Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion
It worries authors because regardless of the exact percentages involved, it would be very surprising to presume that no one who downloaded a work would have bought it if they could not have got it for free. That's as ludicrous as assuming every download is a lost sale.
Given that some fraction of downloads are lost sales, this has two effects. First, the author may not earn out their advance, which can have a material effect on the advance on their next book, and second they may not generate enough sales to be offered a contract for the next book-- and so readers may never get to read the sequel.
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I'm not convinced by the idea that an author must sell fewer books if people copy them illegally. It may be that people are more likely to pay for their books if they discover them through an illegal copy. J A Konrath's blog seemed to suggest that he took that view.
Note that I'm not saying that authors will definitely sell more copies if their work is copied illegally - rather that I don't think that saying "some of the pirated copies would have been a sale" is the whole story, because some pirate copies lead to more sales. How it all balances out would require some stats which I don't have. With music, I've bought plenty of albums by artists that I discovered because somebody made me a tape.