Well, my friend, he’s kinda poor he can’t afford some books and some streaming services, so he pirates. He pirate books, audiobook and videos and other stuff. Sometimes he buys books he likes a lot out of loyalty to the author (yeah, I don’t understand it either), he likes to read physical books, but yeah, if he hates the author or just wants to skim through it, he will download the book.
He usually doesn’t like to pirate from small companies or professors who are trying to make a living by selling books, but from millionaires & plenty of mega corps which already have loads of money, he feels like it’s the right move to pirate
Also, have you ever noticed that you have felt that the value of a product has decreased just because you didn’t pay for it, thus you are less interested to read it? i.e., had you paid for the book, you would have more likely read that book.
He says he will buy stuff when his time is more valuable than money, let’s all hope that day is soon.
What are your piracy habits?
I’m an indie author, and all my novels ended up on PDFdrive.
Not that I’d be mad about it. If someone pirates my books and likes them, maybe they’ll support me in the future.
Just saying, I’m not wearing suits. I’m working full-time and write when I have off and got the time and energy.
For us Indies, getting eyeballs on our books is next to impossible anyways, so I already gave up on the idea that writing will ever be more than an expensive hobby.
Just curious — why do you consider writing to be an expensive hobby? I mean, it’s totally expensive from an opportunity cost perspective, but wouldn’t any hobby be? Is it the cost to get it published somewhere?
If you just write for yourself, it only costs time. If you plan to (*self-) publish it, though, you want at least a good cover, and optimally, you’d hire an editor and maybe things like sensitivity readers. And then, most people seem to prefer audio books these days, which is either expensive, or hard to pull off, due to having to find a narrator who’s okay with royalty share with a non-established author. And then you haven’t advertised your book at all yet.
I’ve so far only worried about cover and editing. Wrote 4 novels. Now I’m writing a series and am considering writing the whole thing completely first, then getting a deal with an artist for all the covers. This also makes it easier to do foreshadowing properly over the course of more than one book, and it’s probably advantageous to stagger book releases, even if that means a few years without putting anything out to the world.
*All these points are moot if you aim to get published by an established house, but then you’re dealing with “the suits”, and people who rank “will it sell” higher than “is it good”.
How expensive does editing and cover art get? I imagine it’s pretty pricey to hire people to do that. You mention this is moot going the traditional publishing route — I guess because publishers will front the costs for these things if they think your book will sell? If you’re buying cover art and stuff to self-publish, where do you publish your novels? Do you sell print copies, or is it all digital? Is selling physical copies even feasible without a traditional publisher?
For us Indies, getting eyeballs on our books is next to impossible anyways, so I already gave up on the idea that writing will ever be more than an expensive hobby.
I am sorry to hear that. If it ended up on pdf drive, then I guess it’s either that, enough people want to read it or pdf drive has a bot which is ruthlessly uploading all the books it can find. Have you tried self publishing on kindle? Also, name your books if you want to, it looks like some eyeballs and popularity will do you some good.
I tried on Kindle, but the reality is that every day, a six-digit number of books are being released, which leads to insane odds.
I wrote cyberpunk/urban fantasy crossover books, but am now switching over to space opera. If you’re still interested, I can give you the title of the “entry book” that starts the story.
Yep! Often the math is “the people who pirated probably wouldn’t have bought your product if they couldn’t pirate it, so you didn’t lose anything. But you did gain a reader, who can now recommend it to others, and / or make future purchases themselves”. Generally speaking, pirating isn’t bad to the bottom line (not saying it’s good).
It hurts brick and mortar stores, but then, so do libraries. (Hah)
I’ve always been of the opinion that people who truly love what they piratesd will at some point want the author to carry on writing. Just like someone who just stumbled upon your work by accident. That’s the beauty of humanity, people do remember, and they do care, and creative arts are a pursuit that connects author and reader.
It hurts brick and mortar stores, but then, so do libraries. (Hah)
libraries are not comparable to what damage piracy does to brick and mortar stores and small authors
If we had any sense as a species we would be funding artists so that they can pursue their art full time. Industry advances technology, but art advances the mind.
We might end up like people who do graphics… replaced by AI tools. There aren’t any that make it as easy yet (and maybe there won’t), but who knows where tech will lead us.
If you do it as a hobby, you don’t need to worry about it so much, but it does take something away for sure.
AI will change the game, but I think after an initial period of growing pains that we’re really facing a shift in the economy whether we’re ready or not. All of the “problems” of capitalism have been due to runaway efficiency. A scarcity economy is absurd when we’re infinitely capable of producing everything people want or need.
