Found our first pirated e-book today

[Spike89]

Actually, it was the authors who brought it to my attention--we don't have the resources to monitor until a problem arises. We're a small, non-profit academic-style press--piracy was pretty much not on our list of worries for the first 30 years (I've been here a bit longer than a decade). However, e-books have changed that. Between authors and management (and the inevitability of it all) we've been forced to offer our books in e-book format.

We've been selling the e-books for a bit more than a year now and if you took all the e-sales for all our books this year, it would almost pay 1/4 of the e-production costs for one of those titles! Another way of saying it is we'll break even on our average e-book if we can keep sales at this level for about 20 years (but they are technology books with a selling life of about 3 years). The point is that we lose money on e-books, even if we don't count all the costs we charge against the paper editions (copy editors, proofreaders, production editors, artists, etc.).

Now, some pirate site is offering at least one of our e-books for free (but they'll give you faster downloads of the books they've stolen for a small fee!) This pirate site actually comes up in a variety of searches, it is basically a pirate mega-site sorta like pay-pal for pirates. It is incredibly upfront and brazen, they even have a link for content owners to apply for a cut of the pie (not offering us our legitimate cut, or giving us the option to participate or not, just promising to send us something every time someone pirates a copy of our content.

I'm bummed, I like being able to tell prospective authors that we'll promote their work in paper and electronic formats, but taking a loss on every title we send to the iTunes store was bad enough. When pirates get into the game and blatantly take what few sales publishers like us can hope for, it becomes very difficult to support the future.

[Codeine]

1. But don't you understand? Your information should be free!

The fact that your expertise to create that information is inherently valuable and the efforts to publish and distribute that information are costly doesn't matter. All that matters is that copyright is TEH EVUL!!1! and you should be pleased and rewarded by the act of sharing your knowledge with the world without monetary gain.

[MineralMan]

3. Pity there's no way to imbed a trojan horse bomb in

such material. Something that would permanently disable the device if the material was pirated. I'd like that.

I did something similar to that with one of my vertical software programs, after I discovered that less than 10% of its users had paid for the program. It wasn't difficult, really. What it did, when it confirmed that the copy was pirated, was to encrypt the stored data and notify the user that the program was pirated. When they paid for the program, they got the encryption key to use to recover their data and begin using the software legitimately. I encrypted it instead of wiping the date, because I was concerned about being sued. It never happened. People paid for the product.

[TheWraith]

12. Because the appropriate response to copyright violation is vandalism and destruction of property?

Seriously? :eyes:

[RC]

15. Yep, seriously.

Because we are a violent country, we need violent, destructive solutions.

[MineralMan]

17. I didn't destroy anything. The software simply encrypted the data

if the software had been pirated. Nothing was gone. When the person using the pirated software paid for their copy, they got their data back, just as it was.

Seems an appropriate measure for the person stealing the product. No vandalism, and not destruction of property. The data files were created by the stolen program. If you steal something and it stops working, what is the responsibility of the manufacturer of the stolen property?

See ya.

[TheWraith]

50. "Pity there's no way to... permanently disable the device if the material was pirated."

That's not destruction of property?

[MineralMan]

118. It is, but there's no way to do that via an ebook, so it's

not a practical possibility.

[TheWraith]

121. Doesn't matter. It's still an inappropriate response.

It's also a demonstration of why people push back against DRM systems and copy protection, in large part by turning to DRM cracking.

[MineralMan]

18. No, actually the appropriate response is prosecution for the

crime of stealing the copyright material and distributing it. Since this place is probably offshore somewhere, that won't happen.

Stealing is a crime. It is that simple.

[Name removed]

99. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MineralMan]

158. What's your point?

This post has nothing to do with the topic.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

153. Plenty of precedence ...

The red dye in the bundles of cash will just RUIN the upholstery of the getaway car. Just one more reason to hate bankers.

:hi:

[Dappleganger]

29. If you do that people will refuse to buy your products.

Didn't work out so well for Sony, they quit that practice.

[hunter]

53. Thanks for explaining why I don't use closed source software.

My computer, my programs, my data.

I don't pirate anything. I also refuse to suffer any sort of DRM. I've typed in too many long encryption keys, I've been frustrated by too many broken authentication schemes to put up with that crap any longer. I don't use Windows, I use Debian. I don't have Photoshop, I use Gimp. Forget Microsoft Word, I write everything with a plain text editor in Markdown and translate that to html, pdf, epub, rtf, LaTeX... whatever... using pandoc.

I'm never going to make money as a basketball player, but I can still play basketball. Most artists will never support themselves by their art, but it's not because of pirates.

We need to develop a clearer understanding of where copyrights are constructive and beneficial to both the artist and society, and where they are destructive to the arts in general. The success of J. K. Rowling is a win. The overflowing cesspools of Righthaven and much of the music "industry" is a loss.

[timtom]

151. I like your style, kid.

Your post is a great resource for alternative effective solutions.
Thanks.

[zonkers]

161. Wow. Enlightening post. So you use freeware exclusively? PC based only, right?

[hunter]

173. Free and Open Source software.

There's certainly a lot of closed copyrighted firmware and patented hardware in my PC, which I got for free. I make all my computers out of discarded stuff. Somebody paid for all that design work, but not me. I don't think I'm stealing food off the table of the hardware or software engineers who designed the computer. They've been paid for that work already.

It's the same as with a car. I buy a car and I don't continue to pay the car's creator for every mile I drive. The cost of creating the car, or my computer, was incorporated into the original sale. The deal is done.

I use Opera as my main browser. I used to pay $35 for Opera back when Netscape and Internet Explorer were both too hideous for me to support. These days Opera's business model is to give away their desktop browser for free, maybe to hook you into their profitable mobile browsers and "cloud" services. With Opera, regretfully, I also must use the Adobe Flash plugin if I want to watch much of youtube. It's free, but I wish it would go away.Proprietary video (H.264) and advertising delivery vehicles still rule that market and corporations like Adobe, Microsoft and Apple want to keep it that way.

But that's pretty much all of it. I use Open Source software for everything else, and protect most of the stuff I create myself with an open source or Creative Commons license. Like most people it's likely I'll never make money collecting royalties on anything I've created. I accept that and I won't be like a high school jock neglecting his studies in hopes of getting drafted by the big leagues. For every millionaire actor or musician in Hollywood there are a hundred equally talented and maybe more deserving people waiting tables. How do we support them?

[Lucian]

Surprise, surprise.

You're against pirated ebooks.

How is that any different than me buying a book, reading it, and giving it to a friend for free?

[mainer]

125. Point is, you bought the book. It's your property.

And you can lend it out, just as a library does. But that book has a physical lifespan -- probably no more than a few dozen readers can enjoy it.

A pirate makes innumerable numbers of copies available to the whole universe. And may never have bought it, not once.

[Spike89]

171. And keeping a copy at the same time?

A huge difference is corpreal instances, i.e., is the pirate creating quantity (yes) and does that affect value (yes). Your analogy only sort of works when you are talking about something semi-trivial or very time-sensitive. A textbook, a reference work, poetry, classics, and many other types of publications are often used repeatedly, and on-demand.

If 100 people are using the book simultaneously, the author/publisher/bookseller deserves to receive payment for 100 units. In your buy, read, pass it along, scenario, no problem, it is one simultaneous use. To be accurate, what pirate's do is akin to running the book through a copy machine--something long acknowledged to be stealing.

In e-books, pricing has been dropped NOT because they are cheaper to produce, but because they are single-use/one reader publications. You can crack the DRM and pirate them, but you're stealing. It is simple as that.

Ironically, the "info is free" folk can't seem to get it through their heads that authors and publishers aren't selling info at all. They are selling the labor and expertise involved in getting that info into a format you can access and digest. Refusing to support the labor of the people trying to educate, illuminate, inspire, entertain, and inform you isn't just incredibly stupid, it is totally counter to what you profess to be doing, which is encouraging the dissemmination of knowledge.

[Spike89]

5. Funny thing is, that is basically our mission!

I know (assumed actually) that you were being sarcastic and offering support. However, the reality is that we are a 503b non-profit organization--publishing is not our primary "business". Of course we charge for our books, so we can afford to produce more. I, and most of the other people on staff take less salary than we could get working in the for-profit sector--for a variety of reasons from being true believers to liking the security.

The point is that in every real and true way, the information is free. We are simply forced to charge for the preparation and delivery costs.

[Aerows]

34. It's flattery

and publicity.

Relax. All it does is allow your audience to become wider.

[Aerows]

33. It's flattery

that someone would like it enough to steal it.

It truly is. That's the model that Sony, et. al. have used - it's well documented that they released their own pirated editions to track them.

Don't be naive.

[progressoid]

180. Flattery don't pay the bills.

[geardaddy]

174. +1

[MineralMan]

2. I'm sorry to hear that.

Some would say that information is supposed to be free and that there should be no intellectual property rights. I've seen it said right here on DU.

You're a great example of why that simply isn't a valid argument. I hope you find a solution.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Unfortunately, you knew it had to happen...

as soon as it became easier to steal a book, someone would.

Amazon has been speeding up the decline of book publishing by pushing the prices of print and ebooks to below sustainability, and the public, insisting on only the cheapest, if not free, news, entertainment, and information, was glad to get on board.

You can't do much by yourself but hope the big guys jump all over the pirates and force prosecutions.

[Spike89]

13. Yeah, we'd hoped being "fringe" would help

Actually, it has probably helped us quite a bit. Our books really aren't the kind most people would want to read on their Kindle or iPad...they are non-fiction books for a specific professional audience (educators). We'll do fine without e-books bringing in much revenue, our paper titles are all doing great. However, our e-book strategy was basically to take our lumps so that when e-books are truly viable, we'd be up to speed. Now it looks like that may be too costly (it isn't just that we lose the revenue to the pirates, but we have a legal obligation to our authors to fight the pirates and legal fights are very expensive).

[mainer]

59. I think you'll be all right with this

If it's an academic book, perhaps with graphs or illustrations, etc., then that audience is still probably going to want the paper version. And since it's a small audience to begin with, you can probably count on your readership not to be downloading too many pirated versions.

Also, it probably doesn't pop up on too many pirated sites, so you may be able to keep up with those versions quick enough to take them down.

[tinrobot]

6. Welcome to the club.

A Google search of the books I've published turns up more torrents on the first page than Amazon and other genuine links.

[Betty88]

7. Can I ask what makes ebooks so expensive to create?

I have wondered this since I got my nook. I am completely ignorant about what goes into e-book publishing I am honestly curious.

[TheWraith]

14. Theoretically, nothing.

You can produce and distribute infinite copies at no cost.

In practice, the biggest single cost is distribution. Contradiction? Sort of. Take Kindle books for instance: Amazon.com charges 30% of the cover price on a Kindle book for the right to use their service to distribute it.

The cost for the publisher to produce it, and the value to the writer, vary rather heavily depending on what sort of model you take to it. And part of the problem is the limitations on the available market for books.

For instance: selling 1 million books at 25 cents per copy would net a lot more money for all involved than, say, selling 30,000 copies at $5, and it would allow more people to buy more books. But, if there's only around 150,000 people who would be interested in reading your book at any price, then you have to account for that when you price it. If it takes the author a year to write, and they need to make $40k to keep living during that time, then that's a minimum cost of $40k to cover, plus say $3k to pay the guy who formatted the book, $3k for the editor, $3k for the publisher, $10k for promotions... all in all you end up with a $60k minimum cost. (Note--all of these numbers are imaginary, for conversational purposes. They don't reflect real world costs.)

So then, if you need to make $60k to make back your money, and then there's also one third of the sticker price that's going to the distributor, then you have the choice between trying to sell 400,000 books at 25 cents, or 25,000 books at $4, in order to break even. If you wanted a decent profit margin, you'd be talking about 1 million plus "cheap" books, or 50,000 regular price books. So while you hear about occasional successes for books using micropayments like $1 or the like, the market for books--particularly ebooks--isn't large enough to sustain doing that for all titles.

[Betty88]

16. Thank you

I get it now

[Spike89]

25. Very concise and good explanation!

I was much more specific to our specific niche, but you nailed the economics.

[Kurska]

150. If most of your costs are in distribution why not just offer it for free for download?

I mean, you're a nonprofit and it sounds like you lose more money on hosting it on itunes than anything else. Why not just offer the program for free and ask for donations? It might actually be cheaper.

[Spike89]

172. Most of our costs are NOT in distribution

Our costs, and those of most publishers are mostly upfront...production, factchecking, etc. We set our prices not to make a profit, but to pay our costs so we can publish the next book. The point is that doing e-books doesn't drop our cost much, if at all, but currently people will not pay full price for an e-book and when pirates enter the equation, it destroys the incentive totally.
I want the info from every book to get out to as many people as possible--that is basically the definition of an editor. To do so, I must have a financially viable model for doing it.

If only the rich can afford to publish, the only things that will be published will be the ideas that benefit the rich.

[tinrobot]

42. That logic only works for mass market books.

For instance: selling 1 million books at 25 cents per copy would net a lot more money for all involved than, say, selling 30,000 copies at $5, and it would allow more people to buy more books.

Very few books will sell a million copies, period. Most books will never sell more than a few thousand copies, yet are many still very important. Medical books, specialized textbooks, and so on.

Should the people who spend months or years writing these important, yet highly specialized, books sell them at 25 cents each?

[TheWraith]

49. Again, please read the actual content of my post before responding.

You seem to have completely bypassed the entire second half of everything I wrote.

[tinrobot]

64. I did read it.

The problem is that, at low volumes, some books may still have to sold at tens to hundreds of dollars for an author to recoup his/her efforts. At those prices, the incentive for piracy is very high, particularly with things like textbooks.

[TheWraith]

69. You seem to have skipped the area where I made the entire point about market size.

That said, the question of textbooks is a special one which has it's own issues, including many unethical behaviors on the part of the businesses involved.

[mainer]

47. Except for an author's labor for a year or more.

But I guess most people think that authors should slave away for free.

[TheWraith]

48. Maybe you should actually read my post. nt

[mainer]

54. "theoretically, nothing"

is what I was responding to. Yes, you say that "theoretically," an author will want, oh, $40,000 to live on. But that's not a theoretical number. That's a real number.

[TheWraith]

57. So you responded to the title without reading or understanding my point. Okay. nt

[joshcryer]

148. You need to look up marginal cost. All digital media has zero marginal cost...

...because the resulting media can be infinitely duplicated. That's what scares the capitalists to hell and back. It fucking scares them so bad that they http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100713/17400810200.shtml">spend tens of millions of dollars suing people only to get a few hundred thousand dollars back (the lawsuits over copyright infringement tend to be settled out of court, and they're intended to scare people, not actually recompense authors with fictional damages).

[Spike89]

22. Glad you asked...

First let me say that we're talking about a professional-quality e-book. Just like a paper book, the cost of the book must pay for the editors, designers, layout people, artists, and of course the author. There are some minor costs, things like ISBN registration and CIP (basically making the book title searchable and available to consumers).
Currently, there are a bunch of e-book formats that publisher's need to code for. The costs aren't huge to convert your files into the various e-book formats, but they aren't insignificant either, and they do require considerable time and expertise as well as too much time dealing with the intricacies of each vendor (Apple, Amazon, B&N, etc....)
Despite what most people think, there isn't much difference at all between what a publisher pays for a paper book and for a e-book. Admittedly, for the big guys, it can make a huge difference--the cost for an e-book is almost all upfront and mostly not tied to quantity. For a small press, the e-book can easily cost more per unit. Here's an example with some realistic numbers:

A paper book costs the publisher $2.50/copy when printed at a press run of 2000. ($5000 total) Let's say the book has production costs (lump editorial salary/time, art purchased, etc.) of $10,000. You're also paying 10% to the author and you discount 40% to retailers (so they can make a profit). If you price that book at $15 and sell all 2,000 copies, you'll basically break even, the author makes about $1,800 for writing a book. If you're lucky, you can reprint the book and sell another 2000 copies and because you only have to pay printing and royalties (the editors et al are already paid), the publishing company makes about $10,000.

That same book in e-format does not have a per copy print cost, but it might cost about $2,500 to get it formated in each of the five e-book formats you're selling in. You still need to pay editors, artists, etc., so the $10,000 cost remains. People will not pay the same for an e-book, so instead of $15, you can charge $10. You sell your 2,000 copies and the publisher loses money (~$4200), the author gets about $1200 for writing the book. If you sell the second 2,000 copies, all you need to pay is royalties (and the 40% discount of course). So now the publisher gets $7800 back for a net of $3600.

For a small publisher, the fixed costs don't get spread over very many books.

[Modern_Matthew]

8. Unfortunately, I cannot download the world's smallest violin... nt

[tinrobot]

10. Right. Have you ever spent 4-6 months of your life writing a book...

...just to have people steal it?

Thought not. Get a clue.

[themadstork]

38. Yet if they're reading it. . .

I'd consider that to be a win.

[tinrobot]

39. A win for the reader, perhaps.

Not a win for me. I did not write books as a form of charity, I wrote them to make a living.

[themadstork]

41. I write books to be read

And honestly I don't care if you can't make a living writing books. There are plenty of other people writing books, and I would much rather what's good for readers and writers shape the future of epublishing than have it be artificially constrained by those who feel they deserve to make a living writing books.

[mainer]

56. So you think some workers don't deserve to make a living?

Do you feel the same way about other workers in this country? Or only writers?

[themadstork]

63. Writing

as it's an odd example where the intellectual transaction is vastly more valuable than the economic/material one. Obviously this is only feasible with electronic books.

[tinrobot]

58. You can value yourself however you want.

Personally, I'm not into being read simply as an ego boost or to "get my name out." That game is for people who write blogs and Huffington Post articles for free.

I'm also well aware of other forms of media and publishing, because I'm doing quite well in them. I knew books were dying a few years ago, and that's when I canceled a book deal and told my publisher to lose my phone number. I never looked back. Best decision I ever made.

[mainer]

60. People who work for free...

are probably producing a product that's worth about that.

[tinrobot]

65. Sounds about right.

[themadstork]

71. A nicely pithy statement. . .

but very plainly misguided when seen in relation to the history of books. Was Emily Dickinson aiming to strike it rich?

Most contemporary poets know they will never make a cent from their poems because there's simply no market for it. Does that mean they're all producing shit?

[tinrobot]

90. Making a living and striking it rich are two different things.

I'm sure Emily would have wanted to get paid for her efforts.

Contemporary poets typically make their living as English professors at small colleges. More than anything, they're the ones who tell their students it's about the "art" above all else. Nothing wrong with that, but those programs seem to create more English professors than professional writers.

[mainer]

126. Poetry is a different kettle of fish. A very small audience.

It's never made any money; Ogden Nash is the only poet I can think of who actually made a living at it.

[Spike89]

175. It is precisely these areas in peril

It might be that Emily never gets published at all if there is a greater penalty to being a poety publisher (maybe I'm fine with losing $1,000 on a collection, but can't justify $5,000 loss). Poetry won't go away, but just because "Full Many a Flower Is Born to Blush Unseen" is true, doesn't mean that it isn't in the best interest of all of us to support the arts, even when they have trouble supporting themselves.

The bigger issue is that if you make it unprofitable for any but the rich to publish, then the only things that will be published will be those that benefit the rich.

[themadstork]

68. It's not an ego boost

But rather it's the point of writing? Do you write in order to paint your walls with pretty words? I write to create cool reading experiences for people (and myself, since I have to read it). Other people have done the same for me. It seems to work.

[tinrobot]

86. I write to make a living.

If I create a cool reading experience, then I'm having a good day. If the experience is super-cool, then I may get rewarded with higher sales figures.

[themadstork]

93. I'm not saying you shouldn't be doing this

Of course I would love to make oodles for my work. : ) But as we move away from the physical book I don't think that those who made money within the fading publishing infrastructure should *insist* on making the very same amount of money in the very same way within whatever new system develops. And at any rate doing so is a recipe for failure; there's not much money to be made in denying the inevitable. You see this in every industry where the rapid transfer of information has rendered the traditional modes of distribution useless: those who simply dig in deeper and try that much harder to succeed in the old way either go belly-up, or they game legislation such that they profit while everyone else is pissed off and frustrated.

[tinrobot]

102. Totally agree with you.

This is why I canceled my last book deal several years ago and told my publisher to lose my number. The writing was on the wall. I know a lot of people in publishing who are seriously struggling because of the upheaval. Thankfully, I made the leap to other media sooner rather than later and have done well. It's a jungle out there, I tells ya!

[joshcryer]

146. The industry used to be this place where only the most elite would get a publishing deal...

...you send in your manuscript, and let's be honest, there's fanfic out there that is as good as any decent books out there, and then they look it over, and tell you if you're worthy.

The key is that the publishers aren't looking for great writing (if they were they'd publish a shitload more than what is submitting), they're looking for good writing that doesn't require a lot of editing which has an interesting pull to it. In some ways it's a crapshoot.

But digital media is changing that, where people can easily become self-published and take their fanfiction practice and make it in to their own creation.

[themadstork]

163. Well, there are still some editors that sell authentically great books at a loss for the prestige

that comes with it. They're dwindling, but they're out there.

But yeah, the model you describe in your last paragraph is truly exciting. I think eventually we'll end up with something like the inverse of the patronage system, where each working artist is supported by a small group of loyal fans--perhaps even those fans are "subscribers" and are regularly sent the artist's work, or even allowed to give feedback on drafts, etc. There are so many great places this could go. We'll probably see a situation where megasellers go all but extinct, but a great many writers are earning a nice supplementary income from their work.

[mythology]

There is nothing good for a writer in having their material illegally obtained.

People need to do these strange things like eat or have a place to live.

[themadstork]

73. Being read is undeniably good for the writer.

[mainer]

95. But being paid for it is what feeds him

I suspect that those who tout the wonderfulness of writing for nothing are those who can't find a publisher to save their lives, and justify their position by saying their work is "too amazingly creative" to appeal to the sullied marketplace.

And those who think writers need to be paid are the actual professionals.

[themadstork]

108. Does not change the fact that being read is still good for him/her

and may very well lead to them being able to eat.

How much does a writer make by griping about piracy?


My position is not that writers should not write for pay. I certainly do try to get paid. The more I'm paid to write, the more I can write!

What I'm objecting to is using the standard way of thinking about labor-compensatiom to justify backwards ideas on electronic publishing. The "rules" that went with traditional publishing should not necessarily be applied to epublishing. It's a different world; writing exists independently of the written page. This opens up tons of new opportunities, but we'll miss them if we insist that nothing in the world of books should ever change.

[LanternWaste]

19. I'm sure you could... you'd simply try to get out of paying for it is all.

I'm sure you could... you'd simply try to get out of paying for it is all.

[Electric Monk]

9. Excuse me for finding humor in seeing this other thread right next to yours on page 1

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1044624

[progressoid]

11. Sorry.

I find my work "borrowed" all the time. Sadly, by people who should know better. People who would scream if their work was used illegally.

[cbdo2007]

20. Which pirate site is it and what format is it in? Like a pdf or a special format?

If it is a p2p sharing site such as a bittorrent site, you could create a "fake" copy of your book that just has the first few pages and then have page 3 say "This is only a partial edition. To download the full book go to this site and pay for it: http://yoursite.com"

That way when some people try to download it they will get the fake one you created and then other people will start getting it and then more people and pretty soon people will be scared to download it cause there are some bad versions out there.

[Spike89]

23. Yeah, a cracked PDF, can't tell at a glance which format was

cracked...we publish in Nook, Amazon, iPad, and a couple other e-book/epub formats...we don't publish e-books in PDF.

The site is filesonic.com...they claim to be a file storage and transfer service, but the fees are all to make downloading the illegal files faster.

[cbdo2007]

24. Also, have you checked their takedown policy?

for copywrighted (sp?) works:

http://www.filesonic.com/intellectual-property

They say they will take it down if you ask them to. Not sure if they really follow through but certainly a letter from a lawyer would help.

[mainer]

21. Welcome to the club. It happens to every author.

The only way to combat it is to offer it in e-book form at a price low enough so that pirates are willing to pay for it legitimately. I've heard the price $3.99 as the break point where purchasers consider it worth paying for.

If it's any consolation to you, most pirates don't really read the books, nor would they purchase them anyway. They just do it to be pirates.

[Leftist Agitator]

27. "...most pirates don't really read the books... They just do it to be pirates.

This is the most dimwitted statement I have ever read on DU.

[Aerows]

32. Thank you for

calling out one of the most silly fallacies I've ever heard. "They just do it to break the law!"

Christ.

[mainer]

44. It's what authors and publishers have noted to be true

Maybe not true for music pirates. But for book pirates, publishing research shows that most of those who post pirated books don't actually read the books. They don't care to read the books. And those who download the books don't necessarily read them either.

[Aerows]

112. And you think

people too uncaring to read your books...

...are going to suddenly read them even if they download them in a flood? You are as silly as the MP3 complainers.

If they start reading your books, they will start READING. That is a net positive. It's like the library fell into their bedroom.

They like it. They search for more, and they see your name again when you write another book, and they buy it.

Most likely, they will go, "what is this crap?" if they don't read, dump it, and move on.

If they do read, then proceed to being interested by the person that presented them with the information.

[mainer]

122. My point is that piracy doesn't matter as much anymore

since readers can now download books for only a few dollars, and they come without viruses attached.

I don't worry about whether people want to read my books. They already do. And they pay for them.

But piracy is still wrong. It's just becoming more and more irrelevant.

[Aerows]

30. Offer it at a fair price

and people buy.

And yes, pirates just do it for the fun, but normal people will buy if it's at a reasonable price, with REASONABLE accessibility. If you lock you work down so that it can only be read once on a single device, yes, expect your patrons to turn away from that.

[tinrobot]

67. Like Wal-Mart prices?

[Freddie Stubbs]

168. It is hard to beat free

[Aerows]

26. Keep writing

and understand that the value has never been in the making of money off of the format, it is off of the artist themself.

There are models where people offer the writing for free, and still get paid, because the author rocks. I am a freelance author, and I really could give a shit whether you buy it or not - that isn't why I write it. The funny thing is, that if you are good, people will pay regardless.

Sorry, I can't get into these kinds of tears when I have never charged, and people enjoyed it just the same. When you seek profit, instead of making art - which is the dissemination to as many people as possible - you drop off the radar.

I am fully prepared for the lambasting I'll get, but I stand by my statements. You are either in it to make money, or you are in it to make art.

Don't pretend to have the same protections if you are in it for money, because you don't get them.

[LanternWaste]

35. You believe one necessarily denies the other?

"When you seek profit, instead of making art..."

You believe one necessarily denies the other?

[Aerows]

37. I don't

But I believe pursuing profit over art, and over a readership, it necessarily excludes your original readership.

That should always be the soil you till, your mind, and your readership. If you are just in it for money, you might get some, but that's not why some of us are doing it, and you shouldn't stand by and make faces because we are so "privileged" to be able to do so - maybe we do it with everything we are, and we aren't following your formula, and your advertising agency.

[LanternWaste]

75. Who other than the author determines if profit of creativity has the higher priority...

Who other than the author determines if profit of creativity has the higher priority?

(Although I imagine there are some individuals who believe they themselves are clever enough to make that determination on their own)



BTW-- I don't make faces, and I don't have a formula. If you deduced that from a valid question, stop writing and start reading... :shrug:

The righteous rationalization of theft is getting to an absurd point these days. But I imagine we all justify our own distempers, and expect a higher degree of morality in others than we expect in ourselves...

[Aerows]

81. I didn't direct the comment of

"making faces" directly at you, but I suspect you realize that. I was directing it at this thread.

As for your comments that I should stop writing and start reading, then I will offer it reflected at your own self, if that is what you got out of what I posted.

I suspect you just wanted to get outraged, however, and that's fine, feel free to direct it my way. I'm not intimidated by scrutiny.

Are you?

[LanternWaste]

83. Frustrated by justifying theft? Yes. Rather.

Intimated by scrutiny? No. Not really-- regardless of its irrelevance.

Frustrated by justifying theft? Yes. Rather. And that of course, is what the thread is about. Theft-- and the side bars by those who rationalize it. :shrug:

[Aerows]

89. I don't see it as theft

And I have had things directly plagiarized - that I considered theft. But publishing it, with my name in tact, and spreading it around? That isn't theft, that's publicity.

[LanternWaste]

94. I imagine we all justify our own sins to one degree or another...

"That isn't theft, that's publicity..."
I imagine we all justify our own sins to one degree or another... And redefine a thing or an action in direct opposition to both the classical and the legal definitions to better assuage our own guilt. I suppose that's one unavoidable part and parcel of human nature.

[Aerows]

98. Justifying a sin?

Oh my, aren't you getting sanctimonious. Yes, let me "justify the sin" of borrowing a book from a friend or listening to a song on the radio.

[themadstork]

40. Yeah. Eventually I think 95% of all books will be sold at either pay-as-you-wish or

very low prices, like one or two bucks. I like both these models honestly. As a writer I'm very excited for the future of publishing.

[Aerows]

43. I am too :)

Glad to see other pioneers

[themadstork]

55. I think it's in the nature of books and reading to

generously support those writers you like best. I shell out the money to buy the expensive hardback editions of my favorite authors' work, and I enjoy doing it. Sometimes I'll buy multiple copies if I can afford to, and maybe give one away, or keep one as a cleqn copy and one as an annotated copy.

As an example, I bought Wallace's The Pale King in both hardcover and electronic form. He's not even alive anymore, but I like feeling like I'm supporting those whom he cared for. Or, buying two copies of Vollmann's hugely expensive Imperial pretty much robbed me of saved "having fun" cash for the better part of a semester, but I want Vollmann out there doing his thing in the world, and it felt very satisfying--certainly much more so than paying to see District 9, or whatever flick was big then.

[mainer]

66. Wish there were a lot more people like you!

If deserving authors didn't get paid, what we'd get is a hundred million very bad e-books written by amateurs.

[Aerows]

78. I've read things by amateurs

that eclipsed what was written by those who commanded dollars for it.

Or do you suddenly believe the free market works?

[LanternWaste]

88. Asmimov, Shakespeare, Dickens, Douglas Adams, HC Andersen, Sauraute, Golding, Kafka worked for free.

Asmimov, Shakespeare, Dickens, Douglas Adams, HC Andersen, Sauraute, Golding, Kafka worked for free... or should have?

[Aerows]

91. Did they do it only for the money?

Or did they do it for publicity?

Or did they do it because they had ideas to share with the world, and they utilized their fame to propagate their ideas of the world?

Not everyone views the world the same way - that is what writers such as Douglas Adams, Shakespeare, and Kafka taught us.

Frankly, if I thought I was able to influence the world to think in a new way, as any of them did, I'd choose influencing the world over being famous. My lover would still love me, and probably love me even more, and my friends would know, too. Not all of us need accolades to speak our minds.

[LanternWaste]

96. You appear to be avoiding a question.

You appear to be avoiding a question. Did they (or should they have) worked for free?

[Aerows]

103. I'm sure they did

until their work caught fire, and then they could do as they wished.

I have no idea who this author is, so in my mind, they haven't caught fire, and any publicity is better than none.

[mainer]

97. But everyone needs to eat.

[Aerows]

101. And I guess

everyone that writes a book that gets approved to be published deserves to get accolades and great pay for it, even if it's dire shit?

No.

Sorry.

Effort does not equate outcome. Farmers learned that when planting crops centuries beforehand.

[mainer]

128. No. But they do get paid for it.

And the publisher believes in it enough to risk handing over an advance. It may be a small advance, but at least someone thought it was worth it.

[mainer]

127. You haven't read enough work by amateurs, then

most of it is dreadful and would never have been published. Except in their own minds.

[themadstork]

130. Most professional work is dreadful.

Well-made books are rare.

[mainer]

167. Most amateur work is even more dreadful

which is why they're considered amateurs.

[Spike89]

182. So true! Also true, 1/2 the "professionals" can barely write

Seriously, if editors were not needed, do you think every publisher in the last 200 years would pay our wages?!?!

[themadstork]

79. I think there are

But we will always have a great number of very bad books. And great books are always being written, even when there's no market for them (there usually isn't).

[Dappleganger]

92. This is quite true...

"But we will always have a great number of very bad books."

And people such as this should not expect to command top dollar for their finished product. On the other hand, I am very excited when a new writer comes out who is passionate about their work, continues to excel at their craft while at the same time is humble enough to relate to their potential readers (consumers) along the way. Some of the most interesting new writers I have met in the past three years have been on Reddit, Twitter as well as Facebook.

[timtom]

152. Lemme jump in here

I more or less agree with the two of you. The trick is that, at one time, artistic verbal creations were delivered orally. If there were any revenue to be generated, it would have to have been generated through fees to come in and listen to the speaker/storyteller. Dylan Thomas reading his own poetry??? How I would have loved to been there.

Technology changed all that. But now we are in a position whereby technology has changed all that again. Public performance. One might say, "But Youtube...." We know that that experience will never equal the in situ experience. No matter how many times I listen to Leon Redbone, nothing will equate with our eye contact as I was smoking a joint while leaning on the proscenium of the stage at the Armadillo in Austin many years ago.

Let's take story-telling, poetry, and music back to the people. Let's change the entertainment/arts model.

[mainer]

45. How do you make a living at it if you don't get paid?

If everyone's taking your product for free, how do you feed yourself? Do you have another day job?

[Aerows]

52. I guess you want to be one of those "privileged" writers

Where someone else foots the bill while you write.

You either do or you don't, and nothing will stop you if you do.

[mainer]

61. It's a "privilege" to be paid for one's labors?

I hope you work for free at your job, then.

[Aerows]

76. I work my ass off

to have the privilege to write.

I might not even be a good one, but I put my work out there, and it is well received, and I've gotten paid for it a time or two.

You either do, or you don't.

[Bluenorthwest]

72. What do you do for a living?

How do you support yourself if you work for free? It is a simple question.

[Aerows]

74. I'm a writer first

but secondarily, I work as an engineer.

[Bluenorthwest]

80. But your income, your profession, is engineering?

The writing is done for your own pleasure. Would you work as an engineer for the pure love of it?

[Aerows]

82. Yes, to both

And I have, at both.

[Bluenorthwest]

104. And you should be aware that there is not a money earning artist

alive who does not also do much, much work for nothing. I think my point is that you have a 'day job' in engineering. There are writers I know who have day jobs in which they write. I do not really see the difference. They write both for their own reasons and, often separately, for money. Some who you might call famous authors are famous for 'day job writing' while the work of their soul is very different. They do exactly what you do, just with writing as a skill common to both parts of their lives. That's it. To assume there is a wall between those who earn a living and those who 'write for art' is a narrow view that when flipped over is the same energy that says 'those who do not make a living are not writers at all'. That is what I think. I've known people who pumped gas to fund writing. Also people who wrote 'youth fiction' to fund writing strange materials they adore. People who write translations of other people's work to fund writing of their own work. People who write animation scripts from template story lines to fund the plays they work on, people who write soft core materials to support their journalistic pursuits.
So the thing is, people have what their soul teaches, and also a hungry belly. Anyone who is feeding both parts is feeding both parts. Engineering, gag writing, it's a living. What's the difference? If you do both commerce and art, you are no different from a working artist, who also does both commerce and art. The lucky people are the ones who love various labors or varied forms of their craft. That sounds like you. Because of that, you are fed and creatively active. Because we all have a bottom line to meet, one way or the other. Unless of course, we are lucky enough to be fully supported with endless outside means.

[Aerows]

109. I had a hard fight to even be an engineer

as a woman.

I wouldn't have fought it if I didn't enjoy it, and I wouldn't be a writer, or fight for it, regardless, if I didn't enjoy it.

I probably could have chosen other professions or hobbies, but I followed what I wanted to do. I'm not saying buck up, but I am saying stop yelling at those of us who are walking the tight rope of doing what we love, being liberal, and being rational. Occasionally, that includes questioning such things as griping because some liberal out there got more liberal ideas in their head by reading a book they "pirated" off the internet. Or found in the library. Or heard paraphrased.

[themadstork]

110. There's also the fact that the "theft is theft" position is very much the pro-corporate position

and thus a weird stance for a liberal to take. Honestly surprised so many people here have accepted the corporate dogma re copyright.


Maybe this doesn't really fit here. Wasn't sure where in the thread to put it.

[Aerows]

111. No, you are correct, my friend

and I see it too.

I cannot believe the multitudes that leap all over "big corporate is right" in this thread.

[Aerows]

117. buddy

:toast:

[mainer]

123. Theft from me is theft from me

and it has nothing to do with any corporate stance. Just as someone who comes in and steals my TV set is still a thief.

[themadstork]

129. Conflating theft of goods with copyright infringement

is exactly as PR firms everywhere would want you to think.

[joshcryer]

135. +1, the corporations love that normal citizens fall for this meme.

They paid millions of dollars to put the idea in the minds of people that copyright infringement is theft. To the point that some of the biggest unions in the country are pro-restrictive laws for digital media.

[themadstork]

138. Yeah. I saw once where a middle school had a recording industry rep come in

and explain to the kiddies how there is no difference between copyright infringement and theft.

[joshcryer]

140. It is a pure invention, last 10-15 years or so.

People were pirating like crazy in the mid 90s because it made sense (zero marginal cost- no one loses anything but everyone gains). The media companies made a massive, overwhelming push for a decade to silent this sharing mentality.

Ahh, the early days of the internet were an amazing experiment in socialism...

[Bluenorthwest]

141. I just got my first reuse fees for digital media this week.

I needed every penney of them too. Which is why my Union protects my interests from those who would take my work without paying me. My Union is there to serve my interests, not those of the employers or the consumers, but the interests of the Union's membership. Our interests involve paying the rent and such.
So you should either mail me money on demand, or pay for what you want to own or use. Unless your wallet is mine to use, mine is not yours to use. Fair?

[joshcryer]

144. I would never take money from you.

Because I don't consider copyright infringement theft. :hi:

And anyone that does is a stooge for the megacorps.

[mainer]

154. And if you pirate a self-published e-book?

No corporations involved. Only a hardworking author whose creative product you swiped. How do corporations come into that? If you walk into the author's house and swipe his wallet, I suppose a corporation made you do it?

[themadstork]

164. If you wanted your work to remain "yours," you should have kept it to yourself.

It's the nature of creative and intellectual work that once it is publicly available, it is no longer "owned" by "you." Ideas are not private property. Copyright laws were introduced to give creators incentive to introduce their work into the great cultural commons of shared ideas, NOT to prevent the "theft" of your ideas, or to ensure you can horde your intellectual work as if it were gold. Read the case file on the recent lawsuit that Righthaven lost, or buy a book on the history of copyright. These are not anti-theft laws, and pretending that they are is playing completely into the hand of our venerable corporate overlords.

[mainer]

166. Does the inventor of a new drug lose all rights to the formula?

Of course not. Just because the formula becomes publicly available, the whole world can't just reproduce it and give it away.

Some ideas ARE protected by law.

[themadstork]

169. That doesn't disprove anything I said.

He's supposed to have the exclusive rights to its sale--for a time--to reward him for bringing the formula to the public. And then he doesn't. The "idea" is not his, however.

Again, read either the case file or a history. The purpose of copyright is to benefit the public, not to enforce property law.

[themadstork]

77. Because writing is the only work I can do?

I'm a florist right now. In the future I'd like to be a history prof.

I write during the time that most people watch TV, I guess? And I wake up at 5 AM to do a little reading /writing before the day begins.



The history of books is filled with people who toiled enormously on projects that stood to make them pennies, at most. The standard economic ideas do not always apply to all forms of human work.

[Aerows]

84. Thank you for expressing it so well

Not everyone does it for the same reasons as everyone else does.

[Spike89]

62. Well, art isn't everything (though it is important!)

I do write both fiction and non-fiction and I agree with you 100% about art driven writing--it can't be about the money, but the money will come if you write for the art. However, my day job is as a service journalist. Basically, without false modesty or overblown self agrandizing, I work to dissemminate information to make the world better in some small way.

The reality and what I've learned to accept in my career is that most writing is not "art". It isn't fun. It is utilitarian, nitty gritty facts presented not for entertainment or even enlightenment, but simply ink put to paper because it is a step in the process. Sure, there is a stark art in every job, but editing peer-reviewed journals and books for a niche market is not creative. My market, teachers and school of education professors mostly, need the materials. They need the materials in the most useable and clear format. They need deep trust in the materials, trust that the editing and presentation is clear, even elegant. They need to know that these materials fit within the framework (factual and ideological) that they understand and expect from us.

My group advocates for the effective use of technology in education. We dissemminate both the results of academic study and research as well as books showing how to implement new teaching strategies and styles. Very little of what we publish would be readable by someone without a teaching degree, some is dense enough to stop any but the most jargon-savvy edcational theorist.

Quick frankly, a "good" selling book for us is a few thousand copies. To simply break even, we need to sell these books for a list price of $30+. We don't make a profit, we don't even try to pay prevailing wages. We publish because we believe teachers need tools and information to better teach our students and we believe it is important that that information come from teachers and others in education and not only from commercial vendors and publishers.

We are not unique, as I mentioned, most publishing in this country and the world is some form of service journalism. We may be able to edit, write, design, market, catalog, etc. without getting rich, but we do need to be paid or the work will not be done. Pirates kill that.

[Spike89]

113. Huge fallacy to think most writing is fiction/mass market

The reality is that most books published are non-fiction books written for a very specialized market. Not a single one of my authors has come close to getting rich. They write for a lot of reasons, supporting themselves isn't one of them. However, without the meager royalties, most of them couldn't afford to dedicate the time and effort required.

Even beyond that though is a profound lack of knowledge about the publishing industry itself. There are a few huge commercial publishers and there are thousands of mid-size and small publishers that don't make lots of money but exist to give authors a venue. A great example is poetry. Poetry publishers struggle to just break even, or lose just a bit--when things get tough in the publishing industry, Bantam Books doesn't fold, but dozens of small poetry, art, and boutique publishers do.

A book is not exclusively the product of the author. They may be the star and they do deserve all the credit they can get, but a book is readable because a small army of editors worked on it, type stylists made the form agreeable, artists came up with a cover that helps readers choose it, publicists put cover copy in place to convince buyers to pay, etc. etc.

The romantic notion that the words are all that matters is insulting to every real author as well as everyone who works in publishing to make good books great.

[themadstork]

116. The same rules apply though

For niche specialized books it basically comes down to this: you must convince your specialized audience to buy the book rather than pirate it. (That or subsidize the cost.)

If a publisher cannot convince a ready-made audience of specialists to buy their book--cannot make their product appealing enough for them do so--then I would submit that this publisher isn't doing a very good job, and probably wouldn't do very well in any environment.

[mainer]

124. So you're offered the product at a price or for free (stolen)

and you expect the legitimate seller to have to compete against a free stolen product? How is a publisher going to make a product appealing enough to convince people to pay for it when they can get for free?

[themadstork]

136. Make a really good product. Treat people well. Stay involved in the specialist community.

Supply free electronic versions with purchase of physical book. Regularly update electronic product as the specialists provide feedback. Offer some feature or service that a pirate cannot emulate, whether it be something in the physical design/packaging of a book or more web2.0-type services. Etc.

There are tons of ways to do this, and people pay for something they could have pirated all the time, every day. In this case you have a built-in audience with significant loyalty toward the specialist community.

If you still can't beat the pirate, you're probably overpricing. Or there is simply no significant market for your product, and it should be free. Or should no longer be made. Or be funded some other way, outside of private enterprise.

[joshcryer]

145. Better idea: write until your fucking fingers fall off. Write so much about so much...

...that people can't help but come across your stuff. It's extremely dooable.

[mainer]

155. Write your fingers off for free?

I think that's called slavery. But even slaves get fed for their labor.

I'm still having a hard time understanding how one makes a living wage while giving away one's product for free. Is it like sitting on a street corner with a big kettle and a sign that says "donate to the starving writer because I'm so pleasant and work hard and I write purely for love?"

[themadstork]

162. It's also the nature of freelance writing.

I know this is yet again delving into individual freelancer stuff rather than the publishing press, but what you're describing is what writers have done for ages. Until you've written enough that the demand for your work is a seller's market rather than a buyer's, all writers are what you would call "slaves." This is because the value of the product they're making is not yet known, and so they must either work on spec or by selling pitches. If I work in a factory the value of Good X that I'm assembling is a known value and I can be paid by the hour for my work. Probably not nearly enough, but we live in an owners' society, sadly.

It's as if those in this thread have no clue as to the economy behind creative work. You can't think of it in the same way as most wage work. If I've never painted before, you're not going to pay me by the hour to do your portrait. Not unless I've got a significant portfolio of quality work behind me. (And yes, much of the work in the portfolio I probably did for free, or for dirt-cheap.)

[mainer]

165. I make my living as a writer. Of course I understand its economy.

I've supported my family and sent my kids to college purely on my writing income, so I do understand the economy of creative work. It's like any other work -- except that maybe it's a little more fun than working in a factory. No, it's not like wage work, because my income relies on how many readers buy the books. As for working for free? Only the occasional short story for a charitable cause. When your work is actually worth something, you don't work for free because it means time away from your income-producing projects.

Freelancers may have to start off working for a pittance, just to build up their audience. But eventually those who find an audience will realize their work has monetary value, and they sure as hell won't give it away for free.

[MilesColtrane]

28. Welcome to the 21st century musician's and filmmaker's world.

[Dappleganger]

31. Or you could have Neil Gaiman's outlook on piracy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI

[Aerows]

36. It's the focus on the short term

instead of the long term. Gaiman realizes that the long term, as all authors do, is the most relevant.

Some are so relentless on the bottom line, that they forget the long term, which is spreading a message and letting it take root. Books are seeds. Some people wish to treat them like crops, but they are not, anymore than buying a bunch of cows automatically makes you a developer of fine cheese.

[Bluenorthwest]

70. Gaiman is also a fabulously wealthy author who has sold many

of his 'art works' to become hacked out commercial barf fests. I adore his writing, but to tout him as anything but a money clearing house is a stretch. He makes deals that are all about money, not at all about art. He's a rich, rich, rich man from his pursuit of the bottom line.

[Aerows]

85. That's what you got out of what I posted?

Wow.

[Dappleganger]

87. Wow.

Jealous, much?

And you didn't even address what he actually said.

[Bluenorthwest]

114. I'm not talking about him, I am talking about using him as an

Example of not considering the bottom line. He most certainly does. I do think at times that the quality of adaptations of his work is tied to the way he approaches deal making for those adaptations. My point is that comparing a high end, high dollar author to those trying to make a living and claiming that the rich guy just does not worry about the bottom line is a bit disingenuous. Because he most certainly makes hard core professional deals, which he should. He gets well paid. That does not happen because he never considers the zeros on his contract.
I like him very much. I just don't see him as anything like an example of a person who does not consider profit and the bottom line.
My issues was with this idea of calling working people out for making a living, while claiming a very strong rich commercial artist never thinks of the bottom line. I just don't get the idea of snipping at people for trying to feed their families, and then holding up rich people as examples of 'how not to care about the bottom line'. Neil's problems are not the problems of a working artist. They are the problems of an international product line. This OP is about a small non profit publishing business, and people are saying 'you should do it just for love, like Neil'. The OP does it for love. I assume Neil does as well, and both of them think of the bottom line. Telling a small business person or nonprofit that they should not care about making enough to keep the doors open, while holding up Superstar media makers as examples of how to not care about money strikes me as odd.

[joshcryer]

131. There are authors on Amazon who are making thousands of dollars...

...selling e-books. The reason these artists sell it are numerous, but it is certainly a sort of envy process going on by saying when rich artists turn a blind eye to piracy that they can "afford to." They got lucky, but there are thousands if not millions of artists out there who also turn a blind eye to piracy, and they are not wealthy beyond belief.

I myself develop Android apps. Piracy is a fact of life. Oh well. Nothing you can do about it.

[Bluenorthwest]

142. I'm not a writer for a living.

Those who make lots of money did not just 'get lucky' they practiced good business, used excellent reps and protected themselves. My entire point on this thread is that it is odd to tell a small non profit publisher that they should not worry about making a living because a rich witer like Gaiman has different priorities for his current form of international, longer than a lifetime sort of sales. He's a huge deal, not a wee nonprofit. Gaiman is represented by CAA, like a movie star.
And also, note, Gaiman does not turn a blind eye toward piracy, he protects his work. He expects compensation. He is very wealthy at this point, so if the 'bottom line' was really of no concern to him, he could give all his future work away for free, or to foundations, and in addition he could allow free and open use of his work in adaptation to other mediums. He does none of those things, he protects his work on many many levels. He does not give it all away, not by a long mile. It is sort of fucked up for rich artists to suggest that they do not charge for their work like the petty middle classs. Gaiman is repped by CAA. CAA does not give away a dime. He pays them to protect his interests and make the best deal for him.
I'm in the film biz and I have made a fine liviing since I started out at age 20. And I most certainly protect my own interests, as does Mr Gaiman, by use of lawyers and agents and the full force of the law. Under no circumstances would I expect those who are not in that position to behave as I do, or as anyone else does. I do not give it all away. Theft is a fact of life in all businesses, one can not avoid loss, but one can prevent and mitigate that loss.

[joshcryer]

143. No, they got lucky. Look at Amanda Hocking.

Your writing is not better than Amanda Hocking's, nor is mine. She is merely prolific as fuck and sticks to it and has filled an incredible niche. She's rich. Richer than you'll ever be, because she got lucky. And she did it all without these bizarre publishing mantras that are thrown around.

Of course, now Hocking has a real true blue publishing deal, because the publishers want to make fucking money, and they know that by contracting with her they get to make money by taking from the writer. She considers it a fair deal because it takes much of the weight off of her (no need to edit, no need to make covers, by-lines, formatting, etc, etc). And you would probably consider it a fair deal because you might be entrenched in the business side of things.

I myself prefer to go it alone and say fuck all to these third parties who want to take profits from me, because in the end my works are going to be pirated, so it'd be foolish to not only be pirated but also be stolen from by companies who pretend that they have something to offer me that isn't worth what they're charging.

[geardaddy]

46. Report it here

www.nwu.org

[mainer]

51. Trying to take them down is like whack-a-mole

It ends up causing more work than is worth it.

Piracy is turning into less and less of a problem as e-book sales go the way of iTunes. Books at a reasonable price, easily purchased, at a legitimate site.

[Lucian]

100. So how is a pirated ebook any different than...

me buying a book, reading it, giving it to a friend, and having that friend give it away, with the chain going on potentially 7 billion times? Instead of buying many books, only one was bought and shared among many (the chain could go on).

Pirated ebooks work the same way.

[Aerows]

105. Thank you

I've shopped in used book stores more times than I can count. Am I suddenly a pirate?

Am I a pirate because I read really fast and can read a whole children's book in the book store and figure out if I should give it to my niece or not? How about if I read the whole damn thing in the stacks of the library without ever checking it out *I did that with Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King

[Lucian]

106. You should go to jail you thief!

:eyes:

:sarcasm:

[joshcryer]

134. Oh, you want value loss? How about buying books from a library?

You buy it from a book store the original owner may have read it, and then you read it. The "loss" to the writer is just "one purchase." (How dare you not purchase an original from a primary chain!)

But you buy a book, highly used from a library, the library purchased the book at a discount, and it was read by dozens if not hundreds of people! How dare you read something you cannot afford to have!

[themadstork]

139. This is a great example of how in the book world tremendous intellectual/artistic value can be

generated w/o hardly any corresponding jump in profit. That one book may have changed the lives of dozens of people, and the author will hardly have seen a dime. There's a significant economy at play there, but it's not money that's being exchanged.

[joshcryer]

147. Yeah, from my POV the more people I touch the better, it has nothing to do with profits.

I recognize that the world has changed and will continue to change and I do not want to see digital media enter this realm where people who merely want to experience my works get hefty fines or jail time for doing so. That would be an utter disgrace.

[mainer]

156. Fine. You're free to give it away. No one's stopping you.

Professional authors will still want to be paid for their work. That's the definition of "professional," by the way. Those who do it and get paid.

[Spike89]

115. Well for starters...you bought the book

But even if we assume the pirate bought the first copy, the difference is that each pirate has the book whereas the mythological 7 billion loan book is in 1 person's hands at a time. If I wrote a book that people would be willing to wait in line (perhaps behind 6.9999 billion!)to read, well, I didn't do so good at writing an enticing or neccessary book.
You also make an incredibly arrogant and misinformed assumption that books are like some lifetime immunization--you sit down and read the dictionary once and never need to look up another word? Your car repair manual is memorized.
No, pirated ebooks do not work the same way. Libraries loan 1 copy they buy out at a time, if they need more, they buy copies, they don't steal them.

[Lucian]

119. What if I took said hypothetical book...

and Xeroxed it (pretend money isn't an issue) and made 7 billion copies of it. Would I then be a thief?

Or hell, what if I sat in the bookstore, grabbed the book, read it, and put it back on the shelf without buying it. Would I still be a thief?

This is a grey area and that's the point I'm trying to make.

[joshcryer]

133. Actually that would be infringement.

Redistribution is infringement, your original analogy was fine.

[themadstork]

137. hehe. I do the bookstore thing all the time.

[BzaDem]

149. Yes. That is not a grey area at all. n/t

[joshcryer]

132. Not if each 7 billion people legally made a copy of said book.

Which they can do under copyright law (yeah, shock, but you can make a copy of something for personal use, you cannot distribute).

[Shagbark Hickory]

107. You know there's a lot of sites claiming lots of really good free downloads, except if you actually

try to download them, you don't get nothin but a virus.

Charge more for your ebooks and don't let the virus spreaders get you down.

[Puglover]

120. What about books I have moldering away up in the attic

that I've already purchased. I'd like them on my kindle. AND as is the case with James Michener's "Hawaii" Amazon doesn't sell them. Is it wrong to download a copy in that case?

[Mariana]

176. It certainly is not wrong.

It may be illegal (or may not be, I don't know) but it isn't wrong. Similarly, if someone has a physical VHS tape of a movie that they bought years ago, it isn't wrong for them to download a DVD or Blu-ray copy of the same movie.

[Codeine]

179. But you bought a VHS tape,

not a life-long license to the film. :shrug:

[Spike89]

178. To be honest, yeah, wrong, but grey area

The reality is you bought an experience, a format. If you accidently spilled wine on it, dropped it in a fire, lent it out, but didn't get it back or just lost it, would you insist the bookseller owes you a replacement?

I've done both with my personal music collection--I repurchased most of my "essential" music that was on tape and vinyl when CDs came out. In fact, I probably own at least 5 copies of Elvis Costello's "My Aim is True" album in various formats and releases, not to mention all the alternate versions of those songs I've purchased, the versions included on compilation albums I bought, etc.

As a publisher myself, I have no problem with a single person buying the paper version of my book then "stealing" the e-book version (I'd give it away with the paper version if the market didn't make it so expensive to do so). But, that is really for me to decide.

[MineralMan]

181. Hmm...you're right. Hawaii isn't available.

Other Michener books are. I imagine Hawaii will join them, since the book is still in print in paperback. If there's a market for it, it will show up.

Frankly, I only read public domain stuff on my Kindle, all from Project Gutenberg. Current stuff, I borrow from the library. Eventually, though, it'll all end up being available on the Kindle. I just don't buy e-books. There's so much old material that's available at no cost that I use the Kindle just for that.

I just finished Life on the Mississippi. I'd actually never read it, even though I'd read most of Mark Twain. Very nice, and complete with all the illustrations, too.

[octothorpe]

157. What kind of book is it and who is the intended audience?

It's been my experience that people will generally end up paying for products from small publishers of books, games or whatever. That's even if they pirated it initially just to see if it was worth buying. Have you considered putting something in your next book asking that they buy a legitimate copy, along with an explanation of your costs? People generally have a soft spot for that sort of stuff.

[fasttense]

159. I don't understand why e-books would cost you so much to distribute.

Unlike paper books, there are no printing or shipping costs. Everything on an e-book is done via the internet. So, please explain how e-books could be so costly to offer.

I'm confused.

[Spike89]

177. Answered above, but here it goes again...

Printing and shipping are no where near the main costs for a small run publisher. The major costs are fact-checkers, editors, designers, proofreaders, and yes, royalties to authors, bookkeepers to make sure royalties are collected and paid, publicity (so the people that need/want the info can find it), and lots of other plain old business expense.

Even when it comes to the actual "creation" of the book, e-books aren't as "free" as you might think. Coding/conversion services aren't free and there are an army of competing and non-compatible standards, then if you care about your content, you'll need to check each conversion to ensure that the process didn't foul up your book. Then, you've got to actually get people to offer your e-book for sale (they want between 30-40%).

When you get into bestsellers, that's a totally different economic market and the cost equation is considerably different. The reality of the publishing world is that the vast majority of book publishers don't have any intention of producing a bestseller.

[Mrs. Overall]

160. This is such an informative thread--I'm a writer/publisher and my press will be releasing

a book that will be sold exclusively as an e-book (we're doing this as an experiment). I've been researching all of the angles of e-publishing and had not given the piracy issue much thought.

Some of the posts on this thread have given me a headache (especially those suggesting that writers should not expect payment), but your posts that have explained the e-book process and costs (in terms of your direct experience owning a small press) have been extremely helpful to me. I'm bookmarking this thread.

I feel for your financial loss and for your dilemma in terms of how to prevent such piracy (though I think, ultimately, it can't be prevented). Good luck to you and your publishing endeavors!

[Spike89]

170. Thanks, and good luck to you and your publishing adventure! nt