Pirate Yourself, Become a Best-Seller

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."

Comments

How long have we been saying it?

[erroneus]

Over and over and over again; We've stated that we believe that it doesn't matter if we can get it for free or not. What matters is that we like it. And in the cases of books, movies and music, if we love it, we will want to buy a copy to place on our shelves!

I have yet to meet anyone with enormous digital collections of copyrighted works that didn't also have enormous physical collections of copyrighted works.

This is yet another clear illustration of what really drives the consumer and forgetting about lawyers trying to justify their existence, let the MARKETERS take notice that this is most likely to be a very successful business model for the future.

Re:How long have we been saying it?

[CastrTroy]

I know tons of people. I know people with 20 GB of MP3s who don't own a single CD. I know people with spindle after spindle of burned movies who haven't bought a single DVD in their lives. I also know people who have downloaded tons of stuff but also buy a lot, and I've met people who have tons of bought stuff but don't download anything. And then there's people who are too wrapped up in something else, and don't read, listen to music, or watch movies, at least not unless it's broadcast on TV/Radio. I think that artists giving away their stuff for free, or asking for whatever the consumer thinks is a good price is a good thing, and will help them get noticed more easily. However, don't kid yourself into thinking that everyone will pay. There will always be people who will not pay. But I don't think the artists are losing much from those people anyway.

Re:How long have we been saying it?

[MightyYar]

But I don't think the artists are losing much from those people anyway. Exactly. You can't get blood from a stone, and a hoarder of movies/mp3s is going to do his hoarding. I grew up with a father who dubbed every movie that we rented and almost every movie that came onto HBO, almost reflexively. It was an impressive collection - almost never used, and one that ultimately cost the studios absolutely nothing.

I think that the reason CD sales have taken such a dive is that single sales have made a comeback. People have complained for a long time that albums only contain one or two good songs. Buying those two songs as CD singles would have cost as much as the whole album, but now you can get both singles for $2 via a number of sources. It doesn't take a genius to see how going from a $15 sale to a $2 or maybe $3 sale is going to hurt the industry. When they attack piracy they are not addressing the problem. Hell, if I ever felt the slightest shred of guilt in pirating, the industry sure has cured that!

Corroborating evidence

[stjobe]

Baen Free Library has had much the same experience. Give it away free, sales go up.

Re:Change bank

[NorbrookC]

So giving away product increases sales? If the sale price is zero how do you make money?

Because you're overlooking an important point. You're talking about the "product" existing in two different formats. One, the electronic version, is being given away. The other, the "dead tree" version, is being sold. The production costs of the first are minimal compared to the second. There is also a real difference in the user experience and quality between the two. Giving away the first product leads to interest in it, and increases the likelihood of someone purchasing the second product.

Publishers already "give away" their product. Go to any library, and you can check out a book "for free." This can lead to interest in a given author, and make the people who read the "free" book look for, and purchase, other books by that author. This is well-known, and has been for years. The only difference is that it is now being extended to electronic media. In effect, the "free" stuff is a loss-leader. You're not making your money off the free stuff, but to increase the sales of the stuff you are making money from.

Re:I for one

[stjobe]

How about libraries? How do these fit in with your theory of "if you want it, you need to pay for it"? And what is the difference, if any, between loaning a book from a library and downloading it off the Internet?

As an aside, my local library now has e-books as well as audiobooks and music available over the Internet for anyone with a library card.

Re:Paulo Coelho ...

[gaspyy]

Just to clarify - Coelho was very popular long before his blog. I know some of his fans, and none of them even knows he has a blog. Come to think of it, I don't even think his target audience is into reading blogs.

I am willing to bet that releasing the books in electronic format for free hasn't increased his popularity by more than 1%.

Disclaimer: I can't really stand his novels. They are pretty light, claiming and trying to seem deeper and more meaningful. Umberto Eco he clearly ain't.