Question on Authors thoughts on pirating books. PLEASE dont share any sites where you can download them, it is against the subs policy.
So this was something i was curious about and thought this would be a good question to ask here for a couple of reasons.
- A lot of authors are active on this website.
- A number of authors on here started on Royal Road, many giving out the content for free initially
- There is a range of authors on here, from ones releasing their first book, to ones with dozens under their belts.
The question i have for Authors is:
How do you feel about the concept and do you think it has had any effects on the viability of your writing full time and becoming more successful?
Id like to ask everyone to please be respectful of any responses, in one way the question is asking how they feel about people stealing from them, so im sure there might be some strong feelings on this.
You can stop here and go read answers if you dont want to read points id be interested in hearing about.
Some points id love to see considered (or not).
Is getting people reading your content more important than getting paid for it?
At what point does "exposure" start becoming a problem when you arent making money?
Do you think its a larger problem (or no problem) for Authors just launching their first book or authors who have already published double digits?
Do your personal emotional feelings on it differ with your intellectual thoughts on it? (Maybe you think intellectually its good, but personally, it hurts, or maybe you know intellectually its costing you money but you personally don't care)
You can stop here if you dont want to see me rambling about my personal experience as a consumer and my ramblings on the morality.
BORING MORALITY STUFF WARNING
This was a thought that came to me a while back, because around 4 years ago i ended up being quite unwell and has to spend a few months in hospital. Didnt have leave built up at the time so had to take unpaid time off and it wasnt cheap. Reading is one of my biggest passions, so i ended up downloading a number of books without paying for them, feeling bad about it at the time but also feeling pretty awful in general and wanting to venture into a new subgenre of fantasy as a bit of a coping mechanism.
At the time I ended up making a list of all the series I enjoyed as i read them and promised myself once i was working again id go start buying them up legally.
Fastforward to today and I'm pretty sure im square with it all. Many of these books are ones i would have been unlikely to pick up randomly and went on to have long series which i ended up buying. In a couple of cases i own the ebook, paperback and audiobook lol.
However, i was still using an illegal method to obtain the books at the time, and therefore supporting sites that are a vehicle for this to happen. And during that time between an author who was entitled to money to support themselves didn't receive that money.
I know theres been studies around video games that suggest that video game piracy doesnt really impact overall profits and in some cases ends up with more people buying the game. Steam is super convenient, and the studies showed that most people who pirated those games dont do that instead of buying them, but they might end up buying it at a later date on sale due to convenience.
However im not sure how well that translates to ebooks (or audiobooks). Most games that complain about piracy seem to be larger studios with many people to pay and support. Authors are indie devs due to the nature of writing lol.
So im still not really sure if im ok with the way i went about things even if the end result has been to have eventually gone back and paid. Especially since im certain there were some books i didnt like that ive probably missed and never gone back and bought since i deleted them a while back. Those authors are entitled to my money even if its just the first book (although if i really didnt enjoy them is it maybe better i never buy them so i dont review them? Debatable since i dont really leave negative reviews on books).
Ok, morality ramble over. Would love to hear from the authors and their takes on it. I dont think there IS a wrong take and i hope people keep that in mind if they respond to anything.