There's a better way to beat the ebook pirates

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

My book makes me about $100/month on Amazon, more or less (okay, often less). It's hard to make myself sit down and write another book for $100/month. If I knew that when I finished it I'd get a check for $100,000, I'd be up before dawn hitting the keyboard! But ebook sales...uhm, not so much.

$100 a month isn't too bad for something you wrote 10 years ago and presumably made some money from during its original print run. You actually released it into the pirate community yourself, long before you put it on Amazon, so can you tell us if doing that hurt your sales in any way?

Also, presumably if you wrote something else a lot of the people who have already bought (or downloaded) that one would buy the new one soon after it was released, and after that it would make about the same amount?

So the secret to making a living as a writer would be to write more?

[crich70]

Actually the idea of a vampire in a spaceship is at least as old as the 1970's version of buck Rogers. There was an episode where B.R. encounters a vampire type being and manages to destroy him using a space ship and the stargate type thing (it was 3 or 4 stars somehow linked together to make a connecting corridor through space or something)they used in the series for some long distance space travel. I imagine there might have been others both in literature and cinema before that though. There is very little that is really new out there. Just a new twist on the same ideas.

Originally Posted by ApK

Put a vampire in a spaceship.

That's apparently all it takes at the moment.

(Actually, that's been done. And I hear it's better than I make it sound. BTW, more power to you if it's your bag, but I just do not get this current vampire/romance thing. Did this really start with Twilight, or has pent-up demand been building since Buffy?)

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by crich70

Actually the idea of a vampire in a spaceship is at least as old as the 1970's version of buck Rogers. .

How about Star Trek's 1966 episode "The Man Trap" aka "The Incredible Salt Vampire"?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

So then what do we do, make the internet a pay-per-bit entity and pay out royalties to all content providers based on some algorithm?

No free downloads that way.

Well, in the UK at least our internet fees are going to rise dramatically to pay for anti-piracy schemes that are going to make no difference whatsoever. Those extra fees could certainly be spent in a more useful manner.

What did they do about piracy before the internet? Some countries had a levy on blank tapes, and the money went to large corporations. Creators never benefitted from that in any way, not even already established ones. So if the idea is to encourage the creation of new works, that is not the answer (but almost certainly what would happen with such a levy).

A better solution would be to count the downloads of each individual file and pay a few pence to the creator of that file for each download. That way even new/unknown creators will benefit if anyone thinks they are worth downloading. But there would have to be some legal digital counterpart on sale somewhere, otherwise writers like Rowling who refuse to release digital versions would obviously be downloaded a lot more than they would be otherwise.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by crich70

Actually the idea of a vampire in a spaceship is at least as old as the 1970's version of buck Rogers. There was an episode where B.R. encounters a vampire type being and manages to destroy him using a space ship and the stargate type thing (it was 3 or 4 stars somehow linked together to make a connecting corridor through space or something)they used in the series for some long distance space travel. I imagine there might have been others both in literature and cinema before that though. There is very little that is really new out there. Just a new twist on the same ideas.

There was Planet of the Vampires in 1965, that was based on a short story but I don't know when the original was published. Presumably at least a year earlier.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

SF was the only genre I wanted to write. You can't write what's not in your heart.

Lots of people do. Richard Allen wasn't interested in skinheads or football yobs, but that didn't stop him from selling millions of books about them during the skinhead and football yob crazes. Then there would be things like Deathlands or the later Saint books, where the people who write them don't even get a writing credit.

[Tome Keeper]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

A better solution would be to count the downloads of each individual file and pay a few pence to the creator of that file for each download. That way even new/unknown creators will benefit if anyone thinks they are worth downloading. But there would have to be some legal digital counterpart on sale somewhere, otherwise writers like Rowling who refuse to release digital versions would obviously be downloaded a lot more than they would be otherwise.

Is this for all files or just for e-books?
How would this be managed?

I can see lots of people put up any random crap just to make some money from being downloaded.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

So you just disregard those who think otherwise?

Disregard? Not at all. I actively chastise them on Internet forums.

ApK

P.S. Your avatar scares me.
Bring back the Kindle-a-bra.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

those people will be just a small percentage of the total number of downloaders. The vast majority of downloaders are just collecting files for the sake of having them. Most will never even be read, never mind paid for.

Found that wormhole, eh?

I have as much hard evidence to support specific numbers as you do (virtually none) but I think you're wrong in your 'majorities' and 'mosts.'

But to be clear, is it a matter of percentages for you? It would be a different matter if the percentages were different?

[ApK]

Originally Posted by crich70

Actually the idea of a vampire in a spaceship is at least as old as the 1970's version of buck Rogers. There was an episode where B.R. encounters a vampire type being and manages to destroy him using a space ship and the stargate type thing (it was 3 or 4 stars somehow linked together to make a connecting corridor through space or something)they used in the series for some long distance space travel. I imagine there might have been others both in literature and cinema before that though. There is very little that is really new out there. Just a new twist on the same ideas.

Yes, and I guess the original Dracula story was sort of a Romance, too.
But still, can all these vampire stories of late actually have even a new twist?

ApK

[ApK]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

There was Planet of the Vampires in 1965, that was based on a short story but I don't know when the original was published. Presumably at least a year earlier.

Or how about this one from 1951:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044121/

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

FYI: Sorry for hijacking this thread yesterday, guys. I did try not to make a big deal out of it, but I realize it didn't work out that way. my bad.

Originally Posted by Anke Wehner

@Steven: If you like writing as a hobby, you could try getting a free blog and writing serial fiction or short stories without trying to sell, just for the feedback. (And maybe a tipjar.)

I've already written short stories and offered them for free. The feedback I got from them was slim. And topjars are notorious underperformers. By request of one patron, I added a tipjar, and got exactly one tip... from the one patron.

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Lots of people do. Richard Allen wasn't interested in skinheads or football yobs, but that didn't stop him from selling millions of books about them during the skinhead and football yob crazes. Then there would be things like Deathlands or the later Saint books, where the people who write them don't even get a writing credit.

Yeah. Sorry... not into that.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

A better solution would be to count the downloads of each individual file and pay a few pence to the creator of that file for each download. That way even new/unknown creators will benefit if anyone thinks they are worth downloading. But there would have to be some legal digital counterpart on sale somewhere, otherwise writers like Rowling who refuse to release digital versions would obviously be downloaded a lot more than they would be otherwise.

Hi! If people could download book samples freely, as they can do currently at most sites, and then at the end of the sample also had the option of downloading the entire book for free, said book would have the payment button inside of it, I think piracy could be done away with.

By piracy I mean people trading copyrighted works, ending copyright will end piracy.

p.p.s It isn't easy coming up with ever crazier avatars, but I keep trying.

[Tome Keeper]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Hi! If people could download book samples freely, as they can do currently at most sites, and then at the end of the sample also had the option of downloading the entire book for free, said book would have the payment button inside of it, I think piracy could be done away with.

How would authors make their money if the book is free? I don't know about others here but if I can legally download a book for free then I wouldn't then pay for it.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Hi! If people could download book samples freely, as they can do currently at most sites, and then at the end of the sample also had the option of downloading the entire book for free, said book would have the payment button inside of it, I think piracy could be done away with.

By piracy I mean people trading copyrighted works, ending copyright will end piracy.

Nope. Wrong.