I got an email last night from someone notifying me of a site where my books were being offered as free downloads. This particular site just offers tidy zipped files which, in my case, contains every book I’ve written under the CE Murphy byline. It struck me as particularly egregious, and I emailed my editors and agent about it, put in a complaint with Blogger/Google’s content violation page, and have been posting on Twitter and Facebook about the site’s location so other authors can send their publishers’ piracy team to whack this guy on the peepee. (It’s here, if you haven’t seen my posts in other locations.) Because really, there are hundreds, possibly thousands of writers on this, a static site, not even a download with the decency to be a torrent, and it just struck me as beyond the pale. I mean, sheesh.
I get emails like that every several weeks. The truth is–and I realize these are fighting words, so let me make it clear this is my stance and I don’t wish it on anyone else–I don’t really care. Trying to stomp it out is like trying to take pee out of a pool, and furthermore, as both an artist and a geek I live in this sort of vast no-man’s-land on the whole topic of Free Stuff On The Internet. As someone who makes a living off people who are willing to pay for stories, clearly it is to my benefit to leap up and down on anybody trying to give my work away for free. As someone who’s a geek and has been online for twenty years, I pretty much essentially believe information wants to be free…and that it’s frankly impossible to regulate it in a digital era anyway.
My *preference*, far and away, would be to be able to provide free downloads of all my work myself. Most people who download books for free aren’t going to buy them anyway. There is, however, the smallest chance that someone who comes to *my* site to download my work might come back again some other time, might comment, might build some kind of very small relationship with me, and that might eventually turn to the decision to buy instead of steal my books. There’s no chance at all of that happening if they get my books through Mr. Egregious.
I also believe there’s a percentage of people who really dig the “try before you buy” aspect of anything, who might read forty thousand words of a text online (which is vastly more than I’m permitted to put up) and then go buy the hardcopy, or buy the next book in the series, or buy something else I wrote. There’s some evidence that this is true–when Neil Gaiman convinced his publishers to put AMERICAN GODS up online for free for several months, sales of that book jumped 300%. I believe Cory Doctorow releases everything online, and it hasn’t hurt his career at all. John Scalzi might not *have* a fiction career if it weren’t for the novel he made available online. So I personally feel there’s a lot more advantage to be gained in adapting to the unassailable flow of modern technology than not.
And of course there’s the very simple fact that no matter how hard anybody tries, you cannot take pee out of a pool. The material is going to be available online no matter what anybody does, no matter how vigilant everyone is in defending copyright, no matter how many lawyers and departments are thrown at the problem. I would far, *far* rather have the ability to provide the material myself, be able to keep track of number of downloads so I have some idea of how many people are picking up the books for free, and have the modicum of a chance to build a relationship with those people than watch somebody else get off on it because hey, they’re sticking it to the man.
I have friends so far on the opposite end of this spectrum we’re standing flush back to back. I feel, in a sort of politely bemused way, that they’re insane. I rather expect they feel the same way about me. This is a massive issue for creators, and I really don’t expect it’s going to be resolved satisfactorily in my lifetime.
In the meantime, however, the one entire book of mine you can read online legally is IMMORTAL BELOVED, a Highlander novel I wrote ten or eleven years ago. Strangely, this is the only CE Murphy book that isn’t in the download Mr. Egregious has so thoughtfully made available. :)
This is a topic that Eric Flynnt has devoted a lot of thought to, and has written a great deal about. I believe he found that giving away free, electronic copies of his books actually increased his profits! He has numbers to prove it, too, and for a period of years, not just a short period! He has a serialized editorial on this very topic in Jim Baen’s Universe in which he lays out his arguments against dRM and rebuts arguments for DRM. I highly encourage everyone to read it at at the Baen Free Library at http://www.baen.com or through Baen’s webscriptions service.
As a Blind reader, being able to get electronic copies of books vastly increases my access to the authors I love, such as our beloved hostess, and allows me to pay for the ability to read them in an accessible format. And, *SHEESH*!!! The authors, unless they are some benighted dinosaur of an author, whacking away at some antique Smith-Corona typewriter, they already have the file on a computer anyhow…so why go to all the trouble of putting it in ink on paper, making me scan it back into an electronic format, when it’s just fine and dandy for me as it is? :)
“My *preference*, far and away, would be to be able to provide free downloads of all my work myself. Most people who download books for free aren’t going to buy them anyway. There is, however, the smallest chance that someone who comes to *my* site to download my work might come back again some other time, might comment, might build some kind of very small relationship with me, and that might eventually turn to the decision to buy instead of steal my books. There’s no chance at all of that happening if they get my books through Mr. Egregious.”
That is perhaps the most logical and thoughtful argument I’ve heard for giving your work away. It’s also one that has already produced careers for people who may have taken much longer to break into publishing (Mur Lafferty, Scott Sigler, etc.).
Catie,
Sorry to hear about “Mr. Egregious”. It’s unfortunate such people take a cavalier attitude toward your creations. Writing is hard work, and unless you’ve got Stephen King’s or J.K. Rowling’s level of sales, it doesn’t pay that well to begin with (we all know the lion’s share of the profits go to the publisher). Most writers, with you included, write because they want to–some say they HAVE to–because the stories fill their thoughts and must be put down on paper and given life. Their art must be expressed. You and every other artist would love to have as many people as possible enjoy their creations, but the hard fact is that you also have to make a living at it.
I am one that has purchased some books only because of “try & buy”. I love Jim Butcher’s DRESDEN FILES (own ’em all) but was leery of the CODEX ALARA as I’m not much for “high” fantasy. Well, Jim put’s the first five chapters of each book on his website and after reading same for FURIES OF CALDERON, it was off to Border’s. Kim Harrison’s publisher put DEAD WITCH WALKING on their website in toto for a short period and I came across a link for it and read about a third of it on the last day it was available. Normally I doubt I’d ever have tried it otherwise, but, damn!, the next day it was in the car, off to borders, and bought the first two then and there.
Maybe you provide several more teaser chapters on your website?
Sorry to blather on so.
Maybe you provide several more teaser chapters on your website?
At least one of my publishers doesn’t like me providing an *entire* chapter, much less ‘more chapters’, sadly.
Actually, you could potentially do a pretty good business by offering, e.g., a quarter of each book on your website for free and then links to places to buy the book… Baen Webscriptions offers “Free Samples” (1/4 of each book) and does pretty good business that way. I admit I don’t know how much business they drive from the free chapters, but I’ve found several new authors to like in the Baen “stable” by reading their free works in Samples and in the Baen Free Library. (I do buy other publishers’ work, too, but Baen gets a larger share of my money than anyone else because I can tell what I’m getting before I buy it.)
As I said above, at least one of my publishers doesn’t like a full chapter (they have a specific word length that they contractually permit, and my chapters are never that short), much less more than that, so it’s not really a decision that’s in my hands.
I’ve freely posted the first three chapters of all of my books, and I’ve even given away free printed copies to quite a lot of people (books I bought myself), just because, well, I’m that way. As a consumer, I happen to LOVE free, and I totally understand the desire to try before you buy, or even looking at the whole, wide internet as a digital lending library. Heck, I don’t even care if someone who has a paper or digital copy passes it on to their friends with a ‘you have GOT to read this!’ That’s all cool. Likewise, I’m all for libraries, half price bookstores, flea markets, yard sales, and other forms of sharing. I think it’s great that people read a book and pass it on to someone else.
However, that guy has hundreds, if not thousands of books, many quite new, with ‘bookified’ cover art all set up in an easy to shop format. He’s created a digital distribution center. That’s what bugs me. That he’s taking a product that usually has a price tag, a product that a lot of people worked hard to create, and set up his own store without regard for anything other than screwing it to the man. Or woman. Or author. It’s the blatant ‘fuck you’ attitude of his distribution scheme that bothers me, and that he’s trolling for donations to help support it. It is piracy, not sharing, and theft is theft.
Oh yeah. There’s no excuse for this guy’s behavior.
Somebody just emailed me with the link to your post. :)
Yes, it is pretty much useless to chase them. They are assholes.
I have a huge issue with people who take advantage of my work, impeding my ability to continue writing. It’s not that the content is given away for free. At this point I wouldn’t mind providing free copies of the first book to the public to draw them into the series. It’s that these didn’t purchase the right to distribute my work. I own my damn words and I decide how and when I put them into public eye.
Just so everyone is clear about my position on this…I do *NOT* support what this guy has done! In no way, sense, or form! What I think is a good thing is for the author and/or publisher to make books available online and in accessible formats for anyone who wishes to purchase them. I also agree with the earlier poster that Bean’s quarter of a book tease has hooked me more than once. I even bought an Advanced Reader Copy of one book just because I couldn’t wait for it to come out in a month or two! *GRIN* Or, if the author and/or publisher wants to do so, putting up the first book in a series in its full glory can hook me for the whole series. Jim Butcher’s teaser chapters have gotten a hard back for each of his Dresden novels out of me, just as one example of these options paying off in the long term.
*grins* Fear not. I never imagined you supported this guy’s activities. I totally understand the need for electronic books for someone with sight impairment.