My words are being stolen

I was reading the blog of a writer friend of mine, Karen Gowen, this evening. She was discussing piracy. She posted a link to a site, Torrenz, which tracks pirated downloads of a book.


Firstly, I wanted to share this site with you, and secondly write down my mixed emotions about book piracy.

When I checked how many times The Englishman had been downloaded illegally on Torrenz, the results showed thousands of hits. Looking at the comments section of Karen's blog post, I saw that 1,000 hits could mean 10 books, which brought my pirated works down to under hundred, rather than thousands, of copies.

All the same, the fact that people out there are getting my book for nothing, left me feeling really confused.

First of all I was rather pleased that the book is still being read; the online sales have been  disappointing after my week-long free promotion (I'd expected this because everyone said it would happen, but it's still depressing). Secondly, I felt angry, mainly due to the fact it still only costs a measly £1.99…then again, my motto has always been that as long as people read my books, I'm happy.

Still…

The Englishman took me best part of two years to write, it cost me good money to have the text professionally edited and cover made by an experienced designer. It would be quite nice to at least be able to cover my costs. (Even us writers need to eat occasionally.)

End of rant.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

It means I allow you to quote freely, but you must credit my name and you can't benefit commercially from my words. WRITERS RESPECT RIGHTS

Digital - the new garlic bread?

It's an old joke, 'Garlic bread - it's the future.'

At the London Book Fair I sat through two seminars on the future of publishing. First one was a prediction for 2020 (=digital) and the second a discussion on what's free in the new digital age and where the money is going to be made.

Everyone agreed with the speakers of the first talk that digital is where we are heading (and fast), but where the large publishing houses thought they could make the money was unclear. As an aspiring novelist, I was scared to see people who'd been in the industry for decades looking at best confused and at worst defensive. It was clear that the members of the panel didn't know - or wouldn't say - what they intended to do about the digital revolution, how they plan to make money for authors or themselves, or how they would even survive. A question from the floor, 'Are publishers going to be needed in the future' was left largely unanswered. Another comment from the audience was, 'No-one has mentioned book sellers?' The answer to that was a dry, 'No.'

On Saturday there was an article in The Telegraph titled, 'Is the writing on the wall for books?' I started reading with great anticipation but soon realised it was merely a promotional piece for various e-books on the market and on how to get free downloads. It did have one piece of good news for old-fashioned books. Apparently they are a hard act to follow.

"The book is an exemplary example (sic) of good design, being robust enough to survive spilt cups of coffee, sun cream and sand, or being buried at the bottom of the briefcase or handbag, yet always ready for use."

The LBF panel of publishers cited examples from other industries struggling to adapt to the digital age: Newspapers give away issues, music artists make their money from performances (not cd's or downloads), in the TV and film industry piracy is a business model.

It occurred to me that books have other good features:

1. Books are generally only read once. It's not necessary to store them in the similar way as music or film on an ipod to be listened or watched over and over again by the same person.

2. Books are not current. They last forever, whereas yesterdays' newspaper is today's recycling (or should be).

3. Books are tactile - even paperbacks. They can be shown off on shelves and stroked.

I don't think it's wise to stare blindly at the horror stories from other related industries of moving to the digital age without considering the very unique aspects of the book. Surely the book as a form of communication is older and wiser than the rest of the field?

And no, I've never liked garlic bread much.