Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Thornton
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.
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I agree with the point that it's very complicated, and that as with music illegal downloads can lead to future sales. They don't always, but they can. However, many people only read a book once, but they listen to albums many times.
What this means for illegal or other free downloads is that a person may read one book and get hooked, but rather than buying a copy of the one they have already read, they will go out and buy the author's other works. This is wonderful, and the author does get paid for those purchases. The problem is that these numbers aren't going to the current book, which is the one the publisher is counting when figuring the author's next advance.
So while I completely agree that saying that some downloads will lead to lost sales is not the whole story, but it is part of the story, and for an author's career it can be an important part.