If you are a pirate, I take it that I may pirate from you. N’est pas?

Mais oui! …à votre plaisir.

I’m not sure you can take Saundra’s post as ‘hard numbers.’ As others have pointed out, while it may be true that:

“If the 800+ downloads a week of my book were only HALF converted into sales, I would earn out in one more month.”

…it doesn’t necessarily follow that those 800 (or even 400) people would pay for the book if by some magic piracy was wiped out tomorrow. While I don’t know that there’s much data available, my gut would be that only a tiny fraction of those people (>5%) would turn around and pay if they couldn’t download for free.

Note that I’m not condoning piracy just because authors aren’t really losing ‘sales’ — at the end of the day, people are still taking content that they haven’t paid for. And I agree with others here that while piracy may actually help big-name authors, the jury is still out on the smaller ones. But I think it’s a fallacy to claim that 800 pirated books = 800 lost sales.

Tobias Buckell covered this at greater detail on his blog last month:

http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2011/01/27/writing-on-the-high-seas/

~jgs

Thanks for the kind words, sqt. You just offically made my day.

I suspect that, on the whole, piracy makes little real difference to most authors’ sales. Most of the people who pirate wouldn’t have bought the book legitimately. But I also think that there will be the occasional author, particularly new authors trying to sell their second books, who will be negatively effected in a tangible way. Enough people who would otherwise have bought their books pirated those books, and that meant their sales weren’t quite enough for a publisher to consider it worth buying their second.

There’ll probably also be the occasional person who gets an up-tick of buzz from people pirating their books.

My concern as an avid reader is that the obstinency of the publishing industry at large and its intransigence in accept the realities of epiracy means that we are in for some real struggles and turbulent times until the industry wakes up and realises that the milk is not only split but went off years ago… its only because of the growth is ebook readers that epiracy is becoming an issue. Being a bit of a nerd and forward thinking sci fi fan I just wish that the publishers would stop falling back onto strategies that have already been proven to have failed and instead get with the program and look at ways to take advantage of the new technologies.

As for freebie books I am a member of Amazon vine so I am fortunate enough to get my hands on some of these and do my best to keep ontop of my reading list and get my reviews up. This is one thing that I think is great because its a great way to get those 1st handfulls of reviews up which is essential for new books and authors (not just because I get free books).

@Marilynn – I buy as many books as I can get, I also am happy to borrow from the libraries and from friends… authors I love I try to collect their back catalogues and read them… authors I don’t….. My library is approaching 4,000 volumes (using the measureing tape method of counting books) and continues to grow… but honestly I have probably not paid for half the books I have read…. Yet i also know that I have inspired dozens of people to read, borrow from the library and buy books (often back catalogues when the lending is too other bookophiles).

I don’t think its so simple as to say buy every book you read… if I did that I wouldn’t buy nearly so many as I do because of the numbers I borrow off friends and from the library, or read epiracy style (something I only do if I can’t find a book by other means as a rule).

Novelists like Cary Doctorow and Gaiman who declare free or stolen ebooks good for their bottom line are in a situation very different from the vast majority of authors.  Their entire backlist is in every big box and book store.  They have audiobooks.  They have movie deals.  Ebook income would be a few percent, if that, of their sizable income.

The vast majority of writers, even those with the big publishers, don’t have any of their books in bookstores, they don’t have audiobook deals, and they definitely don’t have movie deals.  Ebooks are an important part of their bottom line.

Novelists without the kind of distribution Gaiman has can make money on free ebooks, but only if they offer the first book of an established series for free, or they have an extensive backlist in paper.  

If an author wishes to put his book out for free, that’s fine, but it’s very wrong for someone else to do that.

Fame is great, but if an author who isn’t an ego freak isn’t paid for her work, she will stop writing.  That hurts everyone.

If you love to read, you need to respect authors’ copyrights and pay for their work.  

Unfortunately, it’s not up to me as to when or how the book comes out. Authors have little to no say over most aspects of production. Publishers work on a set, year-plus schedule, so while it’s nice to say “Get it out early”, it’s usually not an (easy) option. Nor is it necessarily a solution. As you say, piracy is here to stay, so I’m not sure whether getting a book out a month or two early will make much of difference if, as some argue, most piraters weren’t planning on buying the book in the first place (an assertion I can’t comment on because, as I said above, there’s no data–just conjecture–on most of this). In addition, part of the reason for set dates is so that things like promotion, reviews, and the like can be arranged prior to the book being dropped into the ocean that is the market place. Getting a book out before anyone knows about it doesn’t necessarily help it sell broadly, even if there are some people who want it “now”.

Giving away books to promote said book is not a new thing. My publisher is currently giving away 60 advance reader copies in a couple of venues to buiild interest. A drop in the ocean, I agree, but the precedent of loss-lead is long established. I expect, or at least hope, that we will see offers of free electronic ARCs in advance of publication, or at more consistent early releases of initial chapters at some point. However, I think there are both logistical and financial concerns on the publishing side that cause some hesitation in this regard.

Publishing is changing, although not as fast as some would want, and I think we will continue to see those changes in the form of alternate formats, samples, and the like. I’m not sure there will be a rush to release the e-format in advance of the print, at least initially–too much is still wrapped up in the idea of the physical book for many in the business. Then again, they may well consider that at some point. I do like the idea of getting a free electronic version with purchase of a paper edition, for example, and am interested in alternate content options. However, you have to remember that any extra content can take time away from the author’s main gig (writing), or cost more money to produce (increasing cost to sutomers), or both. So, while attractive, there is also a potential of added cost, or time, or both to consider, depending on the kind of value-added content we’re talking here. Not saying it can’t be done, though, and I expect to see more of it, at least for bigger names.

I’m a huge fan of lending, either individually or via institutions (libraries, etc.). That’s why I was so interested in the comparison between lending and piracy–it’s a comparison I haven’t heard before. And I think it has some strong parallels. But as I said, there’s really no way to know if piracy works the same way as lending in every instance–everything is anecdotal, and one person’s success story can be another’s tragedy. I’m happy to admit that in some ways, piracy is similar to lending, but I’m not about to give it a complete pass, if for no other reason than we really don’t know it’s impact one way or another. But I am also willing to be swayed either way down the line.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not spending time trying to figure out how defeat piracy or fretting over potential lost sales. Nor am I terribly worried about trying to figure out “How to Make e-Priacy Work for Me” (why can I see that book for sale on a bookshelf in a year or two? ) My main concern is still trying to provide good base content (the book), along with trying to make it easier for people to find out about said content (samples on the web, etc.). Like I said, some of this is out of my control (making half of the book available early on Kindle/Nook, etc., is up to my publisher, not me), but I also expect more and more options will be open to both authors and publishers as time goes on. And some of this, I am sure, will come in the form of more, or time-limited, or whatever, free content (look at Baen, for example); but, at least right now, that isn’t the common practice. I expect, though, it will change.

http://saundramitchell.com/blog/?p=4258

I also think that horse has already bolted, the milk is already split, the window is already broken, e-piracy is here and it has been for well over a decade… there have been numerous attempts to stamp it out already and they have failed, utterly, totally and abysmally… in fact I would suggest that the draconian efforts of the RIAA and other such associations have actually made e-piracy worse… they raised it from something that was essentially something indulged in by tiny numbers of people into a global phenomenon, they gave napster and the rest huge publicity, whilst at the same time making the technologies of e-piracy ever more accessible, user friendly and difficult to deal with from an anti-piracy standpoint.

My suggestion is to stop trying to figure out ways to utilise this technology to your benefit, try and think of ways to add value to the people who pay hard cash for your book(s) whether they are paper or electronic. Try and find ways to entice people into spending their cash… and giving people a free way to enjoy your novel (or half of it) is a good way to start.

When it comes to loaning books, I am currently lending 23 books to 6 different people, and borrowing 5 books from 2 people. I personally have a collection of novels that is threatening to evict me from my flat because there isn’t enough space for myself and my book collection, I am also one of the highest lenders at my local library… Of those 6 people only 1 was a regular reader before I started lending books to her (my Mum) but I have widened her reading to now include historical fiction, as well as some fantasy (something that she hated me reading when I was a child), the rest are people who I have interested in books, who have started to buy books because they are now getting the bug, and I am also trying to encourage them to get their children reading… Of the 23 books I am lending 8 are ebooks that I own (legitimately) that I am lending to a friend along with my spare pda.

The reality is that people have always lent and borrowed books, its a great way to share much beloved authors, its a way to share my passion and interests with others. E-piracy is also here to stay… deal with it or don’t…. but if your book is already being pirated and isn’t on sale… I would suggest kicking your publishers to get it on sale asap (even if its just in ebook format) so that people who want to read it can buy it and read it.

My first reaction is that piracy effects you a lot differently if you are Neil Gaiman than it does is you are someone who doesn’t yet have a lot of (or any) foreign sales, or a large body of work for people to pick up or the like. My book being pirated into Russian is not going to guarantee me it will be picked up in Russia, let alone that it will generate more sales or demand. I might, but there’s no way to tell; just as there is, realistically, no way to tell if pirated versions in english will help or hurt my sales here.

I also take some issue with the idea that pirating is the same as loaning: in the case of a loaned book, someone had already paid for the book that is being loaned, and there are a finite number of people who can realistically get their hands on that book. The author and publisher have at least made some money off the book, and may make more; but if not, their losses are limited to the dozen or two people who may read it and not buy any more of that author’s work. In the case of piracy, the number of people who can get a copy that wasn’t paid for in the first place is geometrically larger. It is entirely possible that no money will have changed hands, even after a 1000 people have read the pirated version. So, there is a difference of scale to consider.

However, that being said, I also think that there is some truth to the comment made by some other authors that basically boils down to: “Look, most people who pirate your book weren’t going to buy it in the first place. If you start looking at every pirated copy as lost sale, you’re drive yourself crazy.” Because I think to a fair degree this is true, just as I think it will be increasingly true that they will pirate other work if they want more of it (assuming it is available, etc.). And I also think that the observation that a lot of people pick up new authors through loaning is an interesting one, and one I hadn’t considered in relation ot e-piracy. 

But here’s the kicker: we have no way of knowing if any of this is truly valid. Just as it may have helped Mr. Gaiman’s sales, it may have hurt another author’s sales (as mentioned by C.E. Petit above). It’s all anecdotal, and I suspect that’s all it will continue to be for a long, long time: people citing their experiences or beliefs or anecdotes about how e-piracy helped/hurt/didn’t make a whit of difference for Author X/Y/Z.

Do I like the idea of people possibly torrenting my book even before it’s out (assuming that notice wasn’t for a place holder for later torrenting). Not really. The part of me that was raised to say theft is theft, and that stealing is wrong, gets upset by the moral implications here. But at the same time, I also know that, in the end, there isn’t any fool-proof way to stop it. And I even admit that it *might* lead some new people to your work, who may actually pay for it. Like I said, there is something for the “loaning argument.” But it’s hard to know what’s what at the end of the day.

What I’d really like to see is how something like what Mr. Gaiman did would work for a newer author vs. an established mid-lister with a reasonable back-log of work vs. a multiple award winner and best-seller like himself. Again, it would all be anecdotal, but I think a comparison like this could prove educational, although I’m not sure how you’d do it…