in this thread is more of on the "yeah it's bad, but what can you do about it" theme).The thing is, I've heard of lots of people who've downloaded books for free and then go on to purchase them when they really love it. And then they go on telling about these awesome books to friends, and then these friends buy it. So really, I think when a book is really good then people will be compelled to buy it.
And I agree; unless you want to police the internet (and HAHA, good luck with that), piracy will go on. And piracy sucks, but there are still positive things to be gained from it.
The only thing that would probably bug me, as some people have said up there too, is if someone sells copies of the book without compensating the author. Earning money for something someone else worked hard on is a definite DO NOT WANT from me.
Mod
Go for it, Shez.Feel free to use my article as well if it helps.
Mod
I'm responding two-fold here:1) As an author whose book is recently pirating on torrent sites.
2) As a long-time club and radio DJ
Music wise, much of what I find to play at my club/radio gigs are from music blogs (free MP3's of songs or remixes posted). But from my download to others' ears - or my own word of mouth or mention of the band/song on Facebook - that is exposure for said artist and song. It's the chatting/sharing about the project that's more important than the sale of that specific piece of work.
I guess if my book was a million+ downloaded entity, I might sweat the idea more. But as it stands now, I know it's getting read and appreciated and talked about. Which is vitally important for all artistic endeavors to be "found out" about. Especially in an online world of 24/7 bombardment of "stuff" and ideas.
This proliferate of a praise for ebook piracy has its stances but seems to lack mettle. What that means is the article is single-sided, very general, and omits other factors of the discussed topic. In all respects, everything Michael did say is correct up to a point when you avoid the cons.First off, his reference to studies are true but what an ebook pirate chooses to buy is not brought to light. Just because pirates are the biggest purchasers of legal content (mostly digital), doesn't mean it is equal to all the stuff he or she has downloaded illegally. It also doesn't mean that what was legally purchased will help the companies or organizations of products he or she has illegally downloaded.
Also, just because a book is easier to make into a digital format doesn't mean it negates the costs to all those who are involved outside of the author. It isn't just an author who contributes to a book. There is a team - getting paid on the clock - helping you make your ebook. Imagine working for a company for a living and having your services or products pirated. Profits for the company will most likely go down and may go far enough to initiate drastic measures to the extent of termination of employees to closure. Don't believe me, look at Microsoft Windows.
Then you chose to avoid all of the legal issues mostly out of convenience in sake for the article.
How I see it, if you want to pirate your own books, YOU should do all the work associated with it including the creative process, editing, formatting, and distribution of your books. If anyone is associated who don't have your prior consent or are on contract, take those to the most consideration.
PS - If the government wanted to really end piracy, all they have to do is legitimate an extreme punishment. For example, if you're caught pirating, you go to prison for 150 years with no parole, torture everyday, and all the females in your family working in harems in Turkey from this day forward while all the men your family work in salt mines in China from this day forward while serving your sentence. It is humanitarian because there is the opportunity of serving your sentence. Put that up and see what happens.
In my opinion having your books pirated is a small price to pay as an author, I mean; you turn your books into ebooks to be able to sell more, if you don't want them to be downloaded ilegaly keep them on paperback. Then again, if it's a paperback, the person that buys it might sell it at a carboot sale, then the other person do exactly the same, the same copy gets sold more than, lets say 6 times; the author, or the publishers don't get a penny for those sales. Is that not the same?
Making Connections
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