|
I understand - I do understand - authors getting angry at people who get a copy of their work illegally and for some inexplicable reason feel the need to tell the author that. (I suspect some of those authors silently fume also whenever someone tells them they borrowed a paper copy from a friend and loved it, or got a copy used and loved it, but as these actions are legal and generally supported by society as moral, it doesn't do to go ballistic about those things openly.)
Although I've actually heard of quite a few authors, especially traditionally published midlist authors, speak up to their fanbase and beg them to buy new, not used. (And of course in some notorious cases, order them to buy a book on a specific date, tell foreign fans that they don't count and flip when someone has bought their book, new, from a bookshop, on the wrong day, due to having surgery on the right day.)
Anyway, back to my point: I do understand authors not liking the idea that someone gets their book by illegal means. If I was an author, I wouldn't, either.
But... telling potential readers that the author would prefer they didn't read their books at all, if they're currently not in a position to buy a legal copy (or obtain it legally in other ways, such as from a library / paper copy from a friend)... I honestly don't understand that attitude either.
I mean, if you tell someone "if you can't afford it, don't read it", you'll very likely lose a potential paying customer in the future. On the other hand, while many of the people who read "for free" are not going to turn into paying customers (because they have an attitude of being entitled to get everything for free or because the book didn't appeal to them enough to become/remain a fan of the author), others will.
If they've read and liked the book, no matter whether they borrowed a paper copy from a friend living next door (legal) or a de-DRM-d e-copy from a friend living on another continent (horrible crime), they will buy the author's books in the future, if they're in a position to do so; they will do word-of-mouth advertising for the book, recommend it to their friends (some of whom may buy a legal copy), gush about it in reviews on Goodreads or Amazon; they may even turn into the sort of fan who will buy multiple copies of every new book in the future either for themselves or as gifts.
(No, I'm not saying that every pirate will turn into an exceptionally good paying customer. Of course not. It's quite likely that even the majority won't - if for no other reason then because the majority of people reading any book will at best think "meh" about it and move on to something else. But some will, unlike the people who might have been interested in a book, were not in a position to read it legally, and got told by the author that people like them aren't wanted as readers at all.)
|