AISFP 109 – Elizabeth C. Bunce

Thanks for all the kind words guys. Loved the podcast, but I should point out that my anthology, MASKED, was not done for Pyr. That was done for Gallery Books, just as SWORDS & DARK MAGIC was done for Eos.

Also, while we have indeed given away several pieces of free fiction – from James Enge’s novelette “Travellers’ Rest” to Kay Kenyon’s novel “Bright of the Sky” (free on Kindle), these were choices the publisher made to experiment with a business model of offering one piece of content in order to drive sales of additional content by the same author. “Liberating” content that a publisher has NOT chosen to give away for free is not “free advertising” any more than stealing my TV is advertising for Sony.

Personally and anecdotally, my own experience with piracy isn’t making me enthusiastic about it. The two most heavily pirated books I’ve been associated with – one Pyr fantasy novel and one anthology edited for another imprint – have NOT benefited from it in the slightest. Both books were heavily pirated, far in advance of any other books I’ve worked on, and both are lagging behind in sales as compared to similar titles released at the same time, despite rave reviews, good publicity, huge buzz, etc.. For the first several weeks of its release, the anthology in particular was showing up on as many as three different torrents a day. The book was the most heavily anticipated anthology I’ve been associated with too. And it is very unlikely that it will be getting the sequel I’d so dearly like to do. So please do not downplay the deliberate theft of something that I slaved on for over a year to produce.

Meanwhile, we have been successful with the Kay Kenyon title in driving sales of her subsequent books on Kindle, so there is something to making the first title in a series available free as a loss leader for the remaining books. But I’m skeptical that a free ebook is advertising for the specific book itself. This may have been true a few years ago where an ebook experience was a less comfortable read than that of a physical book. Everyone had a threshhold at which they would give up on reading off a screen and buy the print edition. But today, with the iPad and the rapid-evolution of dedicated ebook readers, more and more people are finding the ebook offers a superior reading experience to print. In that sort of climate, a free ebook isn’t going to result in a sale of the physical form of the same book, because the ebook is already the preferred edition.

Again, I’m not down on the business model of making works available free to grow a fan base or inspire interest in other works, as long as the author and the publisher have chosen to do this. But please do not downplay the seriousness of pirating works that have NOT been made available in this matter. And thank you sincerely to all the readers who have supported those books and anthologies that I have been associated with, whether in print or ebook form. You are deeply appreciated.