Piracy, Historical sales...

[erastes]

I’d like to get this community closed down. I can’t join it, as there’s no way they’d let me, but if anyone IS a member, let me know if any of my books are on it, because I’d like to report them to LJ for copyright abuse.

Please see Kirby Crow’s post on the matter, (via Alex Beecroft). As she rightly says, and hardly needs stressing to this audience on my flist, if only a third of that community downloaded ONE of my books, I’d lose $1000, and that’s more than I make in royalties in total for ALL my books at the moment. It’s no good whining to me about how people are “entitled” to have free fiction. They aren’t. Not mine. If they want free fiction, there’s plenty out there, they don’t have to dip into my pathetic pocket and take money which I actually NEED.

On a lighter note, I gleaned this from the Historical Novel Society:

This, among other news, was presented at: The Book Industry Study Group (BISG), a primary source of intelligence on what's happening in the book business, held its sixth At the annual "Making Information Pay" conference of the Book Industry Study Group – this piece of info came out. Interesting reading for historical novelists.

"Jim King of Nielsen BookScan noted that over the past five years, sales of adult nonfiction were up overall 11.1 percent, but declined in 2008. In adult nonfiction, travel was down 4.6 percent, biography and autobiography rose 34.1 percent and business was up 19.4 percent. Sales of adult fiction were up 8.9 percent during the past five years. Within the fiction category, general fiction was up 23.3 percent, graphic novels rose 52.7 percent, mystery and detective titles were down 12.7 percent, literary fiction rose 86.1 percent, historical fiction was up 24.1 percent and political fiction was up 157.7 percent."

 

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Comments

[sleveen.livejournal.com]

Make a sockpuppet account and join the community... that's what I'd do...then, once you're on the inside, you can have a look-see and if they're ripping people off, report them...

See? Deviousness is my second name. :D

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I doubt they would allow a sockpuppet in - any new account would be immediately rejected. I wouldn't allow a new formed account to join any of my communities and I'm not running an illegal one!!

[pepperlandgirl4.livejournal.com]

Somebody is sharing my novels on yshare, too. I honestly didn't know what to do--so I decided to comment to the post in question with a sort of passive-agressive "Yeah, I see what you're doing" message. But there are countless piracy comms on LJ, and if one is closed down, another one or two will immediately pop up to take its place. That doesn't even count the literally endless number of piracy sites hosted up in various third-world countries whether they couldn't give two shits about copyright law.

It's like trying to drain the ocean a thimble at a time.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Doesn't mean we shouldn't try, though - it's appalling, specially with the whole "we will shut your LJ down if it has any adult material in it" fiasco. Grr.

[markprobst.livejournal.com]

So I guess it's not good to be writing mystery novels right now, but it is to be writing political fiction. What is political fiction anyway, stories about politicians? That's what people want to read right now, really?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I can't think of anything more dull.

Specially english ones.

[aphephobia.livejournal.com]

:(

The Year of the Rat, the thing I'm writing at the moment, is about a politician.

Well, it's through the eyes of the guy the (married, conservative) pollie picks up from a gay dating website. What's meant to be a casual fling turns into something much more intense, and with love, the two start to destroy one another. It doesn't help that Mr. Politician is publically homophobic, too...


And English politicians? I've seen some stuff over on current_affairs. ;)

[slashpine.livejournal.com]

That LJ is hosting a fic-pirating comm that might be ripping off one of your books is so many kinds of fail. *kicks LJ*

But ooh -- I like to think that erotic fiction is going up! *koff* As it were. Sales are rising! The genre is hot! Historically, it's never been better!

Heh. Stopping now.

I clicked your egg and dragonlets. I never know quite what that all means, but the tiny pictures are soooo cute. And then I read the website and go all *woobie* and *lurve*. They are irresistible, no?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Dragons are an addiction. REally. The work of the devil, I tell you.

[aperfectscar.livejournal.com]

I've put in a membership request. I'll report back if they let me in.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Good for you!

[reddwarfer.livejournal.com]

Your stuff isn't on there that I could see. I only checked tags, however. I didn't realise they shared more than manga scans, however. I never watch these comms because they post five thousand times a day.

Do you need me to check anything else?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you! No, that's all - selfish of me, I know but everyone else can do their own bugle call. Thanks again!

[m-barnette.livejournal.com]

Joined under my old fanfic account. We'll see what happens.

[aphephobia.livejournal.com]

That sucks. Seriously-- when it comes to the little guys-- and the little publishing companies-- I pay.

I can understand the idea of DLing a sample, but if I wind up loving it and wanting more, I buy the actual product. Like Courtney Love said about DLing music illegally-- it's tipping the artist.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

The thing is, that Courtney Love can afford to take the hit. Jim Butcher was also saying how he didn't care about pirating, but as he's a NY Bestseller now, he wouldn't notice $3000 coming out of his pocket, either. Not that it's right to steal either from big or small.

[aphephobia.livejournal.com]

Exactly. That's the thing: with the stuff coming out from the smaller companies-- I'd rather buy it upfront.

Let's say, though, that I had never heard of gay historical romance, and stumbled across a sample illegally (or otherwise) provided online. If I enjoyed what I saw, I'd have no problem forking out for the book. To me, paying for creative works is like saying to the creator, "Hey, keep doing this. People are willing to give you money to."

(ms_manna has a lot of her stuff up online, and yet I've still bought all her Administration series as books. And I've paid more than I would for most books out here-- but it's been well worth it.)


I'm like that with music and DVDs, too. If I'm enjoying something, why not pay for it-- it's encouragement to the artists and their companies to keep producing stuff.

Unfortunately, I realise there are people out there who don't do it like that.

[kirby-crow.livejournal.com]

Hey there :) Thank you for spreading the word about this. I do appreciate it very much.

This isn't just about me, either: it's about all of the small-press authors and the likelihood of our being able to continue writing ebooks when piracy gets this far out of control. If isn't contained somehow, we may wind up not having ebook publishers, either.