Quote:
Originally Posted by Hatgirl
 This is what I think too, but I was having trouble expressing it.
Cheryl Morgan, who runs Wizard's Tower Books had some interesting thoughts on ebooks and piracy. (I was going to quote the most relevant parts, then I realised I was essentially going to quote the whole article  ) |
I just read that entire link and the comments and I noticed one thing that stood out at me. How can one call something a 'fraction of a sale'? They were only going to buy half the book?
Why is piracy such a big deal? Why dont people work on putting out the best product they can so that whether its pirated or not it doesnt matter? See, if I were a writer Id give out my first book for free. If I have all these bills that need to get paid I wont be doing it. Id front the bill for the first book. Thatd get my name out there. Then Id start cheap with the other books. Heck, Id have my books so cheap that people wouldnt even want to pirate. You see a book at $10 or $20, when you know you can find it somewhere for free, its temptation. You see a book at under $5 it nears an impulse buy. Think authors with cheap ebooks are pirated often? Sure they are pirated, no doubt, but do you think it happens often? Im sure there are some books that arent pirated at all, what do those authors have to say about piracy? What about the people that decide they instead would rather buy it used and get it off the Amazon Marketplace for pennies? They arent the problem, no, its those pirates! Heres an idea, why dont they drop their prices for, oh, a week. Give them one week. Advertise it of course, give about a month of advertising. One week, every book GUARANTEED under $3. See how many sales they bring in then. But oh, thatll never happen. Thatll never happen or they wont advertise it so that no one will know and then they can again say, "PIRATES ARE THE PROBLEM! ITS NOT THE PRICES, WE LOWERED THEM AND STILL DIDNT GET ANY SALES!" And nobody wants to talk about those pirates that got it the wrong way to begin with but liked it so much they went back and bought it. Oh no, forget about them. Do they even exist?
Bottom line, why are pirates the problem? Its almost like the Kansas City Shuffle from
'Lucky Number Slevin'. "EVERYBODY LOOK OVER THERE! PIRATES PIRATING BOOKS!" when they should be over here asking questions like "Why cant we get decent prices? Why cant we have back catalogs released? Why cant books be formatted right?" Why dont these publishers work on making the consumer happy instead of making up these tired excuses that no one cares about? Thatll never happen will it?