Quote:
Originally Posted by juxtapose
I think piracy increases visibility with authors and their books. If you are a self-published digital only author, it is very hard to seperate yourself from everyone else. One way authors gain exposure is to load their book on torrent sites. I have known of a few authors to download 10 best selling authors, use calibre to convert all the files to different formats, put their book along with the other ones and then upload that torrent. So when other people are more likely to search for a james patterson or charlaine harris and download the new compliation file their book is there. More likely people will read it and then pay attention to the author for when new books come out. Piracy can be used intelligently to generate a viral following. People equate books with their other company. If i see an author constantly who is in a bestseller torrent file, i will think this author is on equal level with the others. It is a way an author can boost their credibility as a new author. The more visibility they get the more people will pay attention to said author, visit their webpage or blog and might generate into buyers of the next book.
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I have no problem with an author putting their own work up on a torrent site. However, pirating the works of others so that you can put yourself in a bestseller torrent file seem pretty scummy. Even worse than normal piracy, where the person uploading isn't doing it for financial gain.
What is the world coming to when you can't even trust the torrents you're illegally downloading.
