Pirate Yourself, Become a Best-Seller 288
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "It sounds like a dotcom-era business plan: 1) give it away, 2) ???, 3) make pots of money. Author Paulo 'Pirate' Coelho leapt out of obscurity and onto the best-seller list by giving away his books on the Net. The best-selling author of 'The Alchemist' will even help you pirate his books via his blog. His publishers were not pleased, but then his books went from selling 1,000 copies to 100,000 and then over a million. He gives special credit to pirate translators who are making his work accessible to a wider audience and convincing more people to read his book."
He's not the only one... (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with S2, nor am I a fan of their game, just their business model.
Effective by design (Score:3, Insightful)
Tag effectivebydesign
Re:Effective by design (Score:5, Informative)
I feel it isn't ground breaking, but his little thing on physics really put into words what I've been feeling for a long time. Worth a read.
Re:Effective by design (Score:4, Insightful)
I strongly recommend reading the full text. It's really worth it.
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society so that it is more likely that people will pay for things that
they can get for free but require an upfront development cost.
Instead of antagonizing everyone, they should encourage people to find
their own englightened self-interest in supporting the authors of the
works they enjoy. Sure it's less authoritarian and to some people
inherently scary. However, it is the best way to approach the problem
short of trying to create a police s
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Btw, given all the hatred of biased terminology, (Don't call it "Digital Rights Management"!!!!) I see you're not above the tactic when you refer to "imaginary property".
Intellectual property is exactly as imaginary as physical property. Both refer to "rights". Rights are inherently intangible. And con
Re:Effective by design (Score:4, Interesting)
Intellectual property is exactly as imaginary as physical property. Both refer to "rights". Rights are inherently intangible. And contrary to their names, they both have physical ("real") referents.
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Every time a businessman smiles after cutting some cost or forcing someone to pay more does because he's too stupid to realize what he has lost.
I know there's limited space here, but that's quite a sweeping generalization, at least if I understood it correctly given the sketchy grammar. I'd say it's all about balance. Cutting costs and finding good ways to get people to pay more aren't always bad things. Businesses should be, if I can invoke a cliché, customer focused; however, if you're so focused on the customer that you don't make any money, well, then that's not really a business, is it? And if you don't mind businesses making money,
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Re:He's not the only one... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:He's not the only one... (Score:5, Informative)
Baen Free Library (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.baen.com/library/ [baen.com]
Just read the comments by Eric Flint and see that the authors who have books in the Library have seen a significant increase in sales. Sure, most of the books are older, and just the first one or two books in the series, but if other readers are anything like I am, then if you read the first book in a series and like it. You will definitely consider buying the second on wards.
Now the fact
How long have we been saying it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have yet to meet anyone with enormous digital collections of copyrighted works that didn't also have enormous physical collections of copyrighted works.
This is yet another clear illustration of what really drives the consumer and forgetting about lawyers trying to justify their existence, let the MARKETERS take notice that this is most likely to be a very successful business model for the future.
Re:How long have we been saying it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How long have we been saying it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that the reason CD sales have taken such a dive is that single sales have made a comeback. People have complained for a long time that albums only contain one or two good songs. Buying those two songs as CD singles would have cost as much as the whole album, but now you can get both singles for $2 via a number of sources. It doesn't take a genius to see how going from a $15 sale to a $2 or maybe $3 sale is going to hurt the industry. When they attack piracy they are not addressing the problem. Hell, if I ever felt the slightest shred of guilt in pirating, the industry sure has cured that!
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Patty? Is that you? [kuro5hin.org]
-mcgrew
(No spam for YOU!)
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Exactly
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Indeed. The 16-year-old with a pirated copy of 3D Studio Max couldn't afford a legitimate copy if he or she wanted one. This is the problem with the absurd estimates of piracy losses groups like the BSA come up with. How many of those millions of copies of software would actually have been sold if they couldn't be pirated? Probably relatively few. The same applies to other media.
Books probably do represent a special case to some extent,
Re:How long have we been saying it? (Score:4, Funny)
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That's more of an oblique way to screw them on money, since they get paid royalties for each play on the radio. Fewer radio listeners drives down advertising rates and radio revenues, and creates downward pressure on royalties.
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Well, I have. I don't agree with it, but there are certainly a lot of teenagers out there who regularly download gigabytes of music (some of which no doubt they will never even listen to) without the slightest intention of ever buying any. Of course a couple of the main people that I am thinking of are Canadian and the laws for downloading music are a
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Which dosn't have any effect on record companies sales figures. There are three possibilities; download instead of buy; buy because of "previewing" through download and would just do without in the absence of a download. What actually matters for music sales is the first
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While i like the fact that i can get stuff for free , i also like to donate to artist that i think are worth it.
But there are also songs , created in such way , that when you here it at first , you want it to hear it more , and then , after a few weeks , you realize the song actually sucks.
If you bought it by then , you've been screwed . I'd rather givbe my money to artist that actually create timeless , good music .
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Medium of Choice (Score:4, Insightful)
Does this mean that it doesn't work like this for purely digital works? No, but it isn't evidence that it does either.
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Sure you can. Just gotta kill a few trees to do it.
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In fact, there's SO much out there now that I've come to the conclusion that if it's not worth obtaining legally, it's not worth my time.
If an author (or other creator) is giving away their work, it has to be -very- good to convince me to also pay money for it. (Jonathan Cou
I've been saying it for years. (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting fact with that article, shortly after writing it Moira Allen decided to post all of her hundreds of articles under the Creative Commons as well. The real revolutionary thing about the Creative Commons and piracy is the viral marketing side of it. Companies have known for a long time that giving away free samples is awesome marketing, they just tend to cost considerably but with digital media this can be negated to almost nothing.
Sure some people don't buy your stuff, but in a lot of cases they wouldn't buy it anyway. You can also make up for a lower quality product by pirating it. For one thing it's off limits, for another it's free, and lastly it's obviously liked by other people otherwise it wouldn't be pirated. All these factors combine to make piracy and Open Licenses very powerful marketing tools that most companies are just missing out on.
I've actually covered the benefits of Philanthropic Marketing [dynamicmar...utions.com] on my blog. This includes Open Source, Open Licensing, and just plain helping out in the community to foster a stronger community and help it thrive. A lot of the FOSS crowd seems to be a bit socialistic in their viewpoints and try to convert people that way. I prefer to cater to their greed and self-interest which we all have and which FOSS and sharing in general are compatible with.
If anyone's interested in learning more or getting help with a philanthropic marketing campaign drop me a line at the email address mentioned on my blog.
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Fully agreed, although there is often a "time shift". When I was 18 I had stacks of compact cassettes (the 1980s variant of MP3
Corroborating evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
But Wait, there's More!!!... (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, they publish, with some of their books, the Baen CD - a CD containing all of the Free Library, the book you just bought, and a whole bunch of others, typically by that individual author. And the license is great - you can do anything you want with the cd - copy, give away - EXCEPT sell it. http://oberon.zlynx.org/ [zlynx.org] has all of them, with links to other distribution sites, all PERFECTLY LEGAL.
J
Truer words were never spoken. (Score:3, Interesting)
"Quite frankly, the whole point of slashdot is to have this big public wanking session with people getting together and making their own "insightful" comment on any random topic, whether they know anything about it or not."
-- Linus Torvalds
(source: http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95 [lkml.org]
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Here you go [baen.com]. You could probably get a lot more from reading the other "Prime Palavers" and the slashdot [slashdot.org] articles [slashdot.org] discussing those, but my hunch is that you won't bother.
If you'd like to prove my hunch wrong, there's also a few [mises.org] more [openbusiness.cc] people [simplenomics.com] out there with the same experience as Baen.
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I bought the book. Granted, I picked the one of the several Baen books that looke
Before claiming RIAA should learn (Score:5, Insightful)
Music however got digitized. People don't own high end equipment any longer because the sound will still suck, we are used to music being digital and convenient. A lot of people have gotten used to the idea of music being something massively stored in a box on the network. When you got the music in digital format pirated you don't get any additional value by buying the CD.
RIAA/MPAA still need to get their act together and treat their costumers with respect. (He talks about getting to know your audience)
On a side note, I'm definitely grabbing a copy of the book (as in printed kind from a store) to check it out.
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I'm not saying it's some
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Bull poop.
It works exactly the same way.
Maybe not for people younger than my generation (I'm 29) who are growing up around digital music, but everyone I know who like music has large electronic collections as a convenience, but buys loads in cd form either beforehand and ripping, or after downloading. You listen, you like it, you want the cd.
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Obvious solution: put things on or with the CD that would increase the value but would be difficult to reproduce. Say... all of the seperate tracks used to mix the song in infinite quality FLAC format, perchance?
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Re:Before claiming RIAA should learn (Score:4, Interesting)
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The game itself is only playable for 5 hours before you need to register (and pay) and it call this a Demo
This is more like Demoware than Game as a service
But saying that it will work since the boxed copy you buy just sits on a shelf and the downloaded game is exactly the same, like the music industry they are selling something that can be downloaded easier than buying it, so the way of stopping freeloaders (pirates)
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This would essentially kill adventure games (Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, etc.), and single player, story oriented RPGs (e.g. Chrono Trigger) -- two of my favorite genres.
Has anyone ever made a decent (massively?) multiplayer adventure game? (This is not rhetorical, but a genuine inquiry of curiosity)
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Er, did music start to suck because it became digital, or did music start to suck because of the loudness war [wikipedia.org]?
Also, I do like to buy CDs due to album art and a wish to support the artist.
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I think this is also why bookstores put comfy armchairs in the aisles near the books. Well, that and the fact that the longer people stay in the store, the more likely they are to buy more things.
I disagree about the cds though. There is a bit to be gained, usually a cd will have the booklet with lyrics and artwork and all this and that. Plus with the cd, you can put it into any digital format you want, but I'm not sure you can convert
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When you read a scroll its natural for you to sit with it, hand-printed, preferably in some handy format where you unroll and roll. It makes sense to let people try before they buy. Personally I sit in my bed with a pot of wine, its nice comfy and let me really enter the world(s) of the scroll.
[1500 years later]
Music however got recorded. People don't own musical instruments any longer because the sound will still suck, we are us
Re:Won't work with games either... (Score:4, Interesting)
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On a related subject (Score:5, Interesting)
Not the first to notice it, but a different way. (Score:5, Insightful)
He's not the first author to notice that "giving away" (quotes intended) your books via the Internet leads to increased sales. This might be called an extension of what Baen discovered several years ago. Let people read your books "for free," don't stick restrictions on them, and quite a number of them will end up purchasing those books and others by the author.
I think he's one of the first to really show that encouraging "piracy" actually leads to increased book sales. Obviously, you have to be a good writer in the first place - if your stuff sucks, it doesn't matter whether you give it away or not - but if you are, it'll encourage people to read what you're writing, and buy your books. Somehow, I think that this will get lost on the "suits" at the major publishers, though.
Re:Not the first to notice it, but a different way (Score:4, Insightful)
one copy = one lost sale
I don't know where this logic comes from...
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This is actually one of the reasons that some artists are scared of this business model. In the traditional author / publisher / reader model, an author only has to impress the publisher (who shoulders the risk of failure). In this new model, if you suck, you suck, and you will know it. No other entity will screen you financially from failure.
It's a bit scary, but it'
No Substitute (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why people will continue to buy books and how publishers should be making money in this new economy.
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I can't see how books can stand up against something like that.
Not the first. (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, being that he's got a publisher, I wouldn't be surprised if his actions were actionable in a legal sense on their part. In this case it seems to have worked out for the best for all part
This is nothing new (Score:3, Insightful)
Getting attention (Score:3, Insightful)
Mal Reynolds from Firefly said it best.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Brad
Another great quote from Serenity.... (Score:2)
Highly appropriate, don't you think?
Same for Education (Score:5, Interesting)
Theoretical model of intellectual property? (Score:4, Insightful)
We need a better theoretical model of intellectual property. Somehow the generally accepted ideas have been shown again and again to be wildly wrong. It is really stupid that most people don't seem to notice that they have to change their thinking.
Paulo Coelho ... (Score:5, Informative)
from wikipedia:
Re:Paulo Coelho ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am willing to bet that releasing the books in electronic format for free hasn't increased his popularity by more than 1%.
Disclaimer: I can't really stand his novels. They are pretty light, claiming and trying to seem deeper and more meaningful. Umberto Eco he clearly ain't.
Over-hype (Score:3, Interesting)
This is not a plan for everyone (Score:3, Insightful)
The usual model for giving away content works like this:
1) I can't compete with the bigger brands in my area, so I'll give away what I have for free.
2) The quality of my work will establish me, and fame (eg user base) will lead to big things.
It worked for PHP, but you can't say it worked for PostgreSQL, which was based on something that was famous already. Ditto for Radiohead and Coelho. They're not a good model for most of us.
Strange ways of the universe (Score:2, Funny)
Good Point (Score:2)
Word of Mouth (Score:4, Insightful)
One way to think about it is that this instance of astroturfing was a way to create activation energy" [wikipedia.org] necessary to get the "popularity reaction" going. If there is no word of mouth because no one has a copy of the book (or other media) it will probably just sit on shelves and never sell. This fellow was clever enough to create a little artificial demand that turned into the real thing. Just a well done example of a cleverly run public relations [wikipedia.org] campaign. Done right it is very effective and much cheaper than advertising.
Oddly enough (Score:3, Interesting)
Obscurity? Paulo Coelho? (Score:5, Informative)
Paulo Coelho obscure?
Yet another proof that slashdot editors really don't control anything that gets posted here
Paulo Coelho has sold around 100 million books on 150 countries and has been translated to more than 66 languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho [wikipedia.org]. Somehow the bozo submiting stories will credit all of that to torrent publicity? Check out (in the portuguese wikipedia) http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho [wikipedia.org] the number of international prises he got way before torrents were in any way popular. Please just read the list of prises he got BEFORE 2000.
Yeah, obscure all the way. Indeed.
BTW, what's the name of that obscure comedy writer that released a book on the internet, and after he got famous, decided not to do that again? Oh, yeah that would be (otherwise unknown) Scott Adams http://www.themillionsblog.com/2007/11/giving-it-away-for-free.html [themillionsblog.com] ... Another usurper of the torrent comunity no doubt!
Free is the new Profit-maker (Score:4, Insightful)
I've also been doing it for years: I've declined to copyright anything I've written, designed, or produced digitally, for about 10 years. In that time, I've made "pots of money" because of it. Why? It's a marketing tool. Give it away, have people use it or reference it, and build your reputation to sell your labors for future projects.
I can't believe others don't do it. I helped a few local bands reach national prominence (magazines, MTV2, etc) by giving away their recorded music in exchange for building a fan-base who would buy their not-so-easily-copied dookie at shows. It works.
I've maintained blogs that have driven people to my subscription-only print newsletter, which I then tell people to give away when they're done reading it. Guess what? That, too, has brought more subscribers.
The future is not about piracy, it's about marketability. You should NEVER hope to make money on something you've already done, but on what you can do. When people see your ability, they'll be more captive in hiring you for a future need. That's where you make your money. If you're an author, give away that e-book: people hate reading things electronically still, and will probably decide to just buy that $10 printed novel or how-to book. Books are cheap to produce now, even one-offs. My print-on-demand supplier has been offering me paperbacks for under $4 printed, so I can sell it for $11 and make a reasonable profit. What's the problem with understanding that?
I'm still shocked at how many content-creators and artists don't want to give away their old works to build future profits. They're too protective of their intellectual property, and unwilling to accept that we're all whores for profit but usually unwilling to actually work hard to earn that profit. I can't begin to count how many "artists" work their rears off to try to become that one hit wonder rather than embracing the idea that working for your entire life is a better end-goal. It's a risk versus reward belief that I stumbled across when I was much younger: why risk putting everything into the hope that you'll be the lucky one out of a million to hit it big on a single item?
Kindle? (Score:3, Funny)
Fro copyRIGHT to copyDUTY (Score:3, Insightful)
"Out of print" should NOT be an option. Either the law should mandate copies be made to satisfy demand, OR the copyright should be revoked if they refused, and enter the public domain where works of art are supposed to go eventually anyway, so that others can make the copies needed.
I had this experience in miniature ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've had much the same experience with electronic distribution,
except in a much smaller scale. I was the co-author of the first
edition of O'Reilly's "Using Samba", which was published under a
free documntation license, and a copy was included in every
download of the Samba program.
Using Samba was O'Reilly's best seller of the period, and jumped
by all the other Samba books of the day.
It seems that people were printing small sections, making
notes in the margin, and then buying the professionally
printed book to have it in a portable format,
but not to have to carry around huge inconvenient lumps of paper.
--dave
In piratese... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In piratese... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In piratese... (Score:5, Funny)
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So OP, are you a dyslexic pirate?
-Red
Re:I for one (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm just really tired of the lumping together of all kinds of filesharing under the heading "piracy".
Re:I for one (Score:5, Funny)
Stupid copyright infringers don't even steal, they're in trouble for giving shit away. We REAL pirates don't give nothin' away, we cut yer throat and keep it ourselves. Now get your arsse on that plank, yer gettin' keel hauled.
While I got you here, I'm feedin' ya some Spam [slashdot.org] since thar ain't no real meat today. Now tell me before I run ya through, should I find a publisher for The Paxil Diaries [kuro5hin.org]?
Re:I for one (Score:5, Funny)
Now please would you let me off this plank?
Re:I for one (Score:5, Funny)
Sure thing, matey
*splash*
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Re:I for one (Score:5, Insightful)
As an aside, my local library now has e-books as well as audiobooks and music available over the Internet for anyone with a library card.
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Digital copies are free, which generated interest. People then wanted actual physical books, which he sold to them From 0 in one year to 100,000 a couple years later.
In 2001, I sold 10,000 hard copies. And everyone was puzzled. We came from zero, from 1000, to 10,000. And then the next year we were over 100,000.
Re:Change bank (Score:5, Insightful)
So giving away product increases sales? If the sale price is zero how do you make money?
Because you're overlooking an important point. You're talking about the "product" existing in two different formats. One, the electronic version, is being given away. The other, the "dead tree" version, is being sold. The production costs of the first are minimal compared to the second. There is also a real difference in the user experience and quality between the two. Giving away the first product leads to interest in it, and increases the likelihood of someone purchasing the second product.
Publishers already "give away" their product. Go to any library, and you can check out a book "for free." This can lead to interest in a given author, and make the people who read the "free" book look for, and purchase, other books by that author. This is well-known, and has been for years. The only difference is that it is now being extended to electronic media. In effect, the "free" stuff is a loss-leader. You're not making your money off the free stuff, but to increase the sales of the stuff you are making money from.
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Remove the
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Re:Online "library" (Score:4, Informative)
Do you mean like Oreilly's Safari service [oreilly.com]?
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The whole "return" thing and associated databases lending libraries use are because of the limitations of physical books. In the "digital world" a library can have every book it carries always available. No problems with several people wanting the same book at once or books being stolen/defaced.