annoyedI am a professional author. I have worked a very long time to reach a place in my life where I could make that statement and not feel like a fake. I have written books; publishers have judged them commercially viable and worthy of publication; my books can thus be purchased from bookstores and online retailers everywhere. Please note the word "purchased." My books, which cost me time and sanity, and cost my publisher time and money, can be purchased from bookstores and online retailers everywhere.
Or, if you'd prefer, they can be illegally downloaded from the Internet. Mind you, this will eventually lead to my being unable to justify the time it takes me to write them, since an author who cannot make a living through writing must make a living through other means. My cats don't understand "Mommy can't feed you because people don't believe she should be compensated for her work." They also don't understand "People say they like the things I write, but they'd rather steal them than make sure I can keep writing."
To be honest, I don't understand it either.
"See! Piracy is a serious problem." —Penny Arcade.
When I first started publishing, I had no real clue how big the book piracy problem was becoming (and it's continued to grow since then; the number of available torrents increases every day). I was honestly stunned when I got the first Google alert notifying me of an illegal download of Rosemary and Rue. Now, it's a rare day—and for "rare" read "non-existent," now that I have four books in print—that doesn't come with at least one torrent notification. Normally, it's more like four or five, and sometimes more, when some new site discovers my work and gets excited about the possibility of stealing it. Yes, stealing it.
Look: when you calculate the average author's royalties on a mass-market paperback, it comes to approximately fifty cents per copy. Let's assume I got paid $5,000 for Rosemary and Rue. I didn't just pull that figure out of my ass—that's the standard first advance for a genre novel, although very few people will get that exact number. Still, it's nice and round. Now, part of the standard publishing model says that I won't get any additional money for the book until it has managed to earn back the advance, which is done solely from the percentage of the cover price that "belongs" to me. So an author with a $5,000 advance must sell ten thousand copies of their book before they "earn out" and start making additional money. Authors who regularly fail to "earn out" will find themselves with decreasing advances, until the day that the number hits zero, and the party is over.
"Internet piracy isn't that big a deal," people say. "It can't hurt your sales that badly." Oh, really? Well, if I get one notification of an illegal torrent per day...let's assume that each torrent is downloaded three times at most. Okay? One torrent per day is 365 torrents per year, or 1,095 illegal downloads per book per year. This is a conservative estimate of downloads; most torrents will be downloaded more like ten times each. Gosh, I feel popular now! Or maybe violated, it's hard to say.
Returning to our $5,000 advance, I must sell—actually sell, from actual stores—10,000 books before my publisher realizes a profit and says "Yeah, okay, let's keep buying your stuff." Let's assume, this time optimistically, that all 1,095 people who illegally downloaded my book were originally planning to buy it new, before they found this awesome new way to save money and get the book magically delivered to their computer. So unless my book was guaranteed to appeal to 11,095 people, I may have just dipped below the magical 10,000 person mark. Goodie for me.
"Dear person online begging someone to upload an illegal copy of my book because you LOVE me SO MUCH: you don't love me. You love stealing." —Ally Carter, author of Heist Society.
I made the following statement in a relatively recent post:
"Why do book series end in the middle? Because not enough people bought the books. Sometimes they can live on, as with Tim Pratt's online serialization of his fabulous Marla Mason stories, but for the majority of authors, if the sales aren't there, the story's over. Why do midlist authors disappear? Because their sales weren't good enough to justify their continued publication. Why are TV shows canceled? Because not enough people gave money to their advertisers. All entertainment is profit-driven. We pay to play, and when we stop paying, they stop playing."
Several people promptly told me that I was wrong, and that authors who really want to continue their series can do so whether they have a publisher or not. My addiction to professional editing services and distribution is clearly a personal failing, and I should embrace this brave new world of working forty hours a week to pay for cat food, and then going home and working forty hours a week to Stick It To The Man by continuing my canceled series. Sadly, this isn't going to work. When I'm writing books for money, I go through a rigorous internal editing and proofreading process before anyone sees my work. When not writing books for money, I write for my own pleasure, and if there are a few typos or logical failings, whatever. That doesn't pay my bills.
I love my books. I love my art. If I were only in it for the money, I would be doing something else for a living, like selling my kidneys. But at the end of the day, if a series can't pay, I can't afford the hundreds of hours required to write the average book. It's just not feasible. Note the number of unpublished "first in series" books I have sitting around. Until they sell, I can't afford to write the sequels. No matter how much I want to.
"People will spend fifteen bucks on an ironic shirt." —Penny Arcade.
A paperback book costs ten dollars, retail, and less if bought at a discount or with a coupon. This is about the same as a ticket to the movies. Even if you read fast, it will probably take you a minimum of three hours to finish said paperback, and then it's yours to keep. The movie is over faster, and also not yours at the end of the evening. (This is not to say that people don't pirate movies, and that said piracy isn't a huge concern. They do, and it is. But that isn't my department, as yet. Believe me, I'll start researching film piracy the day that Feed is optioned for the big screen.) People are constantly willing to pay for things that are more transitory than books, yet seem to blank out when asked why stealing books is still theft.
"I'll buy it later." Really? "I just want to see if I like it." Okay, how about you download the free chapters from the author's website, and then go to a bookstore? "I want to see if the author has improved since the last one." See above. "I disagree with the author's moral or ethical stance, so I'm voting with my dollars." Okay. You're also voting through theft. Why not get the book from a library or support your local used bookstore instead? It would be a lot less sketchy.
I know plenty of people who would never dream of walking into my house and stealing a book off my shelf, but have talked themselves around to the point where downloading books illegally is just not the same thing, not the same thing at all. It's the same thing. Don't believe me? Ask Paul Cornell (taken from Twitter):
"Just saw download site with 2356 illegal downloads of Knight and Squire. You have no idea how angry that makes me. Bloody thieves."
"Thanks everyone who's said they're buying it. No thanks to: 'well, if it was legally downloadable...' Like they're forced to steal it."
"Just heard: average number of illegal downloads = four times legal sales. That's why your favorite title got canceled. No margin left."
The margin is what makes it profitable for publishers to keep publishing. The margin keeps their lights on, and keeps the creators receiving royalty checks, and now we're back to feeding my cats, which is a topic I think about a great deal. The cats don't give me a choice.
I leave you with this grim thought. Yesterday, I was sitting around, minding my own business, when a friend of mine (name redacted as it was a private conversation) messaged me with:
"Somebody went to the trouble to photocopy all of [upcoming, not yet released book] and put it up online."
This sort of thing tightens control over ARCs, which reduces their distribution to book bloggers, which makes it harder for you to find well-informed early reviews. It potentially hurts my friend's sales, which may result, long-term, in her being dropped from her publisher, which means no more books for her fans. So who does Internet piracy hurt?
It hurts you.
Piracy...
November 4 2010, 20:49:14 UTC 6 years ago
I'm going to start off by saying two things just so I don't get mauled (not saying I will, but it's happened before). First, I'm a creator and currently I'm not entirely sure where I stand on unauthorised copying/distribution, but I tend to lean in favour of creator having full control. Second, the reason for my vague stance is that I've not seen convincing evidence that either "side" is being really truthful and so it obscures the actual scope/impact of the actions. And that even when there is objective data it isn't fully compelling in favor or opposition to it.
That said, I think piracy focused discussions are an oversimplification of whats occurring.(And that's not meant as an insult) I believe creators are under pressure from a number of sources, even as there are new opportunities.
On torrents (I'm assuming from your post that you're not very familiar with the tech, forgive me if thats presumptuous):
You don't need to estimate the amount of downloads that have occurred. All torrents (legal and illegal) function in the same way, and include the number of "snatches" or "completes" that have occurred. Often the web interface of trackers will display that number, or you can use a torrent client to "scrape" (request info, without downloading anything) to get the number if they do not. Basically, if you want more solid numbers they're easy to get.
Regarding torrent alerts, you're probably getting a number of duplicates. If you've set it up for just a search term, that number is likely high (automated responders generate traps based on search terms and amplify results, quoted replies, discussion in general, etc, etc). If you set it for file type specifically, that is more accurate. However, it still won't differentiate between a new instance of the torrent (i.e. a new tracker) and simple spread of the metadata file. "Popularity"/"Violation" would be better based on number of trackers (and their comparative popularity), then snatches, then seeds, then leechers.
Please also be aware, that torrents have a common pattern of diminishing scale over time (brief high activity that quickly goes down) and remain visible, even when they are dead (tracker is active, but no activity on torrent or any seeds).
I mention these things, so if you desire you can get a far more accurate assessment of personal impact on yourself/your work. Especially since not having an accurate view could obscure other factors impacting you.
On piracy:
A large number of studies on the impact of piracy have been disregarded, especially recently as being heavily flawed. Particularly the main 3 that are usually cited and which have been sourced repeatedly for additional studies. The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) explored their methodologies and found that they all had limitations and that the impact of piracy is incredibly difficult, if not impossible to determine. So, basically, we know it's an issue, but not how significant a one. Which is why the torrent stuff mentioned above may be helpful.
Regarding the belief that an instance of downloading/copying equates to a lost sale, there is no evidence of this I'm afraid. It's an assumption. There is actually evidence to the contrary and from unbiased sources (see this example: http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ippd-dppi.n
(Piracy data has always been treated as media independent to date, if anyone is wondering. And also, it should be noted that Canada has amongst the lowest piracy rate in comparison with other OECD countries which may color these findings, as well).
I mention these things for greater understanding, not as a negation against piracy concerns or a proponent of the practice. Ron Marz (whose tweet I followed here) answered a question I had with the anecdotal four times illegal to legal sales in comic books and it made me cringe. I do think piracy is something that needs to be addressed to some degree, but I do think it's impact is only a small part of the whole.
Re: Piracy...
November 11 2010, 17:51:30 UTC 6 years ago
1) I do actually know how to get the scrapes, but getting one for every single feed, when there's no way to take legal action or make people stop, is just too damn depressing to deal with. I'm also under-estimating the number of torrents, because of duplication; this is links to distinct sites.
2) I realize there's no solid data of "illegal downloads = loss of sale," so I have to go by personal experience...and my person experience includes face-to-face meetings, message boards, and fan mail, all with people saying "I didn't buy it because I had a download but it was great." That's nice. "It was great" doesn't feed my cats, or get me another book contract.
I realize this is a huge over-simplification, but I can't credit "oh, it doesn't do anything bad and really it helps you because it's exposure, see?", which seems to be the other side of the overly-simple coin. "Please don't steal, it makes me cry" remains my main argument.
Thank you for your very well-articulated thoughts.
Re: Piracy...
November 12 2010, 00:19:38 UTC 6 years ago
1) Hrm, still not entirely sure how you've got the alerts sets, but a keyword/filetype by site basis (even if distinct site names) would still give a massive amount of duplicates and responses generated by bots/crawlers, since it wouldn't ever be checking for new tracker instances, which is the only measure of a new torrent.
That aside though, there have been anecdotal experiences by artists who have commented on the main torrent sites with links to purchasing means or personal pleas with success (increased sales, and permanent takedowns). And in one instance, a donation link that generated a fair amount. Success with that varies though, boycotts and increased downloading have occurred when it was believed the comments were insulting =P But, just another avenue/thought on something you could perhaps try if it's frustrating you to this degree.
2) Not sure what to say then, except maybe ask them what the reasons were they didn't buy (to see if there's something more beyond those who respond "it was free" which I'm sure there will be some of). It would be odd if that was the main reason overall though, since it contradicts the studies and general human behavior/economic behavior (even in recession periods). (And anecdotal support for that, coming from the other poster on here who bought your stuff after receiving it for free)
I'm rarely one for the extremes ends of arguments. And I'll say, the "it's exposure" thing if that's the extent of it is a load of bullpucky as reasoning goes =P But, not crying would be a good thing certainly. If it's any consolation, having talked about piracy means at least one more sale when I do my Christmas shopping. ;)
And I'll say, genuinely, thanks for not biting off my head =) I've tried having discussions with others to try and figure out solutions or approaches to this, but the majority seem stuck in kill mode. So yeah...
Be well and good luck!
Re: Piracy...
November 21 2010, 00:46:19 UTC 6 years ago
I hope a solution can be found. One that doesn't involve igniting the biosphere.
Re: Piracy...
November 21 2010, 04:27:34 UTC 6 years ago
And I'm not sure in what regard you're referencing the difference between the media (they are of course different), but if you mean the studies I referred to, the media/majority of variables used aren't actual of significance. It's the behaviour which is the key point, the principle effectively, which will be generally consistent across variables. In this case you could boil it down to, "if entertainment is available free, will people still pay for it?" It seems they will, so the question becomes in this case, "why" or "how do we get them to do it more often". Which is perhaps the tougher thing to answer, but goes back to what I mentioned just above. That's a normal application of studies/predictions. One that always surprised me, for example, was how much extra people will pay for convenience, even only just mildly more convenience... (which is applicable nearly worldwide). Individuals may be different, but the vast majority of humanity follows similar patterns... for better and worse =P
Re: Piracy...
November 29 2010, 19:58:41 UTC 6 years ago
As a beginning author, I cannot make a living from my writing alone, which means I still have a 40-hour a week day job. So most of the "value adds" are impossible for me, unless my sales go up enough to let me quit my day job, which is unlikely in the current climate. I can't treat the pirates as a market competitor. I have to treat them, instead, as a way for my publisher to justify dropping me if my sales aren't high enough.
Re: Piracy...
December 1 2010, 04:04:15 UTC 6 years ago
Out of curiosity, I decided to search for your books on major aggregators/torrent sites. It was actually rather difficult to find your work. I ran a couple of different keyword searches within the sites based on your name, Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation and An Artificial Night. I included any format of the book, including audio. Just in case, I overestimated things significantly, tripling the total number found to account for missed/cleared torrents and giving the assumption of there being a very high 15% loss of sales. That comes back with it being less than 400 lost sales per book across all formats. Or rounding up to 400, 2.6% of 15000 or 2% of 20000, the total sales needed to cause certain consideration for another book from what I've read. That being almost certainly the ceiling, that would be all you'd need to compensate for.
Not sure if any of this is helpful... but yeah.
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