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Romantic Conversationalist
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 Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 8:05 am
Neil Gaiman's recent blog (read it here) got me thinking about something I'd never put much thought into: books being freely accessible online.
(Or, here's a four minute video that pretty much sums up the blog: ORG Zine)
Mr. Gaiman's experienced belief is that making a book available online is essentially the same as getting a book from a friend or the library. If the book is good and you want more, you'll go out and buy it or go buy the author's other works. He cites a couple of impressive examples in his blog, notably that the sales of his book American Gods skyrocketed during the month that the book was made available for free online, and then dropped back down to normal once it was taken down.
I know that this is true for me. When someone suggests a book, I check it out of the library to read. If I like it enough to want to read it again and again, I buy it. If I love the author so much, I'll buy his/her newest work without waiting to read it for free. The same is true with music. In fact, the only reason I discovered my favorite band is because they had their music available for free download. I doubt I would have discovered them by walking into the music store and being taken with their album design.
It doesn't seem like this issue of Piracy vs. Free Publicity has been talked about too much around the guild. What are your thoughts/ experiences on this?
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Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 8:45 pm
I agree with you and Mr Gaiman. I lend and borrow books all the time, and then go out and buy a book (or series) if I liked it. I know my that boyfriend, after reading the first book of a trilogy I gave him, had actually spent a month looking around bookstores for the rest of the trilogy just so he could have his own copies (and read them).
I'm sure many readers will agree that ebooks, while convenient to store and carry and environmentally friendly, are no substitution for the feel of a real paper based book. Heck, I own a lovely 9" screen ebook reader, and while it sees a lot of use, I still prefer to read my favourite books (and manga) on paper.
Another reason why I go book shopping is there simply aren't digital versions of a book I'm looking for available online, or the formatting is just shocking, or the ebook file is one I can't use. Amazon allows their users to download an extract of the first 12 pages or so of any book for free, which may be useful for some but I personally don't like just because I prefer to skim through the second quarter of the book to get a different idea of what goes on. You simply can't do that if you don't have free access to the whole book, digital or physical.
Some of you may follow Stephanie Meyer's blog, and remember her disappointed post when Twilight 4 was leaked and swept the internet by storm. Yes, the betrayal of her trust was terrible and it really isn't ideal to read a book that hasn't been wholly finished, but the point is Twilight fever had reached such a pitch that everybody got themselves a copy to read, and if she ever recovers enough to finish it properly (before twilight fever entirely passes) she would make herself quite a bit of money.
Long story short, I am firmly in the "Free Publicity" camp.
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Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 6:19 pm
I guess it really depends on the person. I have a few friends who simply read the books I lend them once and thats it, where as I, on the other hand, will buy a copy ( or more) if I find I've really enjoyed a book. I recently aquired a copy of The Secret Garden that was being given out for free at the train station to promote the play being put on downtown, and I thought it was a great promotion idea! But like I said, it depends on the person and where there priorities(or obsessions in my case) lie.
Either way; it promotes literacy so its all good.
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Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 11:16 am
I think the best example I could possibly give for my side of the argument involves a twelve book long epic tale of a series.
When I first discovered this epic, I read the first book in about a day before deciding that everyone in my immediate field of vision had to read this wonderful story as well. I passed the book around at lunch, people picking out more hilarious passages out of the book, before lending it to someone. Within the week, more than half my friends had bought either the whole series or half the series, either read, or almost fully finished. Simply because they weren't going to wait for the next person in my growing line of "Who wants to barrow this book" to read it. Even if it only took a day.
If your book is worth reading, it's worth buying. To any decent writer, allowing a book for free online, even a snippet, is nothing but free publicity.
I really emphasize the "Decent writer" in that sentence. It's like trying to get that first book published: If you can't hook the reader in the first paragraph or less, it won't matter how much publicity you get. To those writers, this is theft. Its the matter of "They are good, but not good enough to want to get a second time" or "But not good enough to see the rest"
You have to be a really special type of excellence to get more money off a free giveaway.
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