temporalillusion

Getting a book without paying for it is only one factor in the whole question of piracy.

As has been mentioned one pirated copy does not equal one lost sale, and in some cases piracy correlates with increased sales (though that's music, and I don't think that would probably scale down to low volume books).

But probably the biggest factor is simply convenience. It's far more convenient to simply click once to download a copy that's ready to read than order it and wait for shipping, or drive to a store. When it's easier to steal that it is to buy, that's an indication that the industry needs to adjust, because people will follow the path of least resistance.

Not having an eBook version is also a factor for some; I don't have room for more books, and being able to search a book is worth discarding paper for many.

Finally there's also the whole DRM issue. Even if a Kindle version of the book were available, many would still copy it (or buy the book and copy it if they had a few more scruples) because DRM limits choices and gives someone (Amazon) too much control over the content. I can't decide that Amazon is an immoral company and move my books over to my Sony eReader for example.

I've purchased a couple of Kindle books by authors that are on these forums, and I had to spend a day fighting with tools (that are probably illegal) to decrypt and reformat the book so I could read it on my non-Kindle reader. And I'm quite savvy technically. If the book had been available for download I would probably have purchased the Kindle copy but never even have downloaded it and then downloaded the pirate version to save the headache. A less savvy person may just download it because they can't figure out how to get it on their own reader.

I don't think any of these reasons justify it, but I do think they explain some of it.

In the video game world you only have to look at what Valve has done with their Steam content delivery system and social network to see how they've fought piracy not through ever more stringent and restrictive technology, but through superior convenience. People that were hardcore pirates now buy all the games because it's simply more convenient, fun, and the perceived value is high because of frequent sales and value add type stuff.

Iskander

Senate sneaks in SOPA under a new name


http://rt.com/usa/news/senate-sopa-new-internet-847/

08 February, 2012, 23:42

EarlDoherty

I guess the age of miracles is not yet past. Thanks to some actual specific problem-solving instructions from the Kindle people (for the first time!) and a new set of "publishing tools" just put out by Kindle, I managed to convert my Jesus: Neither God Nor Man in acceptable fashion and it is now available on Kindle. (The formatting works best on Kindle Fire, a little less so on standard Kindle.) I'm asking $14.95 for it, which as far as I'm concerned for a book at 814 pages and the amount of work that went into it, is a "steal." (Oops, unfortunate choice of word.) If anyone thinks that is too much, then clearly he or she is still looking to get something for nothing. (Some seem to think that since there is no manufacturing cost or physical materials to an e-book it should be virtually free, a ridiculous concept.)

I predicted that SOPA was anything but dead, and I guess the preceding post indicates it. The solution is Harry Reid's comment about trying to address legitimate fears about internet censorship and the like, though I agree that we need to be vigilant that truly undesirable things are not slipped into any legislation. But the answer is not just to allow unchecked illegality. That's like claiming that if jails are so expensive to run or are no deterrent to committing crime we should just abolish them. A successful society is one that finds a middle ground.

Earl Doherty

arnoldo

Thanks Earl, I just went ahead and ordered Jesus: Neither God Nor Man and it's looking good so far on my old kindle keyboard. I must confess that I'm one of those who got one of your other books for "free" and didn't realize the financial burden this placed on you. I hope that this purchase will make amends and that you will find it in your heart to forgive me.

Best Wishes.

EarlDoherty

Arnoldo,

Didn't Jesus teach us to forgive one another? (Except, of course, for those who don't believe in him as the sole avenue to salvation.) I can hardly do any less, though I don't regard myself as an avenue to salvation. (Though, on the other hand....Actually, if anyone wants to start a new religion, just make sure I get a cut.)

Anyway, let me know if anything doesn't look right on Kindle, and if the endnote links work allright. Although the Previewer looked OK, you might tell me when you get to some of the transliterated Greek words (using English letters), that the "o" and the "e" with a bar over them definitely come through, and not some question mark symbol or other. That was the main hangup and the cause of much delay and frustration.

Earl Doherty

temporalillusion

Do they give you any tools (or are there other methods) to try and determine what the best price would be?

How much each book costs really is irrelevant, the total income is more important.. I'd rather sell 100 books at $5 than 10 books at $15.

The difficulty would be determining if one would be better than the other (other than just trying it, but again I don't know if they allow for that or provide the tools to be able to determine if such a change was effective).

Gorit Maqueda

Been there, done that. Calibre + Kindle PC Reader + Illegal plug-in = I can use (legally bought) Amazon books on my Sony eReader. But yes, it's really bothersome to have to do that and, technically speaking, I may be doing something illegal just to avoid doing something illegal :-)

Earl, I think that switching to e-books is the best move you could have done. Indeed, I think I will buy your last book (I only have a paper copy of the first one) and try to read it on my Sony eReader.

By the way, I'm not a native English speaker (that's evident) and I had not trouble reading your book or understanding it.

EarlDoherty

What about 1000 books at 50 cents apiece? At some point, you have to choose a price which reflects some measure of its value.

By the way, I hope you don't think I get $14.95 for every copy sold. My cut is 35%, Amazon takes the rest.

Earl Doherty

Vorkosigan

ROFL. judge, these attempts to hurt Earl are pathetic. Christie's And then there were none has sold over 100 million copies; pirated copies are available all over the internet. So are pirated copies of Tolkien's LoTR and similar. The number of copies sold has nada zip zero to do with whether a book is pirated; most books are. Until the SOPA mess there was a Usenet cache of 10,000 F&SF books including almost all the major sellers in the history of those genres, as well as numerous obscure works.

Eventually everything gets pirated.

Vorkosigan

Roger Pearse

Pricing books is pretty hard. Essentially it's guess-work, based on what people are prepared to pay for what we believe to be worth their cash (or we wouldn't be selling it).

Is that a fixed margin by Amazon? If so, remind me never to do a kindle version of my book. The Amazon margin on my print books is 20%, which is quite enough.

All the best,

Roger Pearse