ebook piracy and the future of the professional writer

[Sidewinder]

Are they intentionally writing stupid stuff that appeals to the masses, though? That's the fascinating thing. Far and few between are the writers who're simply selling out and creating a mediocre product they know will sell. Most writers I've ever talked to or seen interviewed at least publicly still think they're writing from a place of passion and genuine interest.

Sorry -- to be clear, I'm talking about marketing brochures, B2B letters, ad copy and such. You think passion even enters the picture? Yeesh. I'll save my passion for my poems and novels thank you very much. But a good freelance commercial writer can make as much as a lawyer or a surgeon. So just don't say there's no money in writing. There may be no money in passion -- at least no guarantee of money.

The older I get the more I think it would be nice to have enough money to you know, maybe buy a house, visit Paris -- all those things that being a starving artist doesn't allow. I wish when I'd graduated someone at the career centre had said "hey you can actually make money with this skill!" instead of looking at me like another reject when I said I wanted to be a writer.

[Islander]

This discussion is starting to get interesting.

I respect those who try to make a living off writing, but there are precious few who can make a living ONLY on writing. Even successful writers have to do things like writing courses, book signings and other things related to their writing.

The Soviet Union collapsed for a reason. One of the biggest was that the Marxist economics system did not work because people rarely, if ever, work for the common good. People are greedy and need the motivation of reward to work. The bigger the possibility of reward, the harder the work out put.

People need rewards to do boring jobs. You need to pay people to get them to clean toilets, lay pipes and process invoices. You also need to pay people to do the *right* job - someone who makes wall paintings for fun might agree to do one for free for you, but you don't get to decide the motive.

But people do creative jobs just for the satisfaction all the time. People paint, write, sculpt, knit, play instruments and sing in choires with no intention of making money from it. Granted, many of the successful artists are partly motivated by money, fame or the knowledge of being among the best, but if they're creative, they usually have an inner need to express themselves through their art.

The artists who are motivated primarily by money or fame tend to not be very creative - they just give the public what they think the public wants. The creative artists give the public what they want. The ones who're in it for the money tend to produce their works in quick succession, with only the minimum effort required. The creative artists spend more time on each work.

Case in point: J.K. Rowling. Even if some people criticise her writing skills, her books are very imaginative and it's obvious she puts her heart and soul into her characters and stories. She could make tens of millions by writing an eighth Harry Potter book, but only seven were needed to tell the story, so that's where she ends - at least until she comes up with another good story.
Case in point: Dan Brown, who churns out very similar books, because that's what works and makes him money.
Case in point: Terry Goodkind, who started out as a creative writer with depth to his stories, then started signing contracts for three books in a row, and these days only seems interested in extending his series as long as possible and produce commercial spin-offs (like a mediocre TV series).

Look at it this way: people play the lottery all the time, because there is a small chance of having a million dollar jackpot. How many people would play the lottery if they were sure they wouldn't win anything?

People play the lottery for the thrill, and there needs to be a small chance of winning to give them the thrill. But from a purely economical standpoint, buying lottery tickets is insane. On the average, people lose a lot more than they win.

If there was absolutely zero money in writing (but it was still possible to reach a wide audience with your books), I think most writers would continue to write for free, but some of them would need to spend more time on their day job and less time on writing.

If [Neil Gaiman] was working a full time job and writing, his writing would be no better than a certain author of books about sparkling vampires... AND IF SHE CAN GET PAID FOR WRITING, ANY OF US CAN.

I soo disagree with this. If you love writing, you take the time to write well, and will write your books at a slower pace if you're forced to have a day job. If you're in it for the money, you'll spend the minimum effort required on each book, churn them out a high enough pace to live comfortably, and spend the rest of the time sipping marguaritas by the pool.

Yes, again, its recognition. Like I said, art for arts sake is writing a book and making sure it never sees the light of day, least one's "Imagine by John Lennon" mojo be spoiled by *gasp!* being appreciated for your work!

There seems to be some famous writers who are only motivated by self-expression. For example, Franz Kafka made his friend promise to burn his writings after his death. Luckily for us, the friend failed his promise. He did have to edit Kafka's stories to make them suitable for publication, though.

[psychotick]

Hi Guys,

There seems to be a counter current running through this thread, the idea that most writers can't make a living from writing. I beg to differ on this. Certainly at the start its unlikely, and short of writing a best seller, a miracle in itself, the returns will be small. But small returns add up.

So now say you're like me, and you've written a book which sells two copies a day more or less on the kindle. You've priced it at 2.99 and you're on the 70% royalty scheme, which when all is said and done because different countries still give different royalties, means you get say half of that back. Essentially you're looking at three dollars US a day, not enough to live on.

But here's where it gets interesting. Say you keep writing books for ten years, you put out two books a year, not an unachievable goal, and all of them reach and then linger at that lowly sales rate. Now three dollars a day has become sixty, or a bit over eighteen thousand bucks a year. Still not a huge salary or anything, but you see the potential. And the best part of it given that copywrite is seventy years or so, is that this is for life. So you still get this money when you retire.

Now given this scenario we have to look at piracy in a slightly different light. Someone here foolishly said that piracy doesn't affect the authors, it affects the publishers. That's actually true, but completely overlooks the fact that if you are self published, you are the publisher. That's money out of your wallet they're pinching.

Be complimented all you want that someone liked your work enough to illegally nick it, but compliments don't buy you your bread for breakfast at the local store. And don't assume that just because the odds are hugely against any one of us making it huge and becoming the next JK, that you can't make money from doing what you love, and therefore piracy doesn't matter to you.

Look at it this way. Most of you guys are younger then me. So say you're twenty. You write only one book, and it malingers in the sales. You put all the dosh it makes into a seperate account for when you retire and never look back. So two sales a day, three bucks a day, eleven hundred bucks a year, and over forty years, forty four grand not considering either interest or tax. Now aren't you going to be pissed to reach sixty, open up your books and find pirates have eaten say thirty percent of your money - thirteen grand?

Just a thought.

Cheers, Greg.

[Mist Walker]

This reminds me in places of people arguing for the legalisation of drugs. I can't help but think anyone defending piracy doesn't have a vested interest?

[Steerpike]

Legality: it blurs. The publishers have every right to prosecute people who lend, resell or reproduce their work.

This is false, at least in the U.S., when it comes to reselling a book. Used book stores are not running illegal operations. If you buy a physical copy of a book you have every right to resell that physical copy. You cannot legally reproduce the work, however.

[popsicledeath]

Sorry -- to be clear, I'm talking about marketing brochures, B2B letters, ad copy and such. You think passion even enters the picture? Yeesh. I'll save my passion for my poems and novels thank you very much. But a good freelance commercial writer can make as much as a lawyer or a surgeon. So just don't say there's no money in writing. There may be no money in passion -- at least no guarantee of money.

The older I get the more I think it would be nice to have enough money to you know, maybe buy a house, visit Paris -- all those things that being a starving artist doesn't allow. I wish when I'd graduated someone at the career centre had said "hey you can actually make money with this skill!" instead of looking at me like another reject when I said I wanted to be a writer.

Thought we were talking fiction writing, not technical communication or business writing. Probably just a misunderstanding with the 'commercial' designation.

But yeah, there's some money in technical writing. The people I know who do it still enjoy it and are passionate about it. And people like me that find it soul sucking don't do it.

They're very different skills, too, and I don't know many people who want to be a writer and would have that dream sated if they became a business writer.

[Jessica_312]

/\ I'm a technical writer and I make a very decent living at it. Though of course my passion lies with creative writing

[Venusian31]

While I accept that ebook piracy has an effect on sales, I don't believe that it will destroy the industry or discourage writers from producing more books. Music sharing has been a big problem, but musicians still produce their music and iTunes and other music sellers still have hundreds of thousands of people who legally buy the music, even after removing the DRM hassle. I think the same will hold true for ebooks.

Most people are honest and prefer to buy stuff legally as long as the producers of the product don't allow greed to drive prices up to ridiculous levels. Price a product fairly and honest people will buy. Dishonest people are going to steal no matter what.

Theft is always going to be an issue, no matter what the product is or how it is sold. Book stores and other retail stores deal with shoplifting all the time, amounting to millions of dollars in lost sales. It's part of the cost of doing business. There are always going to be people who steal. You do your best to fight it and move on.

When VCRs first came out, people swore they would destroy the movie industry. They didn't. Then DVDs came out and destroyed the VCR industry, but we still have movies. CDs destroyed records and tapes, but mp3s haven't destroyed the CD industry, at least not yet, and music is still with us no matter what and it still makes money. Ebooks are changing things and that scares a lot of people, but I don't think ebooks are going to destroy books and I certainly don't think it will stop writers from writing them or from making money. The world will adjust and keep on going, just like it always does.

[Sidewinder]

Now aren't you going to be pissed to reach sixty, open up your books and find pirates have eaten say thirty percent of your money - thirteen grand?

Problem with this: the technology that allows you to make more substantial profits off of each book is the same technology that makes it easier to pirate books. If your book on kindle is selling 2 copies a day, consider the fact that before it was on kindle and before pirating it was an issue, it would perhaps have been selling zero copies a day. Also consider the fact that a significant portion of the people pirating the book are people who wouldn't have bought the book in the first place if they hadn't been able to pirate it. Is policing it really worth the effort? The only way policing book pirating makes sense from the writer's perspective is if the book has a high price point and you control the distribution.

[Sidewinder]

They're very different skills, too, and I don't know many people who want to be a writer and would have that dream sated if they became a business writer.

Fiction writing is a different skill than business writing, that's for sure. But I'm learning that as far as skills go, getting good at business writing is sort of like getting good at colouring books. The difference between it and fiction writing is that people are lining up to pay through the nose for it.

I guess you could see it as soul-sucking, sure. And if you can find another means of income that's less soul-sucking then go for that. In my experience, what I'm good at is what I'd rather be spending my time doing. If someone would pay me to play chess then I'd be doing that.

I take it this is distracting from your previous point though -- which is that the drive to write a good book isn't necessarily influenced by the amount of success or money that it would lead to. I think I agree with you. In fact there's a good argument that art evolved as a reproductive strategy. So the real drive to write a good book might simply be the desire to get laid.

Or it could be something more profound than that. Who knows.

[dizzyspell]

What about the fact that, on the Kindle, you can read the first few pages of a book for free?

Surely that defeats the whole "we pirate to see if we like your writing" argument?

[Venusian31]

What about the fact that, on the Kindle, you can read the first few pages of a book for free?

Surely that defeats the whole "we pirate to see if we like your writing" argument?

Well, it doesn't actually defeat the argument. Many of those previews are inadequate to get a good feel for the book. Some of the previews only let you see the table of contents or the introduction and none of the actual content, which makes it hard to get a feel for the writing and the book as a whole. It's not the same as being able to look at the whole book.

For me, this is where the book store comes in handy. If I'm interested in an ebook but the preview doesn't give me enough of a sample to be sure about buying, I go to the book store and look at the actual book so I can see the whole thing. If I like it, I buy the ebook and sometimes the paper version as well. I don't steal a pirated copy.

For someone who's going to steal a copy, the argument is just an excuse and defeating it won't make a difference. They're still going to steal.

[Steerpike]

Agree with the above - all of the arguments boil down to excuses to steal from someone.

The writer owns his or her work. If she wants to distribute free samples electronically, that is rightfully her decision, not the decision of the thief who steals her work.

[Sidewinder]

I don't think anyone with a shred of common sense would suggest that pirating books is a legitimate way to "get a feel" for whether you like the writer. I'm unaware of any studies of the effects e-book piracy has on sales, but if what happened in the music industry is any indication of how things will go down with e-books, then there's a chance that piracy could actually increase the sales of writers who are less popular. Here's how the argument goes:

(1) Pirates download the book. These pirates would not have been exposed to the book if they had not downloaded it.
(2) After the pirates read the book, they talk to all of their friends about the book. If the book was good, then they tell their friends how awesome it was.
(3) Some of those friends prefer to spend 2.99 on Kindle instead of downloading the book illegally. Therefore, if you're an underexposed author who has a good product, piracy actually increases your sales.

This is the 75/25 argument that you may have heard in the music industry and that I mentioned earlier in this thread. The bottom 75% of artists sell slightly more as a result of piracy. The added exposure that piracy creates for them is actually a benefit. The top 25% of artists don't need the added exposure, and their products are much more available for piracy as a result of their popularity. Therefore the decrease in their sales is more drastic than the increase in sales for less popular artists. The loss in sales to the music industry is because the cash cows are producing less cash.

The rich get less rich and the poor get less poor. How is this a bad thing? I hope that the rise in e-book popularity has a similar effect on the publishing world. That would be sweet!

[Steerpike]

That is all irrelevant, Sidewinder. The point is, the author owns the work and has the right to decide how it is sold, marketed, etc. If the author wants to make something freely available so that distribution over the net, etc. in the way pirated items are distributed give them more exposure, then they can certainly go that route.

No amount of justification makes it legitimate for the book pirate to decide that for the author.

[popsicledeath]

That is all irrelevant, Sidewinder. The point is, the author owns the work and has the right to decide how it is sold, marketed, etc. If the author wants to make something freely available so that distribution over the net, etc. in the way pirated items are distributed give them more exposure, then they can certainly go that route.

No amount of justification makes it legitimate for the book pirate to decide that for the author.

Ummm, you're right. Let's all hope your post on this forum has now changed the minds of millions who pirate copyrighted works!

Oh, wait, it's going to happen whether it's right or wrong. And most people who partake in piracy don't try to claim it's right. They know it's wrong otherwise they wouldn't call it pirating.

For this thread, and in general, the irrelevant argument is to say it's wrong, end of story. Why? Because nobody on either side really disagrees on whether it's right or wrong. Nobody really even cares or talks about that, because it's not the driving force behind such piracy.

BUT IT'S WRONG!

Yeah, and is still going to exist. So what's your point? Better to get over an irrelevant argument (unless you honestly think the problem is people don't know stealing is wrong and that's why they're doing it, and educating them to the fact will curb piracy). Better to accept the situation, accept the losses, and move on.

Right or wrong is completely irrelevant, unfortunately. There are more important things to consider.

[Steerpike]

Ummm, you're right. Let's all hope your post on this forum has now changed the minds of millions who pirate copyrighted works!

I never said it was going to change minds or actions. Sorry you misread my post.

Sidewinder was making a justification, and because he was posting a justification, then the issue of right or wrong is on point.

[Phruizler]

No offense, but you seem more concerned with being right and having others agree with you than actually considering and learning about the industry. Nothing wrong with that, of course, as it is the internet!

Sorry, Bright Shadow, but I tend to agree with popsicledeath here. Your arguments have become attempts to draw similitudes between ebook piracy and communism. I'm not really sure I see where you're going with any of this, anymore. I get that it can be frustrating to think that piracy might well affect your and all of our potential careers as writers. Maybe you just needed to vent - that's fine, but now it seems like you're definitely just arguing for argument's sake.

There is nothing you can do about piracy. Nothing. The same way there was nothing anyone could do about film or music piracy; this is no different. Whatever the results, you're just going to have to live with them. If the outcome is a negative one, then yes, measures can be taken to mitigate this (such as some of the suggestions made already). I, for one, don't think ebooks are established enough yet to make a judgement on what their effect has been/will be. I continue to write regardless, simply because I have stories to tell.

[Islander]

The point is, the author owns the work and has the right to decide how it is sold, marketed, etc.

Copyright is just an arbitrary social convention, like driving on the right side of the road, or deciding that the defendant and the plaintiff both pay their own legal costs in a lawsuit.

The purpose of copyright is to stimulate the creation and publishing of creative works. If it does a good job at fulfilling that purpose, we should keep it, and if it doesn't, we should trash it (or change the duration of it).

[Steerpike]

Copyright is just an arbitrary social convention, like driving on the right side of the road, or deciding that the defendant and the plaintiff both pay their own legal costs in a lawsuit.

The purpose of copyright is to promote the creation and publishing of creative works. If it does a good job at fulfilling that purpose, we should keep it, and if it doesn't, we should trash it (or change the duration of it).

A good issue for debate. But until it is trashed, it remains in place and should be treated as such by honest people. Further, I believe in an author's moral rights, which is in some ways a later addition to copyright, and something that is really separate from it in my mind.