Comments on: Will Online Book Piracy Drive Authors to Stop Writing? http://www.librarystuff.net/2008/04/02/will-online-book-piracy-drive-authors-to-stop-writing/ The library weblog dedicated to resources for keeping current and professional development Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:33:21 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: lukethelibrarian http://www.librarystuff.net/2008/04/02/will-online-book-piracy-drive-authors-to-stop-writing/comment-page-1/#comment-23493 lukethelibrarian Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:08:00 +0000 http://www.librarystuff.net/2008/04/02/will-online-book-piracy-drive-authors-to-stop-writing/#comment-23493 As I just commented at the original article: Paulo Coelho, author of _The Alchemist_, has provided the perfect counterexample — and his comes from actual experience instead of alarmist guesswork. As explained in the Fortune magazine article at http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/01/technology/kirkpatrick_coehlo.fortune/index.htm Coelho found that after posting a free (originally pirated) Russian translation of _The Alchemist_ on his website (but doing no other marketing or promotion in Russia), Russian sales of _The Alchemist_ went from 1,000 copies in 1999 to 10,000 in 2000, 100,000 in 2001, and a million in 2002. He now quietly hosts an unofficial clearinghouse (the blog “Pirate Coelho”) for links to free versions of his work, including translations and audio readings — and his worldwide sales continue to rise. As I just commented at the original article:

Paulo Coelho, author of _The Alchemist_, has provided the perfect counterexample — and his comes from actual experience instead of alarmist guesswork. As explained in the Fortune magazine article at http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/01/technology/kirkpatrick_coehlo.fortune/index.htm Coelho found that after posting a free (originally pirated) Russian translation of _The Alchemist_ on his website (but doing no other marketing or promotion in Russia), Russian sales of _The Alchemist_ went from 1,000 copies in 1999 to 10,000 in 2000, 100,000 in 2001, and a million in 2002. He now quietly hosts an unofficial clearinghouse (the blog “Pirate Coelho”) for links to free versions of his work, including translations and audio readings — and his worldwide sales continue to rise.

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