fighting fire with fire

[mckitterick]

So I discovered this morning that my novel, Transcendence, has been ripped (presumably from its Kindle edition) and file-shared all across teh intarwebs. Most irritating, perhaps, is that the top several hits on a Google search of my name and book title show torrent and file-sharing-club sites.

Here's how I responded:

1. What? How can this be? I can't believe someone would rip and share my book without even letting me know!


2. How dare they! The bastards! They didn't even ask, and none of them provide link-backs to my site.


3. Maybe if I ask the torrent sites to take down the offending posts, this will go away.


4. *boo-hoo*


5. Hm. I guess this just means that I have at least one torrent-hack for a fan. Any exposure is good exposure, right?


6. I know! I'll beat them at their own game and give it away, myself. Bwahahahaha!

So! If you want to help, let people know where they can get my novel:

My publisher's website with my book:
http://www.hadleyrillebooks.com/transcendence.html

Here's the link to Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982946708/?tag=CSSF-20

It's also been Kindled:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004BA5GJ0/?tag=CSSF-20

Powell's:
http://www.powells.com/biblio?PID=29700&cgi=product&isbn=9780982946701

Barnes & Noble:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Transcendence/Christopher-McKitterick/e/9780982946701

Alibris:
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch.detail?invid=10473949295

And of course they can get it from my site, where people can download the whole thing in .pdf, .epub, or .html versions for free:
http://www.sff.net/people/mckitterick/Me/Transcendence1.htm

I also provide a link for people to drop me a donation if they choose:

Links to these will help alter Google's (and other search engines') algorithyms such that the torrent sites fall off. I'd appreciate your help!

Best,
Chris

Comments

[professormass.livejournal.com]

Linked from the front page of http://www.prodigal.ca.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Danke!

[siro-gravity.livejournal.com]

wow. after being in print for 2 seconds, somebody already torrented it? that sucks. i bought mine from your publisher. :)

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I know! And thank you - I hope you enjoy.

[geekmom.livejournal.com]

They had torrents up of mine before it was even in print. Seriously, people. At least leave me a positive Amazon rating when you do that.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Good point about rating it! I'll make a note about that....

[hel]

...I had never even thought of that as a way to show my appreciation to an author when I've read their work via ebook. That is awesomely obvious, I can't believe I never thought of it, and I will do so henceforth.

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

Double check your links. A couple of them aren't directing to where they are supposed to.


D.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Fixed. That's what I get for posting and running to eat dinner before double-checking everything....

[chernobylred.livejournal.com]

The dinner-fixer appreciates your hurrying down to eat!

I must admit, I laughed out loud at reaction number four. Poor boy.

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

I google altered my name and book yesterday because of what happened to you. So far, so good.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Good luck! I'll keep y'all informed on how this "giving it away" strategy works, too....

[archway.livejournal.com]

You are one of the classiest Gentlemen I have ever almost gotten to know...~warm smile~

(I don't believe we have ever had a conversation-conversation, but have been in each others circles for YEARS. Isn't that peculiar?)

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Yeah, how does that happen, exactly? Life is interesting.

[worldforger.livejournal.com]

I suggest we actually seek out those torrents and post links to your download page, just as a hearty "frakk you."

And you know, other artists (Harry Turtledove, Trent Reznor, and Radiohead, just to name a few) have taken a similar approach to yours only to see it actually boost their sales. Like the Dead used to encourage people to bootleg their live shows.

That's not in defense of piracy, by the way--No one except the artist or an authorized representative should get to decide whether something is free or not.

[worldforger.livejournal.com]

(By the way, I say this as a former "casual pirate" whose conscience caught up with him.)

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

That's a great idea! I was thinking of doing that at first, but most of those sites require one to become a member before being able to make posts or replies *sigh*

I'd been planning on doing this, anyway, so this just prompted me to do so sooner! I had hoped to be able to give away all manner of e-formats, but I wanted to get something up right away.

[roya-spirit.livejournal.com]

Did you google your book with the word "download"?

And did you check the torrent links to be sure that it was to your book?

A lot of google links to, for example, Facebook, MySpace, Classmates, torrents, song lyrics, etc, go to the download site, but the particular item isn't actually there.

All the same, glad you posted all the options, will spread the magic for you. :)

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Man, I'm not going to expose my computer to whatever's getting offered as a download....

Also, at least two of the original torrent sites have said they've taken down the offending file, but I expect it'll keep cropping up like bamboo in rich soil.

Thanks!

[roya-spirit.livejournal.com]

Hell, bamboo crops up in Kansas soil :)

Here's hoping it will send more folks looking for you than detract from you.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Here's hoping!

[sf-reader.livejournal.com]

"Hm. I guess this just means that I have at least one torrent-hack for a fan. Any exposure is good exposure, right?"

Fans like that, you would be much better off without.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know what you mean - if only this person had ASKED if it was cool to share it, I would have put up the download on my site and told him/her to share that link.

Dunno why people don't just ASK.

[hel]

Probably because they assume if it was going to be offered for free, it would be already, and asking will just get them a no, and possibly bring them under scrutiny if/when it does show up online.
Also, they might want it in a certain format. A pdf is actually just about the least convenient form of ebook, especially for those of us who read ebooks while mobile, on our phones or other devices. Mobile PDF readers pretty universally suck, so those of us who read ebooks on the go prefer either a device unspecific, convertible format like html, or pre-rolled versions for the standard ebooks formats.
Personally, as a reader, I'm a big fan of how Cory Doctrow does it-he posts it once free in an agnostic format, and then his fans are free to send in a file converted to their favorite format, which he will post the first of each format that he gets.
And as a point of anecdata, I'd never heard of you, but I have now from this entry being reposted. I'll be downloading and reading your book. But I'm probably going to grab the "unofficial" download, cos I like my ebooks in html, and even if your pdf isn't locked, and I could convert it to html myself, someone else has already done it for me, almost certainly.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Right, I'm planning to do as Doctorow does, but my day-job is crazy right now (lots of grading!), so I just haven't. I should post a request for someone to help with this!

[hel]

You definitely should! If you've got your book in something that you could easily convert to html (which I would guess you do since you've got the html excerpt up), you might try exactly what he does, and just throw up the html for download, and ask for fans to do conversions from your clean known good copy of the text and send them to you. :) It seems to work well for him, and will probably work even for smaller fan bases than his. :) You might not some of the more esoteric file types right off (he ends up with versions in file types I've never even heard of!) but I'd suspect you'd have all the major bases covered PDQ.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I'm working on it! Made a requent on Facebook and on my website....

[hel]

Awesome. :)

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

Signal boosted. I am so sorry, Chris.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Thank you - and hey, I might end up with a few new fans out of the bargain!

[gmskarka.livejournal.com]

You will.

I've been working in ePublishing for 7 years now. My stuff gets torrented constantly. The thing is, though, I've noticed that when one of our products is torrented, the next release in that line sees a noticeable sales spike.

Basically, the torrents are advertising. You're not losing tens of thousands of sales, you're gaining thousands. 90% of the torrenters were never going to pick up your stuff -- but 10% are converted to fans, and buy from you the next time.

At least that's been my direct, trackable experience over the past few years.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

This is Doctorow's theory, too (you heard him speak here a couple of years ago on his "experiment in publishing," right?), and I know exactly what you mean. My own experiment is to see how giving it away affects new authors, too. I'll report on what I learn!

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

here's hoping

you definitely deserve them and I am sure they won't be disappointed

A bit late...

[isfdb.livejournal.com]

...but I've made sure we have your novel listed at the Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase.

Re: A bit late...

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It'll be interesting to see how giving it away affects overall sales for a new novelist....

[argonel.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of you, but thanks to this post getting mentioned I will at least check out the excerpt. If I like it I will be looking to buy a non DRM ePub version so I can read it on my phone. Failing that I will consider the kindle version but I don't like the attempted lock in.

PDF is pretty much an automatic eww, it keeps the appearance of dead tree but is even less convienient to read.

Good luck on your experiment and fighting back. The real enemy isn't pirates its obscurity. It is impossible to monetize lack of fame.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

There we go: Proof that it works! *g*

I'm working on getting other ebook formats up there, but I had the .pdf in hand. Soon: epub, then more!

[resonant.livejournal.com]

Hi. Your book seems interesting, and I like supporting Creative Commons artists. Donation submitted for full retail price.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I hope you enjoy!

[lemur123.livejournal.com]

You seem interesting. Thank you for sharing your book. I will look for it when I next go bookshopping.

Re:

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thanks!

Благодарю за блог

[abramsgutit.livejournal.com]

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