Fantasy author Terry Goodkind, best known for the Sword of Truth series, has self-published his latest novel The First Confessor. Available from sites such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble since the start of the month, the book is the story of a woman named Magda Searus. But Goodkind has already run into difficulty with book pirates, and has now gone public with the details of one of the people he believes to be responsible.
Goodkind’s website contains a letter to readers, asking them to refrain from pirating The First Confessor. But the author has now posted, on Facebook, the details of someone he claims has been involved in piracy of the book. He’s listed various items of information about the alleged pirate, saying he’ll “leave the rest” to fans. The person’s phone number and address have not been posted.
According to Goodkind, he’s sure that the individual is behind the piracy. But is posting the personal details of someone in this manner an appropriate way to deal with what is obviously a major problem? Or is this kind of ‘doc-dropping’ irresponsible and potentially misguided? After all, everyone has a right to be considered innocent unless they’ve been proven guilty. Either way, the individual identified by Goodkind doesn’t seem to have responded in public yet.
Meanwhile, you can read the first chapter of The Good Confessor at Goodkind’s own website.
Thanks for sharing this. THE FIRST CONFESSOR: The Legend of Magda Searus is an unconventional release all around. First, it’s a full-length novel and it serves as the beginning of the entire SWORD OF TRUTH series. It’s an origin story that explores the foundation for what will become the world of WIZARD’S FIRST RULE. It’s also an Author self-published release and we introduced it with just 2 months of lead time to launch, squeezed in between two major releases (THE OMEN MACHINE and its sequel).
We also knew, releasing it as an ebook exclusive, we would run into piracy issues and long before publishing, we set out to learn more about what those issues are and why people pirate books.
What we discovered was surprising. ‘Pirates’ are not “thieves that wouldn’t pay for the book anyway”, they are rarely politically motived, and they are not anarchists hell-bent on bringing capitalism to its knees (all claims that get passed around within the industry). Instead, we found that piracy is propagated primarily by three things; (1) problems with content accessibility, (2) poor perception of value or the more common disagreement with paying for the same content twice, and (3) people want the content but do not want to support the publishing/distributing entity, or the creator/author, etc.
Knowing this, we realized people that people pirating books are primarily readers that would be willing to purchase, if the terms and accessibility issues were ironed out and kept more in line with their expectations. We agreed.
Why aren’t books being sold with bundled ebooks yet? You can buy a Blu-Ray package that contains a digital copy, a DVD, an HD Blu-Ray version, and some even have 3D Blu-Ray versions — all bundled together at a value-incentivized price.
What could we do differently to create an incentive, improve the perception of value, earn the respect of potential readers, and dissuade piracy without banging on the moral drum or turning potential readers into enemies? We started with an outreach.
Posts on Facebook and a bullet list here:
http://www.terrygoodkind.com/theoracle/ebooks/#piracy
Then we worked on value motivation by way of enhancing our product and making it fluid. We’re going to be adding content to THE FIRST CONFESSOR in August, then again after that, with indefinite support moving forward. Ebooks offer flexibility and enhancement. We don’t look at an ebook as a publish and forget device. Their strength, we feel, is in continuing treatment. We are offering Author swag and prizes for fans that report copy errors or formatting issues. We included a note about piracy in the front of the book and a carefully laid Manifesto at the end — a mission statement of our intent and our appreciation for those that are supporting our endeavor.
We’ve also been answering emails that people have been sending us (our inbox is stuffed with confessed pirates interested in being heard, for once, and treated with humility and respect). We’ve learned to interface with these people as customers and potential readers, possible fans, not criminals or statistics. And we’re making big strides in these efforts.
Which is why when one person, who claims to also be a fan of what we do, goes to an extreme effort to pirate and propagate our book, we take notice. In spite of what this article suggests, we are not asking for vigilante justice or any of that nonsense. We’re incorporating this person into the very candid story of what we are doing and how we are doing it. They made a statement, after we made ours, and now we’re weaving them into the storyline and the assessment of what we’re doing. They forced themselves into the equation and we accepted their demand for attention.
We’re not going to ignore piracy because people find it sticky to talk about. We’re not scared of public relations issues and we’re not going after people, stabbing fingers, and calling out names. We’re shining light in all of the corners and we’re inviting discussion, entertaining all perspectives, and asking for assistance to earn support and hopefully, collect appreciation.
If that progressive attitude is misguided or inappropriate, then we find ourselves a world away and a league ahead of where everybody else is at — because we’ve heard from the same people it’s suggested we’re attacking and they appreciate what we’ve done. We’re not resting here either. We’re going further. DRM, for example. We’ve become staunch anti-DRM advocates. Not only does DRM inhibit paying customers and restrict readers to confusing platform decisions, we believe it makes vendors lazy, stifles technologies, slows improvements of things like store fronts and user interfaces, and generally creates an environment that is ripe for abusing content creators and readers alike.
Within the week, DRM will be stripped out of every release of THE FIRST CONFESSOR: The Legend of Magda Searus.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Publishers are struggling to hold onto marketshare by engaging in dirty deeds like stalling the release of ebooks for weeks or even months after a hardcover’s launch. The reason is two-fold; one so they can double-dip on sales by getting a customer to pay for the same content twice and the second is so that they can clear competition via sales cannibalization to make a maximum hardcover run at the bestseller’s list. Clear motivations for piracy and actions we feel demonstrate outright disdain for readers.
Years ago, seeing the writing on the wall, publishers colluded to deny Authors the ability to self-publish ebooks. They organized and agreed to deny publishing any book that they did not also obtain the digital rights.
Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against the Big Five publishers and Apple for price fixing ebooks. The known expectation within the business is that people want to pay Ten Dollars for an ebook. It’s a price that seems appropriate considering the distribution of revenue and the breakdown of costs. It’s also a good price with nice store front curb appeal. But the big publishers resist, fighting to maintain a grasp on shrinking margins and an industry in turmoil.
All of this leads to the inevitability of a rogue Author breaking ranks, forgoing the significant Author advance, and publishing his or her own content and letting it speak for itself. We’ve done that with THE FIRST CONFESSOR. Nine months of writing with many weeks of preparation and development, now all in the hands of the public (a first feat for a major author). We will live with the readers support or we will die without it.
These are brave new times but we are ready, turning with the winds of change, dropping our sails, and forging ahead. We will make mistakes (we may have made a few already), but we’re going to win the respect of our readers, earn their support and appreciation, continue to write compelling stories, focus on better products, and create things that we will be proud of. We hope you’ll be there to question, praise, or join us. We can’t do it without you.
Thank you.
Posted by Terry Goodkind | July 7, 2012, 3:54 pm