Maggie Stiefvater writes of her experience with piracy

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by darryl

4. The print run for the final book sold out in 2 days. Sales were again evenly divided between print books and ebooks.

Reprints happened, fairly quickly from the reading of it.

Like I said, hard numbers would be more helpful to know for sure.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by darryl

On a more minor and perplexing note, it seems both the author and her brother were obsessed with pdf, a format that I and many others avoid like the plague for reading books. Many vendors no longer even offer this format. Do publishers offer earcs only as pdf's? Are there groups online who prefer this format for ebooks?

Yeah, I didn't get the focus on PDFs either. I got the feeling that the author and her brother were unfamiliar with e-book formats themselves.

Though I have seen users here that convert different formats of fiction books to PDF. Whatever floats your boat.

[rixte]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Why, TBH it's the best comparison study I've seen.

Book 2 - Control, sales for paper & ebook should drop off from this

Book 3 - Released as normal
- paper sales similar to book 2
- ebook sales 50% of book 2
Book 4 - Actively tried anti-piracy measures
- Paper book sold out (only a 50% print run based on sales of book 3), reprinted
- ebook sales back to previous levels

Sure, some of those additional ebook sales could have been from people who wanted the paper book and hard numbers or at least a % split paper/ebook would be helpful, but it seems to have a better control method than any other study I've seen.

But I don't get your reasoning for 100% flawed?

Because the last part of your conclusion - ebook sales back to previous levels - isn't mentioned. She said that when she released the fake ebook versions, her PRINT version sold out... then she said "My publisher scrambled to print more, and then print more again. Print sales and e-sales once more became evenly matched."

But it doesn't say that the ebook sales elevated - just that they were more evenly matched to the artificially reduced print levels. She only looks at ebook sales relative to the print sales, not in isolation or relative to previous runs of ebook sales.

[pwalker8]

Jerry Pournelle use to write quite a bit about piracy and ebooks. Of course, when he first started writing about piracy, there were few if any ebooks. His piracy was people making paper copies of his books, usually outside the US and Europe. So piracy didn't suddenly spring into existence with digital media.

The other thing that I took from him was his worry about ebooks. He had a pretty good backlist that was re-printed regularly. He use to call his backlist, his retirement fund. A lot of authors, mid-tier and higher felt that way. Fortunately, Jim Baen convinced him to allow his books to be used as part of the Baen ebook experiment, and it seems that Pournelle made good money out of it.

In my experience, the people tend tp blame piracy for their product not selling well, when most of the time, it's either a poor product, poor marketing or a combination of things. A number of mid-tier authors are mid-tier for a reason. Frankly, there are a number of authors whom I tried, read a few books, then lost interest in. It was the same old, same old and they didn't quite have the story telling ability to make it seem fresh.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Jerry Pournelle use to write quite a bit about piracy and ebooks. Of course, when he first started writing about piracy, there were few if any ebooks. His piracy was people making paper copies of his books, usually outside the US and Europe. So piracy didn't suddenly spring into existence with digital media.

The other thing that I took from him was his worry about ebooks. He had a pretty good backlist that was re-printed regularly. He use to call his backlist, his retirement fund. A lot of authors, mid-tier and higher felt that way. Fortunately, Jim Baen convinced him to allow his books to be used as part of the Baen ebook experiment, and it seems that Pournelle made good money out of it.

In my experience, the people tend tp blame piracy for their product not selling well, when most of the time, it's either a poor product, poor marketing or a combination of things. A number of mid-tier authors are mid-tier for a reason. Frankly, there are a number of authors whom I tried, read a few books, then lost interest in. It was the same old, same old and they didn't quite have the story telling ability to make it seem fresh.

This in a nutshell. Blame anything but the real cause.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by darryl

It is unclear whether her anti-piracy efforts had any effect at all.

This is clear:

The effects were instant. The forums and sites exploded with bewildered activity. Fans asked if anyone had managed to find a link to a legit pdf. Dozens of posts appeared saying that since they hadn’t been able to find a pdf, they’d been forced to hit up Amazon and buy the book.

And we sold out of the first printing in two days.

Now, if you said results, however clear, weren't such as to prove the case, I might agree.

The main problem, from a scientific standpoint, is the extremely low sample size (one book title).

A peer-reviewed study, perhaps in the Journal of Marketing Research, using the same basic methodology but with a much larger book sample size, would be more convincing. I hope a university scholar, in cooperation with agreeable authors and publishers, does that study.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

This is clear:



Now, if you said results, however clear, weren't such as to prove the case, I might agree.

The main problem, from a scientific standpoint, is the extremely low sample size (one book title).

A peer-reviewed study, perhaps in the Journal of Marketing Research, using the same basic methodology but with a much larger book sample size, would be more convincing. I hope a university scholar, in cooperation with agreeable authors and publishers, does that study.

Dozens? That doesn't sound like many to me.
In all honesty, this whole blog post sounds like nothing more than a marketing scheme to draw attention to herself.
How many would have sold without her stunt? We have no clue because she pulled a stunt.
It wouldn't surprise me if she told her readers to go to the pirate sites.
Wouldn't be the first time.
Most readers don't pirate. So she either has dishonest readers or did it herself.
Now, I will place odds there probably won't be a fifth book.
By putting up that fake copy, she potentially took money away from the publisher.
Note: I sincerely hope the publisher has the rights to the main character.

[darryl]

@Steve. So you think it is clear that posting a fake pdf online resulted in increased print sales? The first print run was half that of the previous book. Presumably you believe that hordes were huddling over their keyboards wearing their pirate hats looking to get the book for free, and that when they couldn't they bought print versions at full price? And, as far as ebooks are concerned, remember there was no earch.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by darryl

So you think it is clear that posting a fake pdf online resulted in increased print sales?

#127 says it was dozens. There's little in #127 I liked, but that much was OK.

Maggie Stiefvater says "dozens and dozens and dozens," which I admit lacks the scientific rigor of giving an actual number.

As to whether inserting bad copies into the pirate ecosystem caused the sellout, I don't know for absolute total certainty. That's why I called for a large scale test. But no one here has shown me something on the order of, say, adoption by Oprah's Book Club on the exact same day, that could as plausibly explain what happened as the piracy deterrence hypothesis.

Finding a way to deter piracy without jail or fines is simply wonderful. She should get an award for innovation in humane law enforcement.

[darryl]

@Steve. Yet again we must agree to disagree.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Hey. I just read through the article.
This got my attention.
" My brother put it on every pirate site." Pirates didn't steal her books. She did it herself to prove a point.

That proves a point all right. If you put something out there free, people will take it.

You misread the article.

Book Four was a neutered copy: only the first 4 chapters, over and over again, with a statement at the end of the fourth chapter that piracy is bad. People on the forums allegedly asked if someone found a legit version (= complete version), because they had to go and buy it on Amazon because they couldn't find one.

Thus, she has proven her point that, if you circulate digital ARC's or an e-book ends up on the piracy sites, people won't buy the book.

As she said: it's not 2004, this is the smartphone generation. What she means is that, now that internet is ubiquitous (at least it is in the Netherlands, with something like 90% of households connected to high speed internet), and people know how to use it. In 2004, piracy might have cost a book here or there to someone in the know (that was even before e-books started to make it big in 2007, and way before the 2010-2011 boom), but now in 2017, practically anybody can pirate a book.

If you put something like ""A title of a book recently released" epub download" in Google, there is a BIG chance you'll find it with a bit of digging. If you put "site:********.***" behind it, a hit is almost guaranteed if an author is at least mildly popular.

I know. I've been there, because I wanted to BUY a book at Amazon, but wasn't allowed to because I didn't live in the US, and Kobo (or any EPUB provider I looked at) didn't have it. It's one of two books I acquired in this fashion, and if they had been available later, I would still have bought them: but they aren't. Both aren't even on Amazon any longer, and it's now rumored that both of them were illegal, but very well done scans/OCR's of books that were never released as ebooks officially.

A third book, which I bought through Kobo ("A Neverending Story") is gone there as well. It was (is) an absolutely perfect digital representation of the red/green hardcover version I own, but it's nowhere to be found now. It's even gone from my Kobo library. So I actually may have _bought_ a pirated copy of a book.

There have been numerous threads about Mary Steward's Arthurian Saga on Mobileread, which is in this same bind: there are (were?) several ebook versions at Kobo and Amazon, but it's still not clear if they are/were legitimate.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Most readers don't pirate.

Says who? It's a digital world, in which content is demanded to be free.

I've seen the stuff depicted in this cartoon very often:

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps

Shelling out hundreds or even €2000+ for a huge gaming system, and then surfing the pirate sites to find the €50 game for which it was built for free. (And the €89 operating system that has to run the system for 5 years as well, of course.)

And then people complain about crashes, unreliable operating systems, viruses, malware.... and so on.

It stands to reason that there will be people who shell out €129-299 for an e-reader with the thought to 'earn it back' by pirating the e-books.

[darryl]

The fact that an industry continues to exist and prosper is a very strong indication that "most readers don't pirate". It certainly indicates that enough readers don't pirate for a profitable industry to continue to exist. And, of course, locating a good pirate copy, downloading and transferring it to a device for reading if necessary may not be that onerous, but is nowhere near as easy as one click at Amazon or purchasing on ITunes. Human nature being what it is this convenience, combined with a reasonable price and the advantages of obtaining the book from a legitimate source are things most people value. This is why I believe we still have a viable industry. Of course, when pirate copies are available and legitimate ones are not, some proportion of people choose not to wait. It is unlikely that they will then buy a legitimate copy when it does come out. Likewise, the higher the price, the more sales will be lost, including to piracy.

It's not rocket science.

[haertig]

This is an interesting thread. I went back and re-read it, and then re-read the original article/blog where the author described things.

From that original article:

Then the pdfs hit the forums and e-sales sagged and it was business as usual, but it didn’t matter: I’d proven the point. Piracy has consequences.

OK. So next I looked at Amazon for these books (I've never heard of the author or the series). Here's what I found ... they friggin' DOUBLED THE PRICE of the fourth book, the one they were blaming piracy for tanking sales! No wonder eBook sales tanked. Sure, there could be a piracy component. But they DOUBLED THE PRICE OF THE BOOK!

What kind of scientific method did these clowns use to come to the conclusion "eBook sales sagged DUE TO PIRACY". No. I'd say the more obvious conclusion is "eBook sales sagged BECAUSE YOU DOUBLED THE PRICE OF THE BOOK!"

However, even this more obvious conclusion is not proven here, because they changed two factors at the same time in their experiment (double price AND put out bogus PDF's).

The fact that they put out bogus PDF copies of the book at the same time they doubled the price does not prove that piracy was the cause of anything. Nor does it prove that doubling the price did anything. When you're designing experiments, you only change one factor at a time. Change multiple factors together, and you have no idea which one might have caused a given result.

Try the experiment again on book five. But get someone with an education to help you design the experiment. Piracy may indeed have a bad effect on eBook sales. But this laughable experiment doesn't prove it.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by haertig

OK. So next I looked at Amazon for these books (I've never heard of the author or the series). Here's what I found ... they friggin' DOUBLED THE PRICE of the fourth book, the one they were blaming piracy for tanking sales! No wonder eBook sales tanked. Sure, there could be a piracy component. But they DOUBLED THE PRICE OF THE BOOK!

The price is currently double, but all of them were initially listed at $9.99...

Price tracking data for all four eBooks sold on Amazon shows...

Book 1 came out at $9.99 (tracking began 7 Sep 2012). It's price has changed 85 times in the past 1,889 days. Current price is $5.99 and the lowest it's ever been is $1.99, the highest it's ever been is $9.99

Book 2 came out at $9.99 (tracking began 29 Mar 2013). It's price has changed 59 times in the past 1,686 days. Current price is $5.99 and the lowest it's ever been is $5.99, the highest it's ever been is $10.49

Book 3 came out at $9.99 (tracking began 6 Apr 2014). It's price has changed 46 times in the past 1,313 days. Current price is $5.99 and the lowest it's ever been is $5.99, the highest it's ever been is $13.77

Book 4 came out at $9.99 (tracking began 25 Feb 2015). It's price has changed 50 times in the past 987 days. Current price is $11.99 and the lowest it's ever been priced is $4.75, the highest it's ever been is $13.99


Even though book 4 came out quite a while ago now the publisher hasn't yet lowered it's price to be in line with the other three books. This probably won't happen until it comes out in paperback 27 Feb 2018.