Author Encourages Users to Pirate His Book 237
mariushm writes "Peter Cooper, the author of Beginning Ruby, breaks down how he gets paid for the book, including the advance and royalties, giving a nice clean explanation of how authors get paid for their books. He also describes the negotiations over the second edition of the book, in which he begged his publisher, Apress, to offer the ebook version for free, believing (strongly) that it would promote sales of the paper book. He even notes that the original version's ebook barely had noteworthy sales, so it seemed reasonable to offer up the ebook for free to drive more attention. No dice. Even though Apress has done that with other similar titles, it wouldn't agree. As he retains the copyright for the actual text, he encourages people to buy the book and create an online version of it without covers, contents table and indexes, promising not to enforce his copyright over the new work."
Re:I don't think so... (Score:4, Interesting)
He most likely granted the publisher an exclusive license.
Was it an exclusive license for a couple years, or was it an exclusive license for the duration of the copyright?
give the text away for free on your site (Score:2, Interesting)
put an order form for a self-published book on your site. the self-publishing business is well-established and straightforward
end of story
no need for a publisher and all that legal cruft
you'll make more money than going the publisher route, even with all the barnes and noble exposure. people are getting information about programming via internet searches, not browsing barnes and noble. hell, people are getting information about composting, travelling to ecuador, whooping cough, and everything else online. you are not giving exposure by not being in barnes and noble
and if you think not getting a toehold in barnes and noble means less income, you are correct. except that free and unfettered access online represents far more exposure than barnes and noble. and you get that exposure by being unbound from all the legal cruft of a publisher. such that anyone choosing to buy a book anyways from you online represents more people than buying it at barnes and noble
lose the publisher, get more exposure and get more cash
The Goal (Score:1, Interesting)
Whether or not he intended to, Cooper got exactly what he wanted - front page of /. and a ton of publicity for his book. If I were him I'd be very happy right now, regardless of whether his proposition is illegal or not.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I don't think so... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have dealt quite a bit with copyright law when creating FairSoftware's virtual company [fairsoftware.net] license. I'm afraid the author is incorrect when he says that he retains copyright, therefore he can authorize people to download his book for free. He most likely granted the publisher an exclusive license.
Did you read HIS contract? If not, you are only guessing. He may actually have negotiated and retained rights..
sure its doubtful, but its his contact, not yours.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:3, Interesting)
If a regular $40 book gives $18 to the publisher, with the rest being eaten up by distributors, an ebook for $23.99 doesn't sound incredibly out of line. $6 for the infrastructure and customer support functions. Just because it's electronic doesn't mean that it's free and you'll never have to hire someone to deal with complaining customers.
i don't have a ship (Score:3, Interesting)
i can't pirate his book unless i get a boat, find a boat carry his books and then proceed to commit armed robbery.
i think i'd rather just download it, which would be copyright infringement (unless i have permission).
Re:I don't think so... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why doesn't a publisher just offer 40% royalties or something and annihilate the competition?
Because they don't have to. They have "industry standard practices" that effectively let them act like a trust without technically being a trust. It's a form of implicitly limiting labor costs. As publishing becomes more and more frictionless and major publishers less and less valuable they'll get smaller, control less, and authors will earn more as they become more competitive. As long as they control the entry point into a market however they can pretty much use these types of practices.
Dive Into Python 3 (Score:3, Interesting)
Just wanted to point out that, coincidentally, Mark Pilgrim's excellent Dive Into Python 3 just became available in print form today: http://diveintopython3.org/ [diveintopython3.org]. He published Dive Into Python under the GNU Free Documentation license and made it available in a number of formats, and Dive Into Python 3 is available under a Creative Commons license and downloadable in HTML and PDF form. Full copies of both texts can be browsed online. Both are excellent. Interestingly, both were published by Apress.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:3, Interesting)
More profit per unit, perhaps, but does e-books bring in more revenue than their paper counter parts?
And Sometimes The Man Sticks Back (Score:3, Interesting)
I think he's just mad at Apress and wants to stick it to the man
I'd say Apress has an air-tight case for breach of contract - and quite possibly something like conspiracy to commit copyright infringement.
I would love to be the fly on the wall when Cooper tries to cut a deal for his next book. I can't imagine anyone who would touch it.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:3, Interesting)
Back when I wrote a book, three different publishers sent me contracts and the one from Apress was the most author-friendly by far. The royalty rates were higher, and the terms limiting the exclusive rights were written with authors in mind. All in all I found it to be an equitable arrangement - they were taking a risk by fronting the production costs and wanted a chance at profit. I was compensated more than fairly for the work I did.
The accounting never confused me. The percentage is paid on revenue (not profit), so there isn't any "hollywood accounting". There are several different kinds of sales, each with their own price, but it all adds up.
The "reserve" is really very simple. Distributors order more books than they might need from the publisher. These count as sales. But the publisher also will allow excess inventory to be returned. If the publisher paid out all royalties in full, then at the tail end of a book's life when returns exceeded sales, they would have to ask for money back from the author. It is also difficult to gauge the ups and downs of sales/returns (lots of sales in Q4 followed by returns in Q1). The reserve is a buffer against that. A sort of minimum balance that the publisher owes you but is escrowed against possible returns. Honestly, I never found it to be a problem.
Re:If he's so sure he has the copyright... (Score:3, Interesting)
His agreement with the publisher almost certainly does prohibit distributing the book himself.
While a geek might see "distribution without the right to do so" and "encouraging others to distribute without the right to do so" as entirely different actions, it's unlikely that a judge will see it that way. Judges and geeks tend to lump things in different buckets.
"No, no, no, your honor, I didn't violate that restraining order. I only encouraged other people to harass my ex. And...and...and...one of them wrote an autodialer program to do it, so it wasn't even a person on the phone. What are you going to do, throw the server in jail?"
Re:I don't think so... (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone who has published three books through traditional publishers, and who has many colleagues who have also published, I can tell you that for technical books 5% is pretty much standard. Actually, it's 10% of the actual sale price to the publisher, which is usually half of the cover price. The other half is the markup that bookstores and other distributors get. In the technical realm, you would have to be a true superstar to get any terms better than that.
Also, the posters here who say that the author has given away exclusive rights are probably right: it is standard to do that. Publishers don't care if you retain the copyright because the contract is generally exclusive. Again, exceptions are sometimes made for "superstar" authors.
Because of these difficulties, I published my fourth book myself. See my thoughts on this at http://expresswaysolutions.com/valuedrivenit_com/wiki1/tiki-index.php?page=Living+Book+Concept [expresswaysolutions.com]