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What Can I Do About Book Pirates?
peterwayner writes "Six of the top ten links on a Google search for one of my books point to a pirate site when I type in 'wayner data compression textbook.' Others search strings actually locate pages that are selling legit copies including digital editions for the Kindle. I've started looking around for suggestions. Any thoughts from the Slashdot crowd? The free copies aren't boosting sales for my books. Do I (1) get another job, (2) sue people, or (3) invent some magic spell? Is society going to be able to support people who synthesize knowledge or will we need to rely on the Wikipedia for everything? I'm open to suggestions."
I do this with my book Free for All . It's a great success if you measure success by the number of people who read my work. But it's contributed zero to my income since I released it in electronic form. No one asks if they can buy printed versions.
There is a slight way to measure the effect. Used versions trade on Amazon and they've stayed at roughly the same price.
BTW, I've read the electronic version on a Palm and it's very easy to read. This may have been a viable strategy during the TRS-80 years, but not during the iPhone years. I wouldn't be surprised if the iPhone has better resolution than some of the sketchy laser printers I've seen.
Umm are you blind, he ISN'T PUBLISHED BY O'REILLY, the book he's referring to:
http://books.google.com/books?id=mnPeNQ0ZCsUC&pg=PA187&lpg=PA187&dq=data+compression+peter+wayner&source=bl&ots=ADJFApRA6Q&sig=9vqTz19uyk4WjFh5TwT5HY6zzZU&hl=en&ei=HJIMSoTzFITAMq_SzbMG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA179,M1
is the top result to the string he gives, and is published by Morgan Kaufmann.
My Babylon
Send Google a 512(c) takedown letter. duh!
> Synthesizing information isn't cheap. It took me a long time to write that book.
I published a book some years ago, and there were a lot of other people involved, too: copy editors, reviewers, typesetters, artists. All of whom require management, secretaries, paper clips, etc etc etc. The publisher spent a lot of time and money marketing that book.
You are probably receiving only $8-$10 of that $41 in Kindle sales. The publisher's overhead probably only accounts for another $10-$15, leaving a pretty considerable overhead. Much of that is making up for projects that didn't happen, books that failed to turn a profit, etc.
So you can't sell that book for $2 online and expect to have that mean anything. The author and the host of people assisting him or her put in a lot of hours. It could probably be less than $40 and still turn a profit for the publisher, but it's still going to be pricey ($20-$30).
The world is littered with creative people who believe they are good enough in their chosen art form to deserve a handsome lifestyle from their efforts and spend their days working a normal job like everyone else to pay the bills. Do they stop doing their art because the world won't co-operate and pay them for their art? Anyone who believes they will stop is deluding themselves. Art is created because people have something they want to say, in the form they want to express it, regardless of whether or not anyone else "gets it", or even sees it.
It's a nice dream to make your living from your art but only a small fraction of creative people ever achieve that. It's been like that from the start and will continue that way. It's the golden carrot offered to the contestants on shows like Pop Idol "it CAN be you but in all likelihood, it won't be you.....or it may be you for a short while so make the best of it before you're dumped back to reality."
Trying to fight against the internet is futile too, unless you want to waste your time and money following the RIAA / MPAA model of suing your customers. The internet has steamrolled many business models which were previously very lucrative, your best option would be to look for ways to adapt to it and use it.
Offer something of added value like signed copies of your dead tree versions and cheap (or even free) ebook versions. Go for the Creative Commons approach and allow your customers to adapt your characters and stories with their own fan fiction. Stories, regardless of their medium are about connecting with the audience, some of that audience are creative too, in fact most of them are probably more creative than they realize but would never act on any impulses. By allowing your customers the freedom to live with the characters they've connected with, it will win you more loyalty, with more of them likely to want to reward you by buying a signed dead tree copy even if they never open it, just to support you. Let them build a community around the world you've created, or set a website / forum up yourself and encourage participation of art work etc.
In short...engage your audience, allow them to get involved in the world they've connected with. You will reap what you sow; if that's DRM and lawsuits your rewards will be that many of your audience who would like you, will have no compunction NOT to pirate your stuff feeling that you deserve to be ripped off. Engage them, encourage them and reward them and they will reward you in return.
The choice is yours, all it needs is some thought, attention and enthusiasm. For a creative person this should be second nature.
Here's a textbook on Data Compression, Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms that's five years old.
It's freely available online, from the author. And here comes the shocking bit: It's fun to read.
he is still expecting to get money for something that is already rendered obsolete
Actually, I'm not. I just wish that anyone who still showed an interest in my book would be shown directly to a place where they could actually pay for it. And I wish that they wouldn't be tempted with all of the Torrent sites.
I know the book is ten years old. I'm not surprised that someone may have written a better book. I would just like the book to be treated fairly.
In the end, my needs are inconsequential. The problem is that the better authors who write the newer books are going to be affected even more by piracy. And then they're going to do something else. So you can blame my book all you want, but we're all going to be hurt when the better books disappear.