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Steve, are your books actually being pirated on the darknet? Because I have the strong impression that most of what's being passed around there are books that aren't available as ebooks at all, and if they are, they're those that have had DRM on them that's been broken. My impression is that Baen books, for example, aren't that popular on the darknet, because they have very low "gift economy" value. You have a Baen-style model, so I'd expect your books not to be pirated that much anyway.
Although we get a few folks around here who seem to be quite unabashed pirates, I think most folks are either trying to replace existing print content that they've already paid for (and we've discussed the whole "license of content" vs. "payment for container" issue ad nauseum-- my contention is still that one should only have to pay for the content license once, and once one has done that, if the container itself has no cost or low cost, one shouldn't be paying full price again for container PLUS content license), or people are trying to get by who are on low incomes, and such people tend to spend a lot on content once their income situation improves, becoming important supporters of content providers. No studies have been able to show that music piracy, for example, is actually harming the music industry, and I rather doubt ebook piracy is harming the book industry. Yes, it happens, yes, it's morally objectionable, but I just don't think it's a large enough effect on the market that the sky is falling over it.
Now, if you or anyone else has some evidence that piracy is hitting your pocketbook directly, I'd be happy to hear it. Until then, we can all spout theories and rationales about how much effect piracy is having on ebooks and authors, but we're all just guessing.
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