Tips for Self Promotion, Sales, and Advertising discussion

I've recently written a blog post on the topic, but I'm curious to see what other writers think.

Have you actually seen proof that piracy is hurting the sales of your book and decreasing your income as a writer?

I haven't, myself. Unauthorized copies of both of my books have ended up on filesharing sites, but that doesn't seem to have resulted in a drop in sales -- sales have actually been on the upswing, although I can't say that piracy has anything to do with that, since I've also been making some pretty hefty promotion efforts lately, too.

So what do you think? I'm really looking for evidence and anecdotes, not conjecture. Is piracy hurting your sales?

I have no idea if there are unauthorized copies of my books out there, because I haven't checked. Someone once told me that farmers routinely calculate that they'll lose some crops every year to animals, like crows and deer, so they just plant more crops. My approach is similar: just keep writing more ebooks, and let the piracy take care of itself. I've had a similar experience as you, Gabriel, in that my sales have gone up every month. Maybe I'm losing some sales due to piracy, but since the trend for my sales is upward it's not bothering me.

John
Big Chills: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005D2M72Y

John wrote: "I have no idea if there are unauthorized copies of my books out there, because I haven't checked. Someone once told me that farmers routinely calculate that they'll lose some crops every year to animals, like crows and deer, so they just plant more crops. My approach is similar: just keep writing more ebooks, and let the piracy take care of itself."

That's a really good analogy. You could spend all your time setting traps for the animals (pirates), or you could be planting more crops (writing more books).

Thank you! I've never been a farmer, but I always loved that analogy. And I would rather write than do almost anything, including market myself (which is probably not good).

John

John wrote: "Thank you! I've never been a farmer, but I always loved that analogy. And I would rather write than do almost anything, including market myself (which is probably not good)."

Really? Why don't you want to market yourself?

I haven't seen anything that says piracy is directly hurting my sales. That doesn't mean I want people pirating my books though. I'm not going to spend hours each day searching pirate sites, but if I come across my book on a site, I'll send a DMCA notice. Just like if a farmer sees an anime eating his crops, he'll shoo it away, but won't spend all day hunting for animals.

It's not that I don't want to, it's just that I'd rather be writing. There are so many options for marketing yourself that it gets overwhelming. For awhile I was spending more time on marketing than on writing, and I decided to cut back.

Ralph wrote: "but if I come across my book on a site, I'll send a DMCA notice."

That's a good point, too. More importantly, I'd get the law involved if I found my neighbor taking my crops and selling them at his roadside stand -- there are sites out there that sell unauthorized ebooks, after all, and keep all the sales revenue for themselves.

But in that case, you're punishing the thieving vendor, not the person who buys from him because they want fresh fruit or tasty ebooks at a good price.

Well, I never pay for a book unless I have to. I've always gone to the library.

Does that therefore make me a 'thief' because, yes, even though the author may have got the original sale; no others were gathered from the subsequent borrowings of the book.

I think of e-piracy as the same sort of thing, and Eric Flint of Baen's library sums it up quite nicely: http://www.baen.com/library/intro.asp

Clyde,
Traditionally, authors and publishers have been happy to sell copies of their books to libraries in the knowledge that the library is a library and will lend books (one at a time).

In the case of print books, the calculation is that the library will be able to lend a good quality book approximately 26 times before it has to be replaced, and a new book will be legally purchased.

Moreover, libraries will purchase duplicate copies if the book is popular and their are waiting lists for the book.

This agreeable business model is in danger now that some libraries are insisting that they should become publishers of the work without compensation to the author/publisher, and that their single purchase of an ebook (or a paperback) should confer copyright rights.

You are not a "thief" for patronizing a bricks and mortar legal library because the author/publisher consented to the arrangement.

Online libraries are a different matter. They are not really "lending" the one and only copy to one patron at a time. They are duplicating, publishing, and distributing limitless copies without any compensation to the author.

Baen does not give away every book in the series. Their model has strict limits on how many books an author may give away, and the purpose is to promote the sale of the rest of the books in the series.

Pirates give away the entire series. Sometimes, in the same email, they give away everything that an author has ever written to anyone who will donate $2.00 via PayPal for an annual subscription to 50,000 illegal links on foreign-hosted sites per year.

Rowena wrote: "Clyde,
Traditionally, authors and publishers have been happy to sell copies of their books to libraries in the knowledge that the library is a library and will lend books (one at a time).

In the c..."

LOL I would never have described 'traditional' publishing as agreeable! They've screwed authors more than e-pirates IMHO.

"Is piracy really bad for writers?"

Well...it depends on the goal of the writer I guess.

If a writer merely wishes for others to read their work, then it could be a great vehicle by which to gain exposure.

If a writer wishes to capitalize on their work, then it could go both ways. Less sales because it is free and mass copied digitally, or more sales due to greater exposure.

All in all, it's only "bad for writers" whom are driven by sales, and even then it could potentially work in their favor. Writers driven by content should feel no ill effects. JMHO

Miles wrote: ""Is piracy really bad for writers?"

Well...it depends on the goal of the writer I guess.

If a writer merely wishes for others to read their work, then it could be a great vehicle by which to gain..."

Well said, 100% agree, Miles!

Right on, thanks Clyde.

Clyde, I was referring to libraries buying books and replacing them when worn out by repeated use when I mentioned "agreeable".


Clyde wrote: "Rowena wrote: "Clyde,
Traditionally, authors and publishers have been happy to sell copies of their books to libraries in the knowledge that the library is a library and will lend books (one at a t..."

Some of you who think that you are losing nothing to piracy should take a look at bookbuddie.com which is "reselling" ebooks for $1.49 or less.

The Nora Roberts of the publishing world may not see a significant impact, but lesser authors do. Montlake authors whose ebooks are supposed to be sold on Amazon for $3.99 see no royalties whatsoever from this illegal reseller, and persons paying $1.49 (or 0.99 if they buy in bulk) have no idea that their purchase from bookbuddie was illegal, and they would probably have paid the Amazon price (and the author would have received a royalty) if bookbuddie did not exist.

PayPal makes a commission on every sale, PayPal also makes a commission on every commision paid to affiliates (who make a 20% commission on the illegal sales that take place through their link).

This site is not really good promotion for the authors, because users have to search by book title or author name for that which they seek.... so, a reader has to already be aware of the author before they rip them off.

Gabriel,
You are in the wrong forum. You ought to be talking with authors who have lost contracts with publishers because their books have sold less well than expected, or with authors who have seen pirated copies of their works on the internet in the same week that their books are released.

You should be talking with copyright enforcement agents from the smaller presses, not with self published authors.

My blog post about stopping two pirates:

"One of the great things about having popular books is that they get read by a lot of people.

Not to get all Napster vs. Metallica again, but there comes a time when you have to stand up for yourself and your fellow artists when you see their and your stuff getting shared for free, without your consent.

And when it’s in the hundreds, we’re talking about rent money you’re losing."

http://jimprovenzano.blogspot.com/201...

Excellent blog, Jim. By the way, it was exceptionally difficult to leave a comment. I had to try 6 times, and also log in to another site, and also (twice) give blogger permission to link to something or other.

Have you had a lot of trouble with spammers as a result of your blog?

Thanks, Rowena. I did have it set for registered or blogger IDs; just undid that. No, no spamming problems. Yet.

It can be really bad if your books are on multiple sites and are getting tons of downloads because then think of all the sales you missed out on against your wishes and without your knowledge. Some may embrace it if it's one or two sites but if it's more then that then yeah definitely a cause of concern.

It's good because you become very well known. However, it's bad because you don't get your money.

That's a good point Jewel

Unless your already a "known" author obscurity is the biggest worry for authors not piracy. We need to educate readers so they know when their "borrowing" or great deal might be unfair to the author so they seek proper channels to get books to read. Also just because thousands of copies of your work might have been pirated on a site doesnt mean you lost x number of $ in sales because pirates only steal things because they are free if they weren't they wouldn't download it, so it may represent zero lost sales in reality (sometimes they do because they can resell at a profit, but if you the author have a hard time selling your own book how much harder is it for someone else?).

Dwayne wrote: "Unless your already a "known" author obscurity is the biggest worry for authors not piracy. We need to educate readers so they know when their "borrowing" or great deal might be unfair to the autho..."

Well a lot of self-published authors are "unknown" but it doesn't mean they should welcome piracy. Like yes people are reading their books but at what cost? Getting it from a third party source that obtained it illegally.

Taking stuff without paying for it is theft. And many thieves, especially of the petty variety, will rationalize their stealing by saying that the victim will never miss it, that the loss is negligible, that no material harm was done or that it was the victim's fault for not being more careful or more proactive.
What purpose is there in raising the issue of whether material harm has been done to the author, except an attempt by the thief to mitigate his culpability? At what point does "it's no big deal" become "it's a big deal?" Two stolen books? Ten? A hundred? And why does the thief get to decide?
IMHO, a farmer is a poor analogy: a farmer may proactively elect to mitigate loss in many ways, by planting additional crops, by insuring against crop loss due to natural disaster, by employing additional measures to protect against disease, predators, and so forth. There is little that a small press or self-published author can do to proactively prevent online theft; even larger houses that employ IT must often address after-the-fact theft.
Likewise, the library analogy isn't accurate. A publisher or author who sells a book to a library enters into a contract; the library is paying for a shelved copy (or copies) that will be available to its patrons. That is separate from the contract that the library has with the patron, which is that the book may be loaned and must be returned within a certain time and in good condition. The library may not take the book from the publisher or author without paying for it (unless it's donated); the patron may not treat the loan as a gift, and keep or destroy the book.

The only "library" that takes books without permission and gives them away is Google Books (and gets away with it). What they claim about "snippets" is only true if the searcher searches by the name of the book. Use some other search term, and one can read multiple consecutive pages and sometimes download a .pdf of the entire book for zero cost, meanwhile the author is trying to make a living from the Kindle version for $25.99 on Amazon.

Piracy pays. It is not done out of the goodness of the pirate's heart. YouTube pays. Mobilism pays. Blogspot pays if one has enough traffic. Any site that has advertising pays. Affiliate sites that both give away the book and provide links to legitimate booksellers... make money for the pirate.

Ever since the internet and the DMCA, the system has been rigged against the little guy who cannot afford to sue.