Paulo "The Alchemist" Coelho pirates own books to increase sales

Alexander Turcic · 01-27-2008, 08:17 AM

Credits also to ricdiogo who reported the news first.

It's probably a safe bet to say that his publishers (one of them being HarperCollins) ain't going to be amused about this, but Paulo Coelho, author of the best-selling novel The Alchemist, decided to harness his talents as a pirate to spread his own books for free via BitTorrent. According to TorrentFreak, this "unusual" step helped him to radically increase hardcopy sales throughout the world:

Quote:

In 2001, I sold 10,000 hard copies. And everyone was puzzled. We came from zero, from 1000, to 10,000. And then the next year we were over 100,000. […]

I thought that this is fantastic. You give to the reader the possibility of reading your books and choosing whether to buy it or not. […]

So, I went to BitTorrent and I got all my pirate editions… And I created a site called The Pirate Coelho.

Links:

Video with Mr. Coelho on how the Net affects book business (highly recommended!)
Official "Pirate Coelho" Blog (use Google to find the exact link as we don't want to encourage piracy here)

Thanks to "horseyride" for the tip!

TadW · 01-27-2008, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

It's probably a safe bet to say that his publishers (one of them being HarperCollins) ain't going to be amused about this...

Maybe they dully accept it to see how it goes... like an experiment.

CommanderROR · 01-27-2008, 09:05 AM

This is extremely weird...and it once again shows that those who rave against pirates ruining their sales don't know the first thing about marketing and the way it really works...

erwin · 01-27-2008, 09:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

(...) Paulo Coelho, author of the best-selling novel The Alchemist, decided to harness his talents as a pirate to spread his own books for free via BitTorrent. [url=http://torrentfreak.com/alchemist-author-pirates-own-books-080124/] (...)
Official "Pirate Coelho" Blog (use Google to find the exact link as we don't want to encourage piracy here)

With all the due respect... are you kidding or what?

An ***author*** decide to distribute one of ***his*** books for free, and you call this piracy?

Again, no falme intended, but this level of "political correctness" seems to me plainly rudiculous...

CommanderROR · 01-27-2008, 09:20 AM

Well, he calls himself a pirate, so I guess we should too...

alexxxm · 01-27-2008, 09:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by erwin

With all the due respect... are you kidding or what?

An ***author*** decide to distribute one of ***his*** books for free, and you call this piracy?

Again, no falme intended, but this level of "political correctness" seems to me plainly rudiculous...

I'm sure none of us can call it a way or another without reading the fine line of his contract with the editor, but IMHO it's a safe bet that this is indeed piracy - and if it didnt have the success they say it had, his editor would have been really upset.

As usual with piracy, it's always in grayscale - never in B&W

Alessandro

HarryT · 01-27-2008, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by erwin

With all the due respect... are you kidding or what?

An ***author*** decide to distribute one of ***his*** books for free, and you call this piracy?

Again, no falme intended, but this level of "political correctness" seems to me plainly rudiculous...

If he has an exclusive distribution contract with his publisher, then although it's not "piracy", he's probably at least breaching his contract.

erwin · 01-27-2008, 10:48 AM

Ehr, The Alchemist is a *1988* book, for crying out loud! Editors and other similar paras... ehm, I mean "indispensable third parties" should had gained enough already on it, I think...

Anyway, my obiection is mainly on the pruderie to not give a direct link to Coelho site with the excuse to not "encourage piracy". Another fine example of how distorted the concept of respect of the "intellectual property" has become lately, thanks to the mudding activities of all the ones that feed on the authors creativity, in the musical as in the books field...

kacir · 01-27-2008, 01:46 PM

This is a slightly modified repost from another thread about Paulo Coelho and his "piracy"

Quote:

Originally Posted by erwin

With all the due respect... are you kidding or what?

An ***author*** decide to distribute one of ***his*** books for free, and you call this piracy?

Again, no falme intended, but this level of "political correctness" seems to me plainly rudiculous...

Yes. It was piracy.
Well ... it was what is usually incorrectly called piracy.
Real piracy is a robbery committed at sea, or sometimes on the shore, by an agent without a commission from a sovereign nation [quote from Wikipedia]
It wasn't even a copyright infringement but it DEFINITELY was at least an "unauthorized distribution of the copyrighted work"

His publisher must have had a fit when he discovered the site.

It might seem strange, but even if he really DID write the books, he ... aehm ... "pirated" them by giving them away.
How can you ... aehm ... "pirate" *YOUR OWN* book? The very book you own the copyright on?

Simple and easy.

Step 1.
Write a book.

Step 2.
Sign a deal with publisher for publishing your books and get the money.

Step 3.
Give away the book you received the money for from your publisher.

Step 4.
Your publisher is ... displeased

In this particular case:
Step 5.
Your "piracy" has rekindled[*] a lot of interest in you, so people that wouldn't notice you otherwise suddenly find out they like your books. So the sales of your [paper] books [sold by your publisher] steeply rise.

Step 6.
Everyone is happy
The author
The pirate
The publisher
and, last but not least The readers.

See?
He even got nice free advertisement here on Mobileread and even on Slashdot.
[*] Paulo Coelho was alredy a very famous author.

Liviu_5 · 01-27-2008, 02:14 PM

As posted on another thread: when you sell close to 100 million books you can do whatever you want with your books; so if Mr. Coelho wants to call himself a pirate I think his publishers will say "yes, Captain" and even buy him an eye patch

mrkai · 01-27-2008, 04:15 PM

"Ha!"

-K

Alexander Turcic · 01-27-2008, 06:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by erwin

Anyway, my obiection is mainly on the pruderie to not give a direct link to Coelho site with the excuse to not "encourage piracy". Another fine example of how distorted the concept of respect of the "intellectual property" has become lately, thanks to the mudding activities of all the ones that feed on the authors creativity, in the musical as in the books field...

Erwin, of course you're right. It's ridiculous to not link directly to his pirate blog. Perhaps I was tired this morning when I made the post, or maybe I was just too caught up in trying to be "politically correct".

DMcCunney · 01-27-2008, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Erwin, of course you're right. It's ridiculous to not link directly to his pirate blog. Perhaps I was tired this morning when I made the post, or maybe I was just too caught up in trying to be "politically correct".

Thank you.
______
Dennis

erwin · 01-27-2008, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Erwin, of course you're right. It's ridiculous to not link directly to his pirate blog. Perhaps I was tired this morning when I made the post, or maybe I was just too caught up in trying to be "politically correct".

*erwin steps down from his high moral horse*
No problem, you are forgiven, for this time...

markbot · 01-27-2008, 11:02 PM

Pirating of intellectual property will be seen many years from now as one of the reasons for the decline of our society.

For the record, I thought The Alchemist was a piece of crap.

01-27-2008, 04:15 PM	#11
mrkai Bit Wrangler Posts: 181 Karma: 415 Join Date: Oct 2007 Device: Sony PRS-505	All I have to say is... "Ha!" -K

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01-27-2008, 09:05 AM	#3
CommanderROR eink fanatic Posts: 2,022 Karma: 4924 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Germany Device: STAReBOOK, iRex Iliad, Sony 505, Kindle 2	This is extremely weird...and it once again shows that those who rave against pirates ruining their sales don't know the first thing about marketing and the way it really works...

01-27-2008, 09:20 AM	#5
CommanderROR eink fanatic Posts: 2,022 Karma: 4924 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Germany Device: STAReBOOK, iRex Iliad, Sony 505, Kindle 2	Well, he calls himself a pirate, so I guess we should too...

01-27-2008, 10:48 AM	#8
erwin Newton Zaelot Posts: 39 Karma: 60 Join Date: May 2006 Location: Trieste, Italy Device: Toshiba G900, Newton	Ehr, The Alchemist is a 1988 book, for crying out loud! Editors and other similar paras... ehm, I mean "indispensable third parties" should had gained enough already on it, I think... Anyway, my obiection is mainly on the pruderie to not give a direct link to Coelho site with the excuse to not "encourage piracy". Another fine example of how distorted the concept of respect of the "intellectual property" has become lately, thanks to the mudding activities of all the ones that feed on the authors creativity, in the musical as in the books field...

01-27-2008, 02:14 PM	#10
Liviu_5 Books and more books Posts: 917 Karma: 69499 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: White Plains, NY, USA Device: Nook Color, Itouch, Nokia770, Sony 650, Sony 700(dead), Ebk(given)	As posted on another thread: when you sell close to 100 million books you can do whatever you want with your books; so if Mr. Coelho wants to call himself a pirate I think his publishers will say "yes, Captain" and even buy him an eye patch

01-27-2008, 11:02 PM	#15
markbot Guru Posts: 612 Karma: 7511929 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: New York, NY Device: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2	Pirating of intellectual property will be seen many years from now as one of the reasons for the decline of our society. For the record, I thought The Alchemist was a piece of crap.

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