Effects of piracy on e-book sales

[Bramblethorn]

Some interesting reading here: http://maggie-stiefvater.tumblr.com/post/166952028861/ive-decided-to-tell-you-guys-a-story-about

I was intent on proving that piracy had affected the Raven Cycle, and so I began to work with one of my brothers on a plan. It was impossible to take down every illegal pdf; I’d already seen that. So we were going to do the opposite. We created a pdf of the Raven King. It was the same length as the real book, but it was just the first four chapters over and over again. At the end, my brother wrote a small note about the ways piracy hurt your favorite books. I knew we wouldn’t be able to hold the fort for long — real versions would slowly get passed around by hand through forum messaging — but I told my brother: I want to hold the fort for one week. Enough to prove that a point. Enough to show everyone that this is no longer 2004. This is the smart phone generation, and a pirated book sometimes is a lost sale.

Then, on midnight of my book release, my brother put it up everywhere on every pirate site. He uploaded dozens and dozens and dozens of these pdfs of The Raven King. You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting one of his pdfs. We sailed those epub seas with our own flag shredding the sky.

The effects were instant. The forums and sites exploded with bewildered activity. Fans asked if anyone had managed to find a link to a legit pdf. Dozens of posts appeared saying that since they hadn’t been able to find a pdf, they’d been forced to hit up Amazon and buy the book.

And we sold out of the first printing in two days.

 

[ttvttp]

Some interesting reading here: http://maggie-stiefvater.tumblr.com/post/166952028861/ive-decided-to-tell-you-guys-a-story-about

Unless you are in a country where you can't find a copy legally are you really a fan if you can't even enter a library to borrow the book?

 

[KeithD]

Somethings muddled here. E-books don't have "printings."

I don't worry much about piracy and I have nearly 200 titles out there. The time others spend playing whack-a-mole with Internet pirates, I spend writing and publishing--getting the work out there on multiple platforms for sale before it can appear anywhere else. Take what would be most of the profit it's going make out of it up front and go on to getting more works out there for sale.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Somethings muddled here. E-books don't have "printings."

In publishing these days it's common to release printed books and their e-book versions simultaneously. As the linked article says:

"All three of its predecessors hit the bestseller list. Book three, however, faltered in strange ways. The print copies sold just as well as before, landing it on the list, but the e-copies dropped precipitously... Then [publisher] told me that they were cutting the print run of The Raven King to less than half of the print run for Blue Lily, Lily Blue. No hard feelings, understand, they told me, it’s just that the sales for Blue Lily didn’t justify printing any more copies. "

 

[KeithD]

Your thread title is about e-book sales, not print.

I don't see the effect of any of this on sales of the e-book version. If the pirates want to pirate an e-book version to sell themselves, they just buy an e-book version and e-book it themselves, which they can do whether or not the author's brother floods the Internet with excerpts (which I don't see the publisher being wild that the author's brother is getting into promotion to this extent either).

 

[Bramblethorn]

Your thread title is about e-book sales, not print.

The focus of the linked article is on e-book sales, but it also discusses print as related to sales. I didn't quote the whole thing; I figured anybody who wanted full context could click on the link.

I don't see the effect of any of this on sales of the e-book version. If the pirates want to pirate an e-book version to sell themselves, they just buy an e-book version and e-book it themselves,

The issue in this article isn't pirate sales, it's people sharing the PDF for free. As the bit I quoted makes clear, flooding file-sharing sites with dummy copies makes it harder for would-be readers to find a free copy, so apparently some of them decided it was easier to buy from a legitimate site.

The article also notes that one of the other steps she took was to prevent distribution of e-ARCs. It should be pretty easy to understand how leaked ARCs give pirates a head start, and I've seen other authors complaining about ARC leaks lately.

 

[NotWise]

The article also notes that one of the other steps she took was to prevent distribution of e-ARCs. It should be pretty easy to understand how leaked ARCs give pirates a head start, and I've seen other authors complaining about ARC leaks lately.

What are ARCs?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Unless you are in a country where you can't find a copy legally are you really a fan if you can't even enter a library to borrow the book?

It certainly is a weird mindset that enjoys reading books but doesn't want to pay the author for the work of creating them.

What are ARCs?

Advanced Reader Copies. Sent out ahead of a book's publication date so reviewers etc. can read it and have their reviews ready for release, and usually done under condition that they don't copy/redistribute, but evidently some reviewers aren't honouring that.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It certainly is a weird mindset that enjoys reading books but doesn't want to pay the author for the work of creating them.

Talk to musicians, they'll tell you all about the impact of that mindset. There's an entire generation of downloaders who want creative content for free, and who don't understand that, if you don't pay for music, literature, art, the creators can't make a living, and you get shit as a result.

Unfortunately, some people don't understand that piracy is theft, and it's not, "just one copy." Good on these people for fighting back.

 

[ttvttp]

With arcs you also can't quote them in a review, the books haven't been fully edited but finished copies have the same problem.