Quote:
Originally Posted by Peadar Ó Guilín
Somebody has sent me a link to a pirate site where the Italian translation of my book is available for download. Should I be angry or flattered? Should I try to do anything about it and if so, what? The book has sold really, really well over there in hardback, so in a sense, I'm not sure I have anything to complain about.
Or do I? Thoughts, anyone?
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I'd like to know a couple of things: who's the crew who made the book available and who's the Italian publisher.
- Most of the publishers I know won't sell an electronic version of their books anytime soon (and they prevent the authors from autopublishing, of course).
- The three crews I know actually buy several copies of the books they scan, and they always try to persuade the downloaders to purchase the p-book. And they do a really good job, far better than Mobipocket.com. They usually provide, with the book, a catalog of the author's other works, some critics, a biography, cover images, and sometimes some reading suggestions (very valuable because they come from readers, not from sellers). I don't know if it's your case, but a large percentage of the books in the dark come from there.
- The members of those crews I know are all under 25 years old.
- AFAIK, about 50% of the people who download the book say they'll buy it if it's worth; I think that about half of them actually do it. Keep in mind that e-ink readers are rare, and they usually read on cellphones.
- You cannot stop them, wherever they are. They'll share floppy disk at school, if you disconnect them all from the net, like M. Sarkozy suggests.
Anger is IMHO a big waste of energy.
A war is a lose-lose.
But it's up to you.
I think it's better to contact those boys and girls and try to educate them, making them understand why the right thing is to pay for what they get.
I'm rather optimistic, and I think their anger is directed toward big corporations, not good writers.
