Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Author Encourages Users to Pirate His Book

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the listen-to-the-content-creator dept.

mariushm writes "Peter Cooper, the author of Beginning Ruby, breaks down how he gets paid for the book, including the advance and royalties, giving a nice clean explanation of how authors get paid for their books. He also describes the negotiations over the second edition of the book, in which he begged his publisher, Apress, to offer the ebook version for free, believing (strongly) that it would promote sales of the paper book. He even notes that the original version's ebook barely had noteworthy sales, so it seemed reasonable to offer up the ebook for free to drive more attention. No dice. Even though Apress has done that with other similar titles, it wouldn't agree. As he retains the copyright for the actual text, he encourages people to buy the book and create an online version of it without covers, contents table and indexes, promising not to enforce his copyright over the new work."

20 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. I don't think so... by alain94040 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have dealt quite a bit with copyright law when creating FairSoftware's virtual company license. I'm afraid the author is incorrect when he says that he retains copyright, therefore he can authorize people to download his book for free. He most likely granted the publisher an exclusive license. The whole point of the word exclusive is to say that although you are the author, you can't give the text to anyone else anymore, once you signed the book deal.

    That being said, this is a great blog post for everyone who ever wondered how tech book deals work. He is making about $2 per sale of a $40 book! So there's a great debate about whether to go with an editor which will take a much lower cut, but will also not be so good at promoting the book. At least someone is making money from publishing content related to open source technology :-)

    1. Re:I don't think so... by noidentity · · Score: 5, Informative

      Surely the publisher provided an editor to clean up the manuscript before publication, thus putting the copyright clearly in the hands of someone besides the author alone.

    2. Re:I don't think so... by DerekLyons · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also, why would he use a publisher that gave him only $2 per sale? You'd think that royalties would be driven up as competing publishers offer more per sale..

      What on earth would lead you to think so? There's only so many sales to be had, and a fairly hard (though rising with inflation over time) cap on what customers will pay for a given class of book - and the publishers revenue comes out of the difference.
       
       

      Why doesn't a publisher just offer 40% royalties or something and annihilate the competition?

      Because publishers can do math.

    3. Re:I don't think so... by Red+Flayer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      For reference - that's 5%, essentially 5% profit. In most places in the business world, that would be considered screamingly successful. Doubly so since he's making an ongoing profit for work he did only once and isn't responsible for the ongoing work of marketing and stocking.

      1. 5% is not a screaming success. My employer has had quarters where the net margin was *only* 18% and these led to managerial changes due to the failure to meet expectations.

      2. You can't say he's making 5% profit. He's making some unknown amount of income (based upon to-date and future sales), in exchange for the time spent, his knowledge, and his writing ability.

      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    4. Re:I don't think so... by Vengie · · Score: 4, Interesting

      IAAL. 17 U.S.C. 501(b) authorizes an exclusive licensee to sue for inringement. he has granted an exclusive license. thus he might not want to sue you, but his publisher can. Look through the Silvers v. Sony Pictures case -- unless his contract specifically deals with the right to sue for infringement....his publisher can.

      --
      When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
    5. Re:I don't think so... by dissy · · Score: 5, Informative

      He most likely granted the publisher an exclusive license.

      On one hand, the author himself, who was there for the signing of the contract, states he did not give them an exclusive license on the text, but states he didn't create the covers, toc, or index thus can't give permission to copy that.

      On the other hand, someone on slashdot states what the author _most likely_ did, in their overly well informed opinion.

      Well that settles it!

      Actually I sorta like that idea.
      Personally, I think he most likely never even spoke to a book publisher, and not only wants his book to be free, but will pay us to read it! I'm sure that is the case.

      *Goes off to download an ebook and wait for my check in the mail*

    6. Re:I don't think so... by mariushm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      From 40$ only 18$ goes to the publisher, the rest is amazon's money, library's money, wasted on damaged books when shipped, on returns and so on.

      From that 18$ publisher pays the 10% royalty (but only after they get back their $6000 advance), the printing company, the editors that formatted the books and then they have their profit.

      I find it more ridiculous that Apress sells his ebook for 23.99$ when the printing costs, shipping and so on are non-existent. Basically, ebook brings Apress more profit than printed books at this point.

    7. Re:I don't think so... by FrangoAssado · · Score: 4, Informative

      On one hand, the author himself, who was there for the signing of the contract, states he did not give them an exclusive license on the text, but states he didn't create the covers, toc, or index thus can't give permission to copy that.

      That's not what the author stated. He actually wrote:

      My contract also states that I have exclusively allowed Apress to publish and reproduce my content.

      He then went on about how he "suspects" that you can make a PDF without the cover, TOC and index without infringing any of the publisher's rights.

      Tim O'Reilly, who (I'd guess) is very experienced with these kinds of contracts, wrote this in the comments of his post:

      I’d be very careful with your assumptions here. “Owning the copyright” doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. I haven’t seen the language in the APress contract, but I suspect it says something to the effect that you grant them the exclusive right to publish, distribute, and sell (etc.) the book for the duration of the copyright. If this is so, the ONLY thing that you get from still owning the copyright is the ability to reacquire the rights in the event APress goes out of business.

      So while we can't know without seeing the author's contract, it's reasonable to assume that what alain94040 wrote above is closer to the truth than what the author "suspects".

  2. Call Me Suspicious But ... by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From his post:

    There are even links on Twitter to torrents like this. I am happy for you to pirate my book, but I’m NOT A LAWYER, and I can’t guarantee what Apress would do about it – so you’d be doing it off your own back! So, uhm, don’t pirate it?

    So he's covered his own ass and recognized that Apress will most likely not see things his way. Now, to do what the summary suggests is confusing to me. I don't know his contract with Apress but I must question why, if he is so upset with Apress, he isn't just releasing an HTML version of his work online. Surely he must have the source documents he wrote to write the book, correct? Then why doesn't he simply make his own HTML plain text version and host it.

    The answer is painfully simple. He's reached an agreement with Apress for digital distribution rights making them the only possible channel for distribution. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a default contract for them. Regardless, downloading the Apress version on RapidShare is copyright violation with Apress, regardless of what the author says. There's no question of that.

    If I've misjudged Peter Cooper's character, I truly am sorry but he is either willfully or through ignorance putting you at risk with these suggestions. Do not follow through.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Call Me Suspicious But ... by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah he is putting his readers at risk because they'll be breaking the law by distributing the book. I think he's just mad at Apress and wants to stick it to the man, or he still wants the promotion that a free ebook would provide. Also there's all the free publicity from slashdot..

    2. Re:Call Me Suspicious But ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Then why doesn't he simply make his own HTML plain text version and host it.

      Let me know when you figure out how to make HTML plain text.

    3. Re:Call Me Suspicious But ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      View->Source

      OK, done.

  3. Tim O'Reilly's comment... by tcopeland · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...on the post is pretty interesting. Here's an excerpt:

    If you were to self-publish, you will find that you might print, say, 1000 copies at $8 each, or 2000 copies at maybe $6 each. (It could be more. I'm not as close to book printing prices as I used to be.) So you're out $8-$12000 up front. So lets say you've guessed exactly right how many copies you will sell. You printed 1000 copies for $8K, and sold all 1000 for $30K to $40K (depending on where you set the price.) You made $22K, or maybe even $32K, versus the $19K you earned with APress.

    He goes on to discuss the hassle of shipping, returns, credit card processing, storing the books, etc. All true, all good stuff.

    For what it's worth, going through a small local publisher with my JavaCC book has worked out pretty well. We did a much smaller print run - 350 books - so the storage wasn't as much of a hassle. Definitely a niche market, though.

    --
    The Army reading list
    1. Re:Tim O'Reilly's comment... by tcopeland · · Score: 4, Funny

      > did he have anything to say about Peter Cooper's assertion
      > that a freely available e-book would promote hard copy sales?

      Yup, he said:

      We don't do it for all books because while there are some cases where free online exposure can help sell print books, there are also many cases where it seems to sell fewer books. A lot depends on whether a book is already visible or not.

      and

      "Free" should be seen as a strategic tool for publishing. Sometimes it helps; sometimes it hurts.

      Pretty cool that he weighed in on this one.

      --
      The Army reading list
    2. Re:Tim O'Reilly's comment... by R2.0 · · Score: 4, Informative

      He may not have, but Eric Flint has.

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

      Exerpt:

      In the course of this debate, I mentioned it to my publisher Jim Baen. He more or less virtually snorted and expressed the opinion that if one of his authors -- how about you, Eric? -- were willing to put up a book for free online that the resulting publicity would more than offset any losses the author might suffer.

      The minute he made the proposal, I realized he was right. After all, Dave Weber's On Basilisk Station has been available for free as a "loss leader" for Baen's for-pay experiment "Webscriptions" for months now. And -- hey, whaddaya know? -- over that time it's become Baen's most popular backlist title in paper!

      And so I volunteered my first novel, Mother of Demons, to prove the case. And the next day Mother of Demons went up online, offered to the public for free.

      Sure enough, within a day, I received at least half a dozen messages (some posted in public forums, others by private email) from people who told me that, based on hearing about the episode and checking out Mother of Demons, they either had or intended to buy the book. In one or two cases, this was a "gesture of solidarity. "But in most instances, it was because people preferred to read something they liked in a print version and weren't worried about the small cost -- once they saw, through sampling it online, that it was a novel they enjoyed. (Mother of Demons is a $5.99 paperback, available in most bookstores. Yes, that a plug. )

      --
      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
  4. A bad summary makes bad responses by Peter+Cooper · · Score: 4, Informative

    I wrote the piece linked here and the summary on Slashdot is laughably wrong. All the cool Hacker News and Reddit people who read the story.. you're awesome and you really added to the discussion and didn't come out with nonsense saying I'm actively encouraging people to break the law (which, if whoever wrote the summary could comprehend English, is not what I said - I raised a potential method of circumvention as a thought experiment.. "I suspect" does not mean "I think you must").

    So if Slashdotters want to be the first to spout nonsense and misquotes on the same day my first kid was born (I'm just getting a few hours sleep after being up a gazillion hours ;-)) then congratulations - some of you succeeded admirably. All the traffic to the site is going to somewhere you can donate to a good cause and earn some actual karma.

    1. Re:A bad summary makes bad responses by mea37 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "All the traffic to the site is going to somewhere you can donate to a good cause and earn some actual karma."

      Uh, yeah... and so now those of us who read the nonsense comments and thought "I'd like to see for myself what he really said" can't actually get to your original blog post.

      Well played, genius boy.

      Can't speak for anyone else, of course, but as for me... when someone hides his original words I'm not inclined to trust his claim that they were misrepresented.

    2. Re:A bad summary makes bad responses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Your "solution" is to redirect all slashdot readers elsewhere? Then you're being portrayed accurately here.

    3. Re:A bad summary makes bad responses by MtlDty · · Score: 4, Informative

      If the summary is laughably wrong, then you might also want to try and fix the Google cache.

      To quote your good self : "My reaction to seeing other Apress books getting the free, electronic version treatment is: Im good with you pirating my book! Now, of course, I cant actively participate in pirating my book but, heck, its around on plenty of free e-book sites and on RapidShare. There are even links on Twitter to torrents like this. I am happy for you to pirate my book, but Im NOT A LAWYER, and I cant guarantee what Apress would do about it so youd be doing it off your own back! So, uhm, dont pirate it? The only condition, of course, if you do is that if you like the book and you think a print copy would be swell to own, please buy one even if its just for someone you know who wants to learn to program!"

      Redirecting your page is like closing the barn door once the horse has bolted unfortunately.

      Oh, and congrats on your first child :)

  5. Bad judgment by author makes situation worse! by maxfresh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, you are unhappy with Slashdot's summary and the resulting comments, but instead of emailing the "editors", or writing a post like this one, correcting the inaccuracies as you perceive them, you redirected your site to the American Cancer Society, sending them hits from people who have no intention of going there, thereby costing them wasted bandwidth, and risking slashdotting their servers? Do you think that your pique, or your new-father status justifies that? Maybe your lack of sleep explains it, but it is all in very poor taste, and reflects very poor judgment.