Part of the Indie Authors Series
Is piracy that big of a deal?
Opinions about e-book pirates are nearly as numerous as all those countless free downloads. Are they just thieves, or are they doing us a “favor” by downloading the free copies and (hopefully) spreading the word about our books? Are these really lost sales?
All those questions were circling in my brain when I read a recent blog post by author Maggie Stiefvater. Besides being a bestseller, Maggie is known to think outside the box. So, when the e-book sales of the third book in her immensely popular Raven Cycle declined—though her print sales remained unchanged—she felt something was fishy. Series sales numbers do decrease over time, but usually those lower numbers are evenly represented across all editions, not just the e-book.
All those questions were circling in my brain when I read a recent blog post by author Maggie Stiefvater. Besides being a bestseller, Maggie is known to think outside the box. So, when the e-book sales of the third book in her immensely popular Raven Cycle declined—though her print sales remained unchanged—she felt something was fishy. Series sales numbers do decrease over time, but usually those lower numbers are evenly represented across all editions, not just the e-book.
