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.