Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
I did that months ago, guys, back when I was rebuilding my presence on the web and at MR. It's just that I forgot to reset them, and no one's noticed until now.
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And that is your problem in a nutshell:
no one's noticed until now.
Even Stonetools couldn't argue that piracy was somehow keeping people from noticing your lack of accessibility.
Take me for an example: I do not pirate ebooks. I buy science fiction. I read science fiction. I buy ebooks by self-published writers. Every last one of them totally, completely, 100% legitimate. And I couldn't bring the name of your book (books?) to mind right now to save my life.
There's your problem.
As for your book sales funding your retirement, I'd like to direct you to some
comments by Eric Flint. Aside from the sales of his own books, note what he says regarding books in general: The average paperback sells 15,000 copies, of which 80% are in the first three months.
Look at that number again:
15,000 books. That is for books that are in bookstores, sitting on the "new books" display, etc., that someone can find out about just by walking into the store. And that's
paper books, books that anyone can read, not just the people with the knowledge and equipment to search them out and read them. If we assume that your ebook sells 10% as many copies as the average paper book -- all else aside, the market penetration of ebook readers and the visibility of pbooks in large chain bookstores are both
major factors -- we're talking 1,500 books. If you make a profit of $2.00 per book, that's $3,000. You're not going to fund much of a retirement out of three grand.
And I'm being generous in my estimates there. Very, very generous. There probably aren't 1,500 people who have even noticed that your book
exists, let alone who thought it was something they wanted to read. The economics of ebooks are not in your favor. Writing is not, except for a rare few, a lucrative profession. Unless you are one of a small handful of writers, you
can't make a living (or even a good retirement nest egg) from writing. For every famous Dan Brown there are thousands of eternal unknowns.
I'll say again: J.K. Rowling's problem may be piracy (if a multi-billionaire has problems).
Your problem is not being J.K. Rowling.
I have some more bad news for you regarding pirate sites, torrents, etc., that have your book listed: They have your book because either a) someone (probably someone who bought it) gave it to them, or b) because they sucked it off some other website. People who download it from those sites do so because it was packed in with a bunch of other books, and the one they
really wanted "Twilight", but they had to take the whole zip of 1,000 books to get it. They're not going to read it; it's just clutter. It's baggage. They're not costing you sales because they're not reading your book. They're reading the three books in that torrent that they wanted, and maybe one or two others whose authors they recognize, but you're not any of them. Even the pirates aren't reading your book.
That's what you have to fix.
Edit: I want to add this link:
http://www.baens-universe.com/articl...ics_of_Writing
And I want to point specifically to this passage:
In fact, it’s not even close. Most published authors derive only incidental income from their writing...
That's not me. That's not Stonetools. That's Eric Flint, a guy who ought to know.