Topic: Copyright Issues
Financial Crisis Novel Approaches Launch I'm looking for advice from readers about how to market my upcoming novel online. Specifically, should I give away the e-book edition for free?by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Monday, August 31, 2009
It took longer than I originally hoped, but my soon-to-be-released novel, The Money Suckers, is in its final editing phase. I hired a professional editor to do what professional editors do: look for typos, suggest rephrasings, point out weaknesses in the story, and evaluate characterization, plot, sub-plots, themes, etc. The initial feedback she gave me encouraged me greatly. She wrote an email to me a few days ago that said, "Your book is great—engrossing, well-written, suspenseful and yet very human. I loved the way you segued into the Blackwoods and gave it such a human touch. The topic is, of course, extremely timely."
Today, I received another message from her. This time, she wrote that she's reached page 292 and, "It's interesting, suspenseful and well-written. I will make more specific recommendations when I turn the manuscript back to you... in a couple of days" after the first edit is complete.
I can assure you... her positive reaction felt very good indeed. The smile on my face stretched nearly ear to ear.
She will work on the book for the next 7-10 days or so, making two more rounds of edits, after which I'll make final changes based on her recommendations. At that point (barring an unexpected detour), the novel should be ready to launch.
While she edits my novel, I have refocused my efforts toward marketing the book. Marketing takes more time and plays a more critical role in a book's ultimate success or failure than writing it, so I have given the problem of marketing a great deal of thought over the past 10 months or so while I wrote it. I also did a lot of research.
Marketing E-Books
One point that repeatedly recurs in my research is the question of how to reach e-book readers. This small but growing segment of the overall book market has its own quirks, largely due to the fact that file-sharing on the 'net occurs so frequently, leading a large number of e-book readers to expect that e-books should be free. That's right, many e-book readers believe that books published in e-book form should be distributed without any restrictions or fees. Further, there are book marketers who also argue the e-book should be free.
The main thrust of the argument they make is that, particularly for a new author like myself who is relatively unknown, piracy is the least of our concerns. As Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media, Inc. once wrote, "Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy." O'Reilly is a leading publisher of computer programming and usage books and manuals.
What makes O'Reilly's comments so interesting is that the vast majority of O'Reilly's e-book publications are not given away for free, but the company does engage in some free offerings. He wrote:
"...we publish an extensive network of advertising-supported 'free' information sites as the O'Reilly Network (www.oreillynet.com). We have published a number of books under 'open publication licenses' where free redistribution is explicitly allowed (oreilly.com/openbook). We do this for several reasons: to build awareness of products that might otherwise be ignored, to build brand loyalty among online communities, or, sometimes, because a product can no longer be economically sold in traditional channels, and we'd rather make it available for free than have it completely disappear from the market."
O'Reilly also wrote in the same article, "'Free' is eventually replaced by a higher-quality paid service," using Internet access via higher-priced cable or DSL access vs. earlier (and slower) dial-up access as an example to illustrate his point.
Famous Test Cases — Paulo Coelho
A number of famous (and some not-so-famous) test cases have arisen over the years with free-file-sharing e-book publishing. One is the case of Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian author who wrote a series of novels on spirituality. I've found a number of different variations on the Coelho file-sharing story, and many of the proferred details contradict each other, but here's the root story as well as I can reconstruct it:
In 1988, Coelho wrote a novel (his fourth according to Wikipedia) called The Alchemist. I have not successfully discovered definitively how well or poorly the novel did in its first ten years of existence. However, I have discovered some tidbits of information. A Publisher's Weekly article in 2003 reported that the original Portuguese-language edition of the 150+ page novel only sold 900 copies. It was translated into English in 1993 and was later translated to a total of 56 languages, selling a grand total of 27 million copies by 2003.
Coelho himself is an advocate of file-sharing, and the reason for his support is popularly attributed to his success with The Alchemist. Here's the story that "free e-book" advocates tell.
According to the popular version of events, by 1999 the book's sales had dwindled to a small number of copies, suggesting it might have sold considerably more before that time. It's not clear whether a fan posted the text of the novel online or if Coelho did it himself. Some reports I found said that it appeared on The Pirate Bay, a famous file-sharing website currently in legal hot water with various copyright suits in Europe. The free e-book website, freebooksforall.com, wrote that Coelho published it on his own website. The Wikipedia article simply wrote, "A fan posted a Russian translation of one of his novels online."
Regardless of which version of the story is true, all purveyors of the tale agree that Coelho's book sales shot up over the next few years. The various people telling the tale vary slightly in the numbers they tout. Wikipedia says that the number of sales jumped from 3,000 to 1,000,000 over a three year period, while freebooksforall.com says sales increased from 1,000 to 1,000,000, selling 10,000 the first year, 100,000 the second year, and 1.000,000 the third year. Either way, all who tell the tale agree that sales skyrocketed because of the file-shared copy.
Is this a true story? I do not know. File-sharing advocates swear to me that it's true. Yet, I was unable to find any articles from long-established, reputable news publishers documenting or verifying the story, including extensive research of the Google News Archives.
Famous Test Cases — Stephen King
Stephen King of horror-genre fame engaged in a couple of test cases with free e-books. A New York Times article from July 25, 2000 described how King's first solo attempt with offering free downloads of his latest book worked out. The article reported that the first installment of his serial novel, The Plant, produced 41,000 downloads its first day. The Times article said the result "fell short of expectations" because his previous online novella attempt, Riding The Bullet, produced 400,000 downloads its first day. The article attributes the disparity in numbers to the fact that King released The Plant on his own, without the publicity power of a major publisher behind it.
The most interesting point about King's attempts is that he did not actually give his work away for free. Instead, "Mr. King asked readers to pay him a dollar for each chapter they downloaded, and warned that he would not post new installments unless he received payments for at least 75 percent of the downloads." Amazon handled the payments. The result? More than 75% did make payments.
The Times article concluded:
"Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon.com, said he hoped that the honor-system model might inspire others to try distributing books like 'shareware,' software circulated on the Internet with payment expected later. 'If you can make it easy for people, people are going to be willing to pay,' he said.
"In a hint perhaps of battles to come, some other booksellers questioned Mr. King's decision to favor Amazon.com as the exclusive bill collector. 'It is a shame,' said Ed Morrow, owner of the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vt., and the former president of the American Booksellers Association. He noted that Mr. King could have elected to send customers to the association's Booksense Web site or to another store, including his own."
Four chapters later, in November 2000, King announced he would suspend the novel with the publication of the sixth chapter in December. A CBS article reported King assistant Marsha DeFilippo saying, "Through Nov. 19 about 112,000 people downloaded chapters of The Plant, but only about half paid for it."
The CBS article further reported:
"'Some people were feeling that it was overpriced because it wasn't a physical book,' DeFilippo said. 'They thought it should be considerably less than a book you could buy (in a store).'
"But she said the project was profitable, and denied he was abandoning it because of nonpayment. DeFilippo said King made his decision to stop writing two weeks before he learned only 46 percent of the people who downloaded the fourth chapter actually paid for it.
"'(Installments) five and six wouldn't be put up, if he had been disappointed with the payments,' DeFilippo added. 'He plans on doing this again. He certainly hasn't been discouraged by this.'
"The fifth chapter is online and the sixth chapter of The Plant will be available on the Web for free beginning Dec. 18, she said."
To date, King has never released anything more for the serial novel after chapter six.
Famous Test Cases — Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow is a self-described, "science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger" who is perhaps best known for his strong support of the Creative Commons License system.
Creative Commons (CC) is actually a group of six different licensing models designed to permit file-sharing. In brief summary, the licenses permits users to share, copy, transmit, and distribute a creator's work, provided that proper attribution is included. Variations among the six versions within the licensing model permit or restrict the work for commercial use and permit or restrict derivative works. The licenses say nothing about making any payment for the work, so they essentially protect the copyright of a free e-book while permitting free distribution. This is the model virtually all "free e-book" advocates support and to which they point when touting the virtues of marketing with free e-books.
Doctorow has released most of his work under the CC license. He widely touts the virtues of this approach, and sales of his print novels do not appear to be hurt by the practice. Most of them still rank surprisingly well in Amazon's sales ranking system.
He once argued, "So long as innovation is taking place, piracy is the norm." He further expanded on the claim by saying, "The first techno-pirates were the record companies that ripped off composers to put their music onto discs. Then the radio pirates ripped off the record pirates. Then the cable pirates ripped off the broadcast pirates. Then the VCR pirates ripped off the cable pirates."
Doctorow argues that the record industry, through its lawsuits, has set itself up for destruction at the hands of its intended clientele. He claimed, "Brick by brick, the record companies built the moral case for ripping them off (and the movie companies, broadcasters, ebook publishers, and game companies weren't far behind). As the copyfight wore on, wrecking the entertainment industry became an ever-more attractive proposition."
He also argued, "...it's not the entertainment industry's job to tell me what are and are not fair terms of sale for my downloads. If loaning an MP3 should be illegal, let them get a law passed.... If the pitch is, 'this is a fair deal,' then the EULA should be: 'You can do anything with this, so long as you don't break the law.'" It's a very well thought out argument.
As one of the foremost advocates on the 'net for free file-sharing, Doctorow is most often quoted or cited by free file-sharing advocates.
Famous Test Cases — Seth Godin
Seth Godin is a self-described "...bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change." He has written 10 bestsellers by his own count. A former Vice-President of Direct Marketing at Yahoo!, he is the creator of the famous squidoo.com website and boasts one of the most popular blogs in the world.
While I have not done a thorough investigation of all Godin's works, I see signs of an interesting pattern. First, only some of his books are currently offered as free e-books, and this subgroup does not always appear to be among his most successful current books. I don't know if that's because of his publisher's restraints or his own choices, but I suspect the latter.
On the other hand, Godin himself claims, "Unleashing the Ideavirus is the most popular ebook ever written," and that book was indeed released as a free e-book. The e-book is widely claimed to have reached an audience of millions through its free distribution. It's also still offered for sale at Amazon, although its Amazon ranking nine years after its release is anemic at best. I found one reference, however, which reports that after the first 500,000 free copies were downloaded, Godin self-published it and offered it for sale on Amazon, where it hit #5 on their bestseller list its first week.
Free E-Books and Commitment: The Unstated Issue
There is a lot to like about the free e-book concept. However, one aspect of it bothers me greatly. One of the unfortunate side-effects that has come out of file-sharing is the belief held by some file-sharers that they are entitled to free information and entertainment. It's the belief in entitlement to other people's work without paying a nickel for it that bothers me. The degree of belief varies widely, of course, from file-sharer to file-sharer, and I want to emphasize that the overwhelming majority of e-book readers with whom I've communicated on various forums do not fall into this category. I fully recognize that technology makes it virtually impossible to crack down on this problem. Instead, I'm concerned with it as a moral problem, because like most moral problems it has very practical, potentially negative consequences for the creative artist. I say this while recognizing the risk/rewards arguments that free-file-sharing advocates put forth. If I grant their arguments, will they grant in return that the moral issue still remains? I'm not certain, although I suspect most would.
The Pirate Bay, whose founders were (justly or unjustly) found guilty in a European court of copyright theft, argues that their site is no different from Google or other search engines because it merely points to where to find opyrighted information, but it does not condone actual piracy The implication behind the arguments put forth by The Pirate Bay's four Swedish founders and others in the free distribution movement is that copyright must be respected, but so must the technology of information dissemination.
Here is the nub of the question: does a file-sharer who downloads a copyrighted file and uses it have a moral obligation to reward the creator of that file, except when the creator releases him/her from that obligation? Most free-file-sharing advocates agree that the moral obligation exists, but they typically do not confront the actions of those who violate that morality (although there are exceptions).
The Creative Commons licenses avoid this question by permitting free use of the materials under various restrictions that do not include collecting a fee for usage. Free-file-sharing advocates do not usually attempt to address this question head on. Instead, they revert to the argument that the best way to market an e-book or other entertainment or information form is to give it away for free, particularly if the creator is a relatively unknown person. That doesn't answer the question. It merely skates around it.
The Jeff Bezos quote about Stephen King's experiment being similar to shareware (above) comes to mind. To reiterate, he said, "If you can make it easy for people, people are going to be willing to pay." He referred to this method as "the honor system," a good description in my opinion. It reminds me of a farmer who is constantly busy running his farm. He doesn't have time to sit at a table and sell his produce to passers-by. So, he sets up a small stand next to the highway on the edge of his property, loads it up with tomatoes, corn, beans, apples, etc., and then he puts up a sign next to a small collection box that says something like, "Pay here." In other words, he offers his produce on the honor system and trusts his customers to do the right thing. In one sense, he behaves in a manner similar to what free file-sharing advocates support... freely available distribution. Yet, on the other hand, he also expects to be paid for his work.
If someone comes along and steals his produce, he tacitly acknowledges by his actions that he can do nothing to stop them. But, by placing his sign on the table along with a collection box, he makes clear that he considers such actions to be stealing. His livelihood depends (at least in part) on that collection box.
Free-file-sharing advocates do not include the idea of a collection box in their model. They acknowledge the possibility of accepting donations and selling advertising, and they emphasize the honesty of "most people" who download free e-books, but any mention of a collection box seems to make them uneasy. They aren't against it, but they don't advocate it either. The fear appears to be based in the thought that if you engage in any kind of direct request for payment, you'll scare away file-sharers.
I understand the fear, but I wonder if there isn't a way around it. For instance, couldn't there be a license similar to the Creative Commons licenses where the user agrees that if they read the e-book all the way through and get something of value out of it (such as enjoying it), they have an obligation to make payment for it? The license could include the right to share the file, with the understanding that each person who receives such a file is held to the same obligation: if they use and benefit from the work, they owe payment for it. If they find it to be rubbish, they owe nothing.
There could also be an ability-to-pay clause. Let's say you offer an e-book for $5 under such an "honor system" arrangement, subject to whether the e-book actually benefits the reader. For most people, $5 is not an onerous compensation. However, I'll readily admit that for some people $5 can indeed be onerous. There are some countries where $5 represents a lot of money for many people. Even here in the U.S., someone who has been unemployed for months at a time due to the financial crisis could have serious problems putting together $5, because money can get really, really tight in such a circumstance. Couldn't the "honor system" arrangement also permit people to make payment when they benefit from an e-book based on their ability to pay?
One could argue that people might abuse such a system, but abuse is already rampant, and it's not going away. The key point is that this idea is an honor system. If a particular person does not behave honorably, nothing will prevent his/her dishonorable actions.
As a first-time author (who thinks he's written a novel that has a great chance to be very popular), this question of whether or not to allow e-book file sharing and whether or not to request payment for that e-book is critically important to me. A lot of free-file-sharing advocates emphasize how important and useful the free approach is for authors with multiple titles under their belts, and I think that argument is a valid one, but at the same time the author issuing his/her first title has a lot on the line. He or she has just spent a huge amount time, measured in months or years, living on the financial edge in order to produce a creative work. Whether or not that author successfully collects money for his/her effort is critically important, precisely because he/she is a first-time author.
Take This Poll
I want your opinion on this question. So, I've set up an online poll. I would appreciate it if you would register your views by taking the poll. And please leave your comments regarding why you made the selection you chose.
Did you like this article? If you did, Thumb It! 6 thumbs so far
The views expressed in this
article are those of Walt Thiessen only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Walt Thiessen is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
As someone who is also working on a novel with topical themes, I would urge you to go with Cory Doctorow's precedent. It is interesting you mention these systems of distribution as Chris Anderson's "Free: The Future of a New Radical Price" has touched upon a lot of these concerns.
To my knowledge, I haven't seen a lot of examples of the 2nd working before, for reasons that you gave, although I know in the software community, freeware and open source developers have donate boxes all the time. Moral obligation is a tricky issue, and since at the onset, you'll be giving it away for free, the reader will start out dubious. It seems borderline solicitation to me.
There is no doubt that e-books and self-publishing are changing the landscape of fiction materials, whether editors like it or not. The editor of Tor recently admitted it himself in an interview he gave to blog io9: http://io9.com/5346341/tor-editor-patrick-nielsen-hayden-on-the-future-of-sf-books.
I'll refrain from the ideological arguments in favor of this option, and save it for another day.
Hey Walt, thanks for an interesting look at various "possibilities" for e-book publishing. I'd like to point out a couple of possible options and other examples that my may have missed (or maybe just not had room for?)
You might want to check out Baen Books "free library" ( link: Baen Free Library ) They as a publisher have of course LOTS of books to offer; their free e-books appear to serve as great reasons for Sci-Fi fans, like myself, to purchase many other books written by authors they like. The e-books are also sold in paperback form nationwide for example at Barnes and Noble. I've enjoyed most of the free books and also purchased many follow-on books both in e-book form and in paperback.
John Scalzi ( http://scalzi.com ) is another Sci-Fi author who began with a free e-book and a blog; he has gone on to become very successful with other Sci-Fi books. I've recently read most of his "Old Man's War" series, which I began by reading a borrowed copy (paperback) but have bought (so far) three other novels of his in paperback.
I think you're also missing one option in your quiz (which I therefore will not take) and that is the "gratitude driven" option. You can read some of my experimental writings about my approach to that option here: http://sharefreely.com
While you'll find a philosophically religious approach to the concept there, I don't believe that approach is necessary... people do enjoy having a way to "express gratitude" to artists and authors they enjoy. The major difference between this and an "honor system" is that payment is purely voluntary, not a "moral obligation." One other honest observation is that after many years I have yet to receive any remuneration via sharefreely.com, however I have never done anything to promote it either.
I have also published and offered free e-books, the most complete of which is now titled "Musings of a Soul Surfer" although the web-based versions (here: http://flyinghouse.com/creator/sports/waves.html ) haven't caught up with the absolutely latest work. Those who have stumbled upon it have enjoyed it, but I haven't gotten (or sought) dime one for it.
At the bottom line, I would say that as a relative "unknown" you would either need a publisher, or (if you continue down the path to self-publish and self-promote) the more you can do to widely spread your name and awareness of your art, the better off you'll be, including giving away your e-book version.
Other options: "limited-time" giveaways, "advertised special" give-aways (test adds with "coupon codes" for a "free e-book" that would let you gauge your various ad markets,) give away the first several chapters to "get em hooked," and I am sure there are others that others might mention.
Good luck! :) Who knows, if you're successful perhaps you'll be giving me some good advice on how to market my writing. :)
Posted By: Jake Towne, the Champion of the Constitution
Date: 2009-09-01 13:51:26
When's the audio book coming out? :)
Sharing with CC licenses would be compelling case if especially if you go with mises.org or some other place that will market it for you, and carry the paper book.
Don't be afraid to change strategies midstream, tho' I suppose this might only work if you charge first, then go free later on. Your book is timely but we probably have a ways to go :)
Want to comment on this
article? Leave your comment here. Your email address is
required to track your comment. However, we will neither
publish your email address nor distribute it to other
organizations or persons. The only reason we might use
it would be if we needed to contact you regarding your
comment. All comments are subject to our
terms of use policy.
