Bittorrent Books.

[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?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Peadar Ó Guilín

Or do I? Thoughts, anyone?

I would recommend that you be flattered about it. There's not much you can do... especially if the server is in Estonia or some other place that really doesn't care.

BTW: Do you have an official translation or did the pirates translate it too. You should be really flattered if someone thought it was good enough to need to be translated.

BOb

[acidzebra]

Well, a quick check around the more popular sites which give download numbers, some 1000 people have downloaded the torrent which enables them to get this book. Let's triple that to compensate for sites that don't provide numbers. 3000 illegal copies. Add newsgroups (often the step before something hits public bittorrent) and make it an even 5000. Since it appears to be a recent torrent, let's assume that attention will taper off over time as the web has the attention span of a goldfish on crack. I don't know, say, 30,000 illegal copies in your lifetime.

Now the question is, does this (completely fictitious) number translate into lost sales, in other words, if there were no such thing as the internet and piracy and such, would you have gained 30,000 sales over the course of your life? Personally, I do not think so, but there are people who disagree vehemently (most famously the RIAA and MPAA, at least in public statements). Would you have gained a substantial amount of extra sales? Again, I don't think so.

You certainly have gained a lot of attention/eyeballs ( by the way, I also do not believe that everybody who downloads ebooks or the like actually reads them all, plenty of hoarding behavior out there). I don't know how to translate that into money. I don't even know if it does translate into money. Advertisers seem to think so. I think so too, but I don't have hard data of any kind.

And like pilotbob says, there really isn't much you can do. Already five or so torrent sites have picked it up. This number will only increase over time as torrent sites also index torrents on other sites.

Out of curiosity, was your book published electronically? What format was the original sold in on what sites?

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by Peadar Ó Guilín

Should I be angry or flattered?

Flattered since most likely someone thought it worth to scan, ocr and post it - you got fans and with a bit of luck that should translate in higher sales too

[Peadar Ó Guilín]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

BTW: Do you have an official translation or did the pirates translate it too. You should be really flattered if someone thought it was good enough to need to be translated.

BOb

No, it wasn't that flattering It was translated by the Italian publishers who'll be the ones losing most of the money, if any is to be lost. But if, as you say, the server is somewhere safe from legal challenge, then too bad.

Originally Posted by acidzebra

I also do not believe that everybody who downloads ebooks or the like actually reads them all, plenty of hoarding behavior out there.

Ha! My own behaviour bears this out. I've only had my reader a month. In that time I've bought 5 ebooks and downloaded 7 (legally) for free. I've read four of the five I paid for and precisely 20 pages of all of those I got for free. Go figure.

Originally Posted by acidzebra

Out of curiosity, was your book published electronically? What format was the original sold in on what sites?

The English language version is available for Kindle, Sony and Mobi (see my sig. if you're interested), but I don't think any of the foreign language publishers have made it available as an ebook.

[Peadar Ó Guilín]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

Flattered since most likely someone thought it worth to scan, ocr and post it - you got fans and with a bit of luck that should translate in higher sales too

I'll keep my fingers crossed that you're right

[tribble]

Maybe you should convince your publisher to sell your book in a digital format

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by tribble

Maybe you should convince your publisher to sell your book in a digital format

It is available on Fictionwise (Secure Mobi/LIT) and also as a Kindle book from Amazon. Not sure about the Italian translation.

BOb

[leandroide]

Hi!

The brasilian writer Paulo Coelho has an interesting experience on the subject. There is an explanation (in english) here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008...4/digitalmedia

Regards,

L.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

Flattered since most likely someone thought it worth to scan, ocr and post it - you got fans and with a bit of luck that should translate in higher sales too

I'd agree with this. If there were a legal Italian ebook version, you might have a basis for concern, but I seriously doubt this is impacting sales of either language version at this point.

[Peadar Ó Guilín]

Originally Posted by leandroide

The brasilian writer Paulo Coelho has an interesting experience on the subject. There is an explanation (in english) here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008...4/digitalmedia

That was pretty cool, especially this bit:

Then I suggested that the next time he's in a cafe and bored, he should send a message to his fans via Twitter and his blog and I'll just bet a few will be in the neighbourhood and will drop by to share a cup of coffee. For Coelho is not just an author to them now. He's a friend.

[Format C:]

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?

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.

[elena]

Originally Posted by Peadar Ó Guilín

The English language version is available for Kindle, Sony and Mobi (see my sig. if you're interested), but I don't think any of the foreign language publishers have made it available as an ebook.

you know, there is almost nothing available as a commercial ebook in italian. Everything you find as an electronic book is either free or pirate, and in both cases comes from readers scanning a book they own.
I happen to sometimes download illegally a book I'd be happy to have the opportunity to buy.

Do you, as an author, ever discuss the matter with your foreign language publishers?

[dadioflex]

Edit.

[dadioflex]

Edit.