Another Advantage of a Pro Publisher [moved from self-publishing]

Searching said:

It's probably because you didn't self publish but went with a traditional publisher that your book is being pirated.

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I don't understand the logic in this statement. Could you explain, please?

Old Hack said:

I don't understand the logic in this statement. Could you explain, please?

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Well, I've simply made an assumption that most self-published books never reach that kind of exposure necessary for someone to go into the efforts of putting said material online. Which is why most books that I've seen being pirated are by well-known authors who'd been employing traditional published methods.

Searching said:

Well, I've simply made an assumption that most self-published books never reach that kind of exposure necessary for someone to go into the efforts of putting said material online. Which is why most books that I've seen being pirated are by well-known authors who'd been employing traditional published methods.

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So, basically you're saying that self-publishing is a safer option because so few people will ever read your book that no one will bother to pirate it?

Holy cow. Why is everyone being so nasty?

I didn't see it as belittling. It's a good argument as to why people may or may not choose to self-publish or go the ebook route. I didn't read it and think, "Wow, all those people who self-publish, what morons!"

I also didn't think, "wow, am I glad that I go the print/agent route."

I actually wondered . . . "what kind of flaming jerk would take someone's work and try to make money off it?"

Then I thought, "hey, I'm glad I have google alerts up and going."

Then I thought, "how would I handle this? Not as gracefully as this guy."

So, yeah . . . even though I see the benefit of having a publisher in this scenario, nowhere did I get so offended that I thought personal attacks would "set him straight." But, that's me.

All I can say is that my SP and other books all get pirated, even my free read gets pirated. Someone out there will pirate pretty much anything.

veinglory said:

All I can say is that my SP and other books all get pirated, even my free read gets pirated. Someone out there will pirate pretty much anything.

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I've seen my fan fiction pirated. I mean, WTF?

Amadan said:

I've seen my fan fiction pirated. I mean, WTF?

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A friend of mine had the same thing happen to her with fanfic.

Another pal had his erotica stolen and published under another person's name.

I have to say, I found it creepy to see these stolen stories and the "authors" receiving praise and gushing over their fans. "Well, thank you all SO much. I worked so very hard!"

(double take)

What did you do when you found out your fanfic was pirated?

CrastersBabies said:

What did you do when you found out your fanfic was pirated?

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Mine was pirated, not plagiarized. I didn't do anything. I just thought, why would you even bother "pirating" something that you can already download from the source?

And it was reposted with horrible formatting errors, too.

Amadan said:

Mine was pirated, not plagiarized. I didn't do anything. I just thought, why would you even bother "pirating" something that you can already download from the source?

And it was reposted with horrible formatting errors, too.

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Gotcha.

Ugh on the formatting. That would drive me batty. I wonder if something can be done if you find your work pirated? How long it takes to get something like that removed. (not that it won't pop up again somewhere else)

Amadan said:

So, basically you're saying that self-publishing is a safer option because so few people will ever read your book that no one will bother to pirate it?

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Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be read if you don't self publish. Most people, I think, would read something that a professional editor has made the best it can be, and that a publisher deemed to be good enough (and in doing so having taken a financial risk). Ebooks and devices like Kindle are somewhat reversing this trend however, as word of mouth and reviews gain again an edge over popular absorbtion and big marketing campaigns.

Searching said:

Ebooks and devices like Kindle are somewhat reversing this trend however, as word of mouth and reviews gain again an edge over popular absorbtion and big marketing campaigns.

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Not even close.

Amadan said:

Not even close.

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+1


the notion of the self e-pub revolution "democratizing" writing may be a lovely one, just like the utopian dream of equality in Marxist theory, but the reality is different. In this case, the reality is that many, many readers will still use flashy marketing, major ad campaigns, NYT and other review and sales tracking sites, etc. to pre-sort the wheat and chaff. self-pubbers can certainly overcome that, Hocking did, but this isn't the birth of a new dawn....