Quote:
Originally Posted by RCcoleinger
As an author and ebook publisher, I certainly like to be paid for every copy of my work that is distributed. With that said, I also realize that if a few people like my ebooks well enough to pass them on to their friends, my writing career certainly will not suffer. Each time someone reads one of my ebooks, there is a real good chance that reader will take a few minutes and look for more of my work. I certainly don't condone piracy, but some loss of sales may actually be good for my bottom line.
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It's a very complicated issue. Something that can be hard for some to grasp is that a pirated copy is not necessarily a lost sale. People who pirate books are usually
not going to buy something they can't get for free, they'll simply pirate something else. If you make it difficult, they'll try that much harder, just to "teach you a lesson" maybe, and they'll have unkind things to say about you to their friends (who may or may not have similiar habits). On the other hand, if you make a visible effort to not worry overly much about a few bootleg copies, and the pirate likes your book, he'll say kinder things to his friends, and that one lost sale (that would never have been a sale to begin with) may turn in to several new fans who buy ever new book the day it's released. The early days of computer software is a study in piracy as a form of free advertising.
Generally speaking, it seems like the bigger a name you are, the more you'll be hurt by piracy, if only because everybody knows who you are to begin with. It's been a long, long time since Stephen King got any new fans because somebody passed on a bootleg copy of one of his books to a friend. But a relative unknown is far more likely to find new fans that way than, perhaps, through any advertising their publisher does.
I suspect there's no One True Way to approach the issue, and every author needs to figure out what's best for himself.