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Pirate Yourself, Become a Best-Seller

Posted by kdawson on from the old-time-religion dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "It sounds like a dotcom-era business plan: 1) give it away, 2) ???, 3) make pots of money. Author Paulo 'Pirate' Coelho leapt out of obscurity and onto the best-seller list by giving away his books on the Net. The best-selling author of 'The Alchemist' will even help you pirate his books via his blog. His publishers were not pleased, but then his books went from selling 1,000 copies to 100,000 and then over a million. He gives special credit to pirate translators who are making his work accessible to a wider audience and convincing more people to read his book."

7 of 288 comments (clear)

  1. He's not the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    These guys recently released their newest game as a free download, with a $30 charge to register an account to play it online. Both this and TFA are exactly what us slashdotters have been telling people to do for a long while now, and it appears to be working (S2 claims they are "very impressed" with initial sales figures).

    Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with S2, nor am I a fan of their game, just their business model.

    1. Re:He's not the only one... by penguin_dance · · Score: 4, Informative

      Back in the day, Apogee games came up with a similar model. They put out the first in the series (usually 3 games) for free--I remember getting Commander Keen on a floppy disk with my joystick purchase. If you liked the first one, you could order the rest of the series for a nominal fee. It seemed to be a fairly successful business model.

      --
      If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
  2. Paulo Coelho ... by Qetu · · Score: 5, Informative
    Paulo Coelho leapt out of obscurity? WTF?

    from wikipedia:

    Coelho has sold over 100 million books in over 150 countries worldwide and his works have been translated into 66 languages (Goodyear, Dana (2007-05-07), "The Magus", The New Yorker: 38-45, ). He has received numerous literary awards from a variety of countries, including La Legion d'Honneur (France), Grinzane Cavour (Italy). In addition, he has written Maktub[5], which is a collection of his best columns published in the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo, The Manual of a Warrior of Light, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept[6], The Fifth Mountain, Veronika Decides to Die, The Devil and Miss Prym, Eleven Minutes, Like The Flowing River and The Valkyries[7].
  3. Re:Effective by design by FredFredrickson · · Score: 4, Informative

    Although it doesn't have to do with books or piracy, Ian Rogers has an interesting speech about "effective by design." His mantra is similar- those who embrace the scalability of the web instead of try to create scarcity will be the ones that profit.

    I feel it isn't ground breaking, but his little thing on physics really put into words what I've been feeling for a long time. Worth a read.

    --
    Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
  4. Re:Online "library" by ericspinder · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why not just have an online library that allows people to download whatever book they wanted ... There is a "limited" number of books released to this online library and ... If you want a book ... an option to purchase the physical representation

    Do you mean like Oreilly's Safari service?

    --
    The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
  5. Obscurity? Paulo Coelho? by BlackCreek · · Score: 5, Informative

    Paulo Coelho obscure?

    Yet another proof that slashdot editors really don't control anything that gets posted here

    Paulo Coelho has sold around 100 million books on 150 countries and has been translated to more than 66 languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho. Somehow the bozo submiting stories will credit all of that to torrent publicity? Check out (in the portuguese wikipedia) http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho the number of international prises he got way before torrents were in any way popular. Please just read the list of prises he got BEFORE 2000.

    Yeah, obscure all the way. Indeed.

    BTW, what's the name of that obscure comedy writer that released a book on the internet, and after he got famous, decided not to do that again? Oh, yeah that would be (otherwise unknown) Scott Adams http://www.themillionsblog.com/2007/11/giving-it-away-for-free.html ... Another usurper of the torrent comunity no doubt!

  6. Baen Free Library by 1c3mAn · · Score: 3, Informative

    He definitely isn't the first to do this. The Publisher Baen has been doing it for years.

    http://www.baen.com/library/

    Just read the comments by Eric Flint and see that the authors who have books in the Library have seen a significant increase in sales. Sure, most of the books are older, and just the first one or two books in the series, but if other readers are anything like I am, then if you read the first book in a series and like it. You will definitely consider buying the second on wards.

    Now the fact that he used in mainly to get notices is new, but free books really aren't