How much is copyright infringement really affecting any but the biggest authors? (Piracy is what happens when someone in China prints 100,000 copies and sells them as the real thing.) Is it all anecdotal, or are there real numbers? As someone who follows the ‘pirated’ scene, from my experience the numbers are pretty small. Most pirated versions are *downloaded* at most 100 times, with a few exceptions. Presumably, only a fraction of those actually get read (perhaps a large fraction like 60%).

But does a downloaded copy really translate into a loss? That’s the same logic the RIAA uses. I buy 50-100$ of books/ebooks a month. I can’t afford to spend more. In no scenario would I spend more money on books. I would turn to other media instead if I wasn’t able to get some of my books for free. And the ones that are infringed tend to be the bigger authors anyway, so my money ends up going to those less known/new authors in many cases.

Or I would go to the library…are libraries evil too? They let people read books for free. Ok, that was a low blow. But that’s how it is for me, anyway. Popular authors are going to be available at the library, and harder to find stuff I buy. And in many places, where people are downloading the pirated versions, these books aren’t even available, or cost an exorbitant proportion of weekly income.

I mean look at the latest J.D. Robb (sorry Nora, I love you!). $26 list price. Is it literally 3-4 times better than a book going for $7. I get that popularity brings power, but it is being milked directly from its loyal followings wallets. For $26 I expect 26 hours of enjoyment…that’s what I get for the $7 book, 7 hours-ish of enjoyment. $26 is more than half my cell phone bill. And there is something about wanting to be the one to decide whether to give it away, that infringement is ‘taking’ that rubs me wrong, a desire for control over a work once it is exposed to the world. It is sort of the concept that leads into general copyright term (in years) debate…how long before someone else can take your story and make it their own? Should Bram Stoker’s family still be able to sue for infringement?

I would be happy to give $1 or 2 directly to the author’s I like on occasion for their ‘blogs’ so to speak, above and beyond what I already spend on books. An alternative way of recognizing that I appreciated their work, even if I didn’t pay for it. And we tend to be pretty heavy Amazon reviewers & contributors as well.

Again, in a perfect world we would all be ‘rich’ and could just create and consume without being concerned about the money. I don’t know what the answer is, but I don’t think the ‘piracy’ situation is as bad as is stated.

I missed the Harlequin giveaway but I haven’t missed the Tor one!! Not that did much good because I already have most of them. Except for the latest one, will have to see if that is good.

I’ve bought one a while back by an author whom I like and it was 99 cents and I wish I hadn’t bought it… :) But that was a personal preference issue.

That aside, I think at 49 cents a short would be a very intriguing way to get to know a new to me author. Personally, I’d like to see these closer to the 40 pages than fewer, but that’s because if I’m engaged with the characters I want to stay with them as long as possible.

Also, this could be used as a way to revisit beloved characters from prior books or to intro characters who will get their own book later on (as in hook them in cheap in hopes they’ll buy other books connected to the shorts :).

I’d probably do both. Get the wider exposure through Amazon and put another short on your website.

However, if there’s only the one… hmmm, free always sounds good. :)

Thoughts?

I think it’s telling that when we talk about authors who give away their work, we refer to the authors themselves, not their publishers. Doctorow, Scalzi, etc. O’Reilly is the only publisher I can think of by name, and he’s a person as well as a business, so to speak. So if we could get the publisher-based benefits that your post lists, but tie the books themselves to authors rather than just to Avon/Leisure/Signet, I think we’d be better off.

1. Publishers own the e-rights (in most cases) to distribution in the US or Worldwide. An author is probably prohibited by her contract from distributing a book in e form.

2. Publishers have more media clout than a single author. They get more page views, more mentions in trades journals and probably in MSM than an individual author. A press release from a publisher v. an individual author is going to get more attention.

3. Publishers would have better tools to analyze and track the downloads of the book by region and other statistics that might reveal demographic information.

I think you mean dream idiot!

it's one thing, IMO, for readers to feel this sense of obligation, but I think if authors have that same sensibility on the other end there will be problems, because inevitably not all readers have that orientation, and I don't think authors can rely the (il)logic that every download is a lost or *deferred* sale (just like IMO not every download on a pirate site represents a lost sale).

I completely agree. I should not be the default. But neither should the default be assumed to be the person who downloads pirated ebooks by the torrentload and never buys anything (not that I think you are saying that, because clearly you’re not, I’m just trying to establish extreme positions). Most ebook readers are somewhere in between, but we don’t know where the median is, so we can’t have confidence in choosing a policy.

I think the availability of free, or at least freely available, material on the internet has meant that we have a generation with many members who think that *no* copyright issues are applicable to the internet. I have been educated and enlightened by the copyright debates here and at SBTB, among other places, and I agree that there are important distinctions between stuff on teh intertubes and printed material, but I still don’t know how to draw those distinctions. For my own peace of mind I basically follow old-fashioned copyright rules, but I don’t think people who make other choices are wrong or immoral.

Perhaps keeping the free ebooks in the domain of individual authors rather than publishers is the way to go. Harlequin is different, because the brand is so intense. But if you get a free ebook from an author, that may help foster the kind of reciprocity that I felt with Harlequin. I think a lot of readers would like to reciprocate when they get something valuable from authors. I can’t be the only person who’s ever bought a book because of an author’s on-line contributions. And a lot of readers seem to make at least some of their purchasing decisions on the basis of reciprocity to authors they like (giving away copies, buying a copy after they’ve read someone else’s, buying new rather than used, etc.).

EDITED TO ADD: Of course, lots of authors do have ways of establishing relationships and reciprocity with readers. And sometimes it leads to requests for Nora-For-A-Day, so clearly it’s not always a good thing. But I’m just afraid that if giveaways are left to publishers, it will be less likely to be seen as beneficial to authors and encouraging of reciprocity.

I like to look at the pros and cons

It’s interesting to me — as a reader — to see author responses on the topic. I do sense a lot of ambivalence (in general, not from one particular author, necessarily), which isn’t so surprising, especially given the sense I also get that authors constantly feel they’re walking a tightrope between self-promotion and self-protection. I mean, it’s not so risky to us readers to be advocating for promotion via free downloads, and I have to confess that I think some of the stuff we readers have to endure because publishers are trying to counteract the effects of piracy (higher prices, DRM) would be eased if a promotion like this worked (i.e. it boosted sales without increasing piracy).

One thing that occurs to me, though, is that for authors considering giving away free material (as opposed to their publishers doing it), I don’t think it can be done from any sense of ‘do or die,’ because as reader comments here have shown, there isn’t necessarily a linear progression from give-away to increased sales, even if more sales are ultimately gained. So if an author does feel ambivalent or even reluctant to try the give-away, it might not be the right promotional strategy for them, because there probably will be those who download the work without ever buying a ‘for sale’ work of the author’s. Frankly, I think this is something that publishers should be trying, because IMO they have far less to lose than individual authors.

But, boy, there are varieties. Ranging all the way to the guy who wanted-and expected to be able-to come into my husband's bookstore and buy me-that's ME-for his wife for a day as a Christmas present.

Yeah, I can see where this kind of thing would get on your nerves (and perhaps your creepies, depending on the situation, lol). I guess I see this as less ‘demanding reader’ behavior and more of . . . well, something else. I think this is the flip side of fan loyalty — fans will do everything they can to buy your books and talk them up and try to make it to every signing, etc., so they perhaps perceive the articulation of their desires as one more aspect of their loyalty, whereas to you it can feel like an intrusion or an imposition or a demand.

I'm curious about how the Christmas Harlequin giveaway turned out as well. I downloaded all of them and read most. I felt guilty getting the books for free, so I wound up buying a few as well; I know that's dumb, but I figured since they were doing me a favor, I'd do them a favor.

OMG, Sunita, you’re Harlequin’s dream customer!! Seriously, though, I wonder how many authors see the give-away as a “favor.” Publishers, I assume (which may depend on the publisher, as we’ve seen), are not so sentimental; that you now read more categories means the promotion worked for you, which was its goal. But your point is really important, I think, because it’s one thing, IMO, for readers to feel this sense of obligation, but I think if authors have that same sensibility on the other end there will be problems, because inevitably not all readers have that orientation, and I don’t think authors can rely the (il)logic that every download is a lost or *deferred* sale (just like IMO not every download on a pirate site represents a lost sale). Some readers may end up buying multiple books because of a give-away, while others will end up buying no books, and who knows how to track that, short of surveying them at the point of purchase (and making sure they only buy from one outlet). In the end, I think the success or failure of this strategy will be measured on an industry/genre level, even as individual authors see certain measure of success, as well.

There are genres that I never read, and I probably wouldn’t download even free ebooks in those. But with other genres I’m on the fence, and a free book could easily lead to sales. I don’t know how representative my experience and behavior are, but it suggests that free ebook offers might lead to wider sales across a genre, not just for a particular author.

I’m just boggled by that “Buy Nora For A Day” as a Christmas present story. I’m cackling at how that conversation with your husband went, man-to-man.

Strange Guy: “I want to buy your wife!”
Nora’s Husband: “Which book? Her newest is…”
Strange Guy: “No, I mean, I want to buy your wife, not her books. How much, just for a day?”

It may be because I hear a lot of . . . unusual reader demands that my Cynic Girl hat goes on.

ETA: (Not that I’m saying Bam is easy)

I don’t remember if I downloaded them all, or just all the ones that were in genres I read. But I do remember, one of the books captured my attention in a big way. And I bought the 4 books that followed it (it was 1 of 5 in a series, of course).

So I’m a firm believer that a freebie – no matter how it was obtained – can lead to future sales. Regular future sales.

But to be fair, the flipside can be just as likely. I’ve won more than a few ebooks over the last few years (in various loop contests) that I could only thank god I hadn’t paid for! So there were some authors I might have paid for – once – that a freebie convinced me to never try again.

I’ve been reading the comments about how demanding readers are with a mixture of amusement and frustration. Am I a demanding reader? I suppose I am. I expect books that are professionally proofread and content edited. I expect truth in advertising and value for my money. I’d *like* to believe that authors to respect the genre and value what they’re doing as writers, although I can’t really posit this as an objective expectation. Ditto with my hope that publishers actually consider readers in the process of acquiring and publishing books.

I don’t expect authors to cater to reader wants (and, in fact, get frustrated when a book comes across to me as pandering, whether or not that was the author’s intent), and I don’t expect more books written than the author deems appropriate for a series and for his/her writing process. I don’t expect authors to converse with me about authorial decisions (in fact, sometimes that can leave a bad taste, depending on the situation), nor do I expect to know any details of an author’s personal life (ditto on the previous parenthetical comment).

I don’t dispute the idea that readers are demanding, but I don’t think that the nature of our demands comprises one category. Just like not all authors write with the same intentions or attitudes toward their work or the genre. Could free ebooks make readers more demanding for similar promotions? I guess so. But ultimately promotion is about an author’s desire to sell, right? So in some way the author is hoping that her desire to sell will coincide with a reader’s desire to enjoy a book, yes? And ultimately an author or publisher has control over the decision to offer a particular promotion, regardless of what reader desires are.

Ultimately, I think that the wisdom of releasing free ebooks will be debated for quite a while, because it’s still a new publishing/promotional model, at least within Romance. For some authors it will work really well, and for some it won’t, and who knows the reason why. Not all early adopters of the promotional strategy will be success stories, and not all authors will want to undertake what they perceive to be an unreasonable risk (and for some authors, it might be an unreasonable risk, although that can probably only be assessed in hindsight).

I wish we had some data on how the Harlequin giveaways worked. I’m especially interested in knowing if they can track free downloads like they did with that audiobook example , where Random House determined that the DRM-free version of an audiobook was not among those versions pirated.

Anyway, however this type of promotion does or doesn’t develop, it will continue to have advocates and critics, I’m sure. As a reader, though, I can see the potential for new authors, midlist authors and even bestselling authors. Someone mentioned the In Death books earlier in the thread, and that reminded me of the limited giveaway Penguin did of Naked in Death, the first in the series, to coincide with the publication of the latest hardcover in the series. I can see where releasing a new book (at 26 bucks for the hardcover, which is I think what they go for) along with, say, a free download of the first (or even the first two or three) books in the series might bring on new series readers or get longtime readers to invest in more ecopies of the earlier books, as well as an ecopy of the most recent release.

As for new authors (or new to me authors), I am definitely that reader who will download a free copy offered by an author or publisher, and if I like that author’s work, I will go back and purchase some or all of that author’s backlist, as well as future releases. Now, I may not read that book immediately, which will skew results for any authors tracking downloads right around the giveaway. And that’s another reason, IMO, that the ebook giveaway can’t necessarily be measured in one experiment by one author or even a few experiments — it’s IMO a long-term investment and may not pay off in a nice linear way. Although I’ve yet to hear about the industry that hasn’t seen benefit from it.

Ah, but is that incentive for my publisher to give away 50,000 of my books? So they will use their hard-earned cash on another publisher?

I dunno…maybe it depends on how you look at it.

When I have a book out from one of my epublishers, I see the sales go up on my backlist books from the other epublisher. ;) Yeah, it could work.