J. A. Konrath finally spoke in a blog what I have been thinking about internet piracy of books and stories for a long time.
Thank you, J. A. Konrath for making sense in a world of writers running around screaming that the sky is falling.
Folks, go read it right here.
Bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith has written more than one hundred popular novels and well over two hundred published short stories. His novels include the science fiction novel Laying the Music to Rest and the thriller The Hunted as D.W. Smith. With Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he is the coauthor of The Tenth Planet trilogy and The 10th Kingdom. He writes under many pen names and has also ghosted for a number of top bestselling writers.
Dean has also written books and comics for all three major comic book companies, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and has done scripts for Hollywood. One movie was actually made.
Over his career he has also been an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books. He is now an executive editor for Fiction River.
WMG Publishing Inc. is now my major publisher of all my coming novels, collections, and short stories.
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I have to admit, I’m really disappointed by that post. And it’s not because I’m screaming “the sky is falling” either.
What he’s saying about piracy being unavoidable and unstoppable, even though I don’t like it, I agree he’s probably 100% correct.
But his defending it and even liking it and saying writers shouldn’t worry about it, I don’t agree with in the least. It’s simply saying “But everyone is doing it” and I have never, ever believed that was justification for doing something wrong.
I know authors who’s pirated copies of works being distributed FAR outnumber the sold copies. So regarding JAK’s claims that piracy doesn’t hurt anyone’s bottom line, I don’t believe him. So when he claims stealing IP is less damaging than stealing physical property, I don’t agree.
None of us like it, Deborah. Not saying that. And trust me, I’m on a couple of very powerful e-mail lists with upwards of a hundred bestsellers on each, and when a major pirate site pops up, I feel sorry for them because they get pounded by a ton of corporate lawyers suddenly.
Konrath is just telling people to calm down. He’s not saying it’s right, he’s just saying that it’s a normal thing for this world at the moment and to just deal with it. And trust me, bestsellers deal with it almost every day. But we don’t get excited or talk much about it. We just send lawyers after them. Between the two lists I’m on, I doubt if a week has gone by with at least one or two “heads-up” posts and lawyers on the move to shut them down. Once it hits the bestseller private lists, corporate lawyers often have them shut down within a couple of hours.
Just part of doing business these days. That’s all Konrath is really saying.
Cheers
Dean
gah!! “whose” not “who’s”
That’ll teach me to hit Send too soon
I’ve been commenting over there Dean, and just came and saw your post. I also agree with Joe on this one.
I don’t understand what sort of lists you’re on, though. Are they email lists composed entirely of bestselling authors who give each other heads up when pirated copies surface?
Moses, yes these are private e-mail lists with well-published authors and bestsellers set up for business only. One of them has 170 of us on it. Trust me, we go after pirates with a passion and no mercy. And we have a LOT of lawyers among us and all of our publishing houses.
Some other stats – this time from William Stanek, prolific IT textbook author (more than 100 books):
Copies pirated: 57,000
Copies sold: 12,000
http://www.williamstanek.com/frontpage.htm
IT textbooks of course have a lot of costs involved that aren’t present with fiction and a larger number of copies of an IT textbook have to be printed to reach a break even point. The cover prices are substantially higher than fiction because on top of the normal rounds of editing, you need additional proof reading from people with highly specialized knowledge.
Stanek has noted that as piracy rates have risen, sales rates have declined.
I suspect that piracy has a different impact on sales depending on where the book sits in the market. Whereas a pirate of a fictional work might go on to shell out 10 to 15 bucks for a physical copy if they like the text, the same pirate may be reluctant to shell out $60 for a copy of a textbook that they are entirely comfortable reading on the screen.
Perhaps it would be less of a problem if the cost structure of textbooks allowed for high quality accurate textbooks on technical subjects to be sold for the same price as fiction. Until you can get proof readers with the necessary technical expertise to work for peanuts, it probably won’t happen.
Not a clue about textbooks. They function under a completely different system and cost structure than fiction. So no comment from me I’m afraid. Not my area.
Ah, ok. Thanks, Dean. That actually makes A LOT more sense. I must have misread. ‘Cause the part where he said something like “others scream about it; I’m just glad I’m being read” sounded to me like he thought piracy was a good thing. I’m glad I was wrong
If you haven’t seen it before, I think you’ll find this article interesting: Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution. It produced a much repeated quote in my circles:
Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.
It was written in 2002 by Tim O’Reilly, and I think the piece still holds up today.
For those who may not have heard of him, O’Reilly heads a computer book publishing company and is a thought leader in the computer software community.