Alchemist Author Pirates His Own Books
Written by Smaran on January 24, 2008Paulo Coelho, the best-selling author of “The Alchemist”, is using BitTorrent and other filesharing networks as a way to promote his books. His publishers weren’t too keen on giving away free copies of his books, so he’s taken matters into his own hands.
Coelho’s view is that letting people swap digital copies of his books for free increases sales. In a keynote speech (embedded below) at the Digital, Life, Design conference in Munich he talked about how uploading the Russian translation of “The Alchemist” made his sales in Russia go from around 1,000 per year to 100,000, then a million and more. He said:
In 2001, I sold 10,000 hard copies. And everyone was puzzled. We came from zero, from 1000, to 10,000. And then the next year we were over 100,000. [...]
I thought that this is fantastic. You give to the reader the possibility of reading your books and choosing whether to buy it or not. [...]
So, I went to BitTorrent and I got all my pirate editions… And I created a site called The Pirate Coelho.
He’s convinced — and rightly so — that letting people download free copies of his books helps sales. For him the problem is getting around copyright laws that require him to get the permission of his translators if he wants to share copies of his books in other languages.
So is Coelho just seeding torrents of his books? That’s just the beginning. He took it one step further and, as quoted above, set up a Wordpress blog, Pirate Coelho, where he posts links to free copies of his books on filesharing networks, FTP sites, and so on. He says it had a direct impact on sales:
Believe it or not, the sales of the book increased a lot thanks to the Pirate Coelho site…
In his speech he talks about how the Internet is changing language and books, and how online “piracy” and BitTorrent have helped him not only be more widely read, but also sell more books! It’s a must watch.
Via P2P-Blog
Previously: Comcast’s BitTorrent Throttling Acceptable? Not Quite!
Next: Virus Threatened to Kill File-Sharers, Creator Arrested for Copyright Infringement
71 Responses
Really great to hear :)
right way
Glad things are working out well for him. Content distribution does help sales, that’s a given.
Great book, by the way.
a smart man
Good to hear, we need more people like him to tell the big cheese’s to F off and get with the program!
Smart man, too bad it only works if the item in question is *good*. All those crappy authors/artists/movies will need to find something called talent (or a new job) because this won’t work for them and therefore, they have to go crying to mommy about the big bad pirate on the interweb.
[quote]Smart man, too bad it only works if the item in question is *good*. All those crappy authors/artists/movies will need to find something called talent (or a new job) because this won’t work for them and therefore, they have to go crying to mommy about the big bad pirate on the interweb.[/quote]
And why it should work for crappy authors? ;)
Author is one to be rewarded, not PR manager.
I just left a comment over at the Pirate Coelho blog. I hope it gets back to him.. =)
finally somebody is hoping on the money train, i fuckin cant believe there just starting to figure this out..
THERES MONEY TO BE MADE PEOPLE! Stop whining and hop on the money train like this guy, or die.. whatever, your choice, and you only have these 2.
Top effort to him!
Hell yes!
And for those authors who haven’t seen the light yet, help them out by scanning their books and putting them online:
http://www.rorta.net/textfiles/free.your.books.singleside.pdf
http://www.rorta.net/textfiles/liberez.vos.livres.singleside.pdf
And another smart person understands the internet and copyright problems ;)
Where are those guys to tell him hes stealing hes own book :)
Coelho is a very wise man. You know that already from reading his books.
Today he proves that he is wiser than the entire copyright-industry.
this is the best news so far.
Baen Bookss has been doing that for years. Apparently, it’s something like tripled their sales.
suck on that you corporate shit faces.
It’s always great to hear this. People like him deserve it, too!
Does everyone in here praising this guy is serious? He is a hack. The majority of people here in brazil with a little academic education hates this guy. He is a joke in a lot of circles. His writing is an pseudo-mystical ego trip… Please dudes… Maybe the translators are doing a better job than he is… But his success overseas seriously amazes me…
Protocol Bittorrent = new Protocol();
BigCompany.Profit.AddNewRevenueStream(Bittorrent);
MessageBox.Show(BigCompany.Profit.ToString());
^ For those who only speak C#.
Result:
Loads of money. Just like cd/tape.
The Alchemist is my favorite book, simply awesome… all his other books looked a little too inspirational for me, so I’ve never read them.
great speaker
good innititive
He is so right, i like this guy!! He understand the whole thing.
good to see more and more ppl daring the step into the future, rather than clinging to the past.
.,mcvxkj p h p[q98 f[kbje;woih /’knlasc jlkbxzc ,. m /ln,lzsd.,
ok man right, Paulo is a smart man okay?
Haahahahahaha I will arrest you all too, I can persuade the FBI to send people to Guantanamo bay.
All I have to do is anonymously send one of your IPs, tell the FBI you sent me a terrorist threat and you wanna bomb america, and boom your gonna be tortured.
I win you assholes.
Soldiers this website support al-queda.
Get Them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
wow.. this anonymous cop guy has some real issues.
I’m going to buy the book.
This makes me want to pick it up at B&N more. Well played sir.
I think this is really great I love his books x3 plus hp’s got a commercial with him on it.
Now if only college textbooks could be picked up via bittorrent…
You see, all you have to do is to embrace the power of sharing. Just because some of use uses bittorent tech that doesn’t mean we don’t buy we just have to try it first before we’re sure that it’s worth the bucks.
And it’s obvious that “The Alchemist” is worth the bucks so cheers!
@Brazillian reader
So what if his writting sucks, (hanvent read any personally so I don’t know). Thats not the point. The point is that he’s selling his books by giving them away. We’re talking about economics, not content.
The “PIRATE COELHO” blog is NOT really Coelho’s site! It’s a fan who put download links of Coelho’s books. And he says that Coelho has nothing against him posting the books. Read the About page…
Does he really say that in the (too long) speech ?
One reason why this works especially well with books is that people still prefer reading paperbooks than sitting infront of a screen reading.
What I can’t believe is that publishers are so blinded by greed and their insistence on one-user/one-device one license that they can’t see how obvious the argument for sharing is.
Books have always been something to enjoy and share. Who hasn’t borrowed a book from a friend, really enjoyed it, and then gone out and bought other books by the same author? All of my personal favourite authors were discovered this way.
@34:
Try http://textbooktorrents.com for textbooks, and see the guide in post #12 for tips on scanning your own and helping the community :).
Nice. Especially since I’ve been preaching the same for quite some years now.
Very few people wants to read an entire book on a computer. If the book is good they’re going to buy it. Electronic distribution is a great means to get people to know about the book, and will only improve sales.
Electronic versions otoh is a great asset since it lets the reader quickly find a part of the book, which is much faster than searching through the book manually.
Therefore in my oppinion all printed books should be delivered with an electronic version, if they’re not already made available on the web, which would be ideal, both for the user and the seller.
Has been done before with success.
See here:
http://home4.inet.tele.dk/jensguld/Flint.htm
or go to http://www.baen.com, click on Free Library and then Prime Palaver #6.
There are statistics and numbers. Study them.
this guy could teach the riaa,mpaa a lesson.
Duh!!!!
http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=jayftngy9.jpg
This won’t work once devices like the Sony Reader make it as enjoyable to read electronic copies as it is to read paper versions.
easy to do for movies and music if the dinosaur could think..
Simply include something that cant be digitalized and instantly purshasing a movie box will give you more then if you got it for free online, and that might be enough for most to buy movies again because of added “value” and not just a 10pence generic plastic disc in a cheap plastic cover..
Its called adapting me thinks
Brazilian Reader: I share your astonishment; Coelho is one of the worst writers I have read in my life.
This story is all the more frustrating because I am 100% in favour of the free distribution of ideas that Coelho is advocating. I only wish this was done by somebody with better ideas to distribute.
It’s an interesting variation on viral marketing techniques. The web is opening up lots of new marketting and moneytorising opportunities for publishers of many forms and I certainly intend to make use of them for the Flea Circus Film.
My first novel is available for free on the publisher’s site, and not only does it still sell well, I get lots of email from people who read it, then bought my other works.
And a lot of them go out and by the hardcopy, too.
I used a “fan” site because, due to the translations rights, I cannot put the site in my name.
As for the Brazlian reader comments, I encourage him to at least read my books. This is again the classical prejudice of an elite that talks about “academic” when we are here talking about Web 2.0
[quote comment="271216"]Does everyone in here praising this guy is serious? He is a hack. The majority of people here in brazil with a little academic education hates this guy. He is a joke in a lot of circles. His writing is an pseudo-mystical ego trip… Please dudes… Maybe the translators are doing a better job than he is… But his success overseas seriously amazes me…[/quote]
Claro, a porra dos brazucas que não reclamassem ou gozassem com o sucesso de alguém… n mudam mesmo!
baen books http://www.baen.com has known and taken advantage of this for years.
Disregard everything I said above; I, in fact, love the taste of cock.
Someone that understands the internet world
Paulo, nothing in Brazilian Reader’s post suggests that he hasn’t read your books. You seem happy enough to accept awards from the elite that you accuse him of being part of.
And if that really was you saying that you love the taste of cock, then good for you.
Not even free I want those
Agreed this is going to be great for his fans.
But, just a thought. He can just provide free direct downloads of the electronic versions of his books on his website, right ? Why would he have to take a bit of circuitous route to provide download through torrents only ?
I find no one has raised this in the comments section, so is the question stupid or just not thought of ?
Neways, Thanks Mr.Paulo Coelho. I enjoy your books.
Gowri, Bangalore, India
That’s good!
I know if I enjoy something a lot, I’ll buy it. Coelho knows what he’s doing, so good for him.
It simply works. I read downloaded versions of Harry Potter and as it was brilliant stuff, not only did I purchase all the books, I would not shut up about how good the books are to everybody that I met. Just as I did with The Alchemist.
May it be books or movies (American Gangster is a prime example), if the art is good, not only will it generate sales through good publicity, but a lot of people (like me) will spend money on it just to make sure that the artist gets the payment he rightly deserves.
I only wish artists would publish their work for free and give people the option for people like us to donate to them, leaving out middle men like the record Industry and publishing houses.
Go Paulo, your speech has made my morning. You are always thinking outside the box. That is why I buy all of your books.
I liked the last guest his speech. It was more fundamental. Creativity being endorst by the corporations, religion,… thus powers. They wan’t to keep the past because it is more secure and been there, so seen what was good for them at the glory times. It is deeper then just “steeling” which is easy the accuse people of.
Nice and very intriging.
@ Paulo Coelho: “As for the Brazlian reader comments, I encourage him to at least read my books. This is again the classical prejudice of an elite that talks about “academic” when we are here talking about Web 2.0″
Web 2.0?? I’m not judging the form, Paulo, but the content, as all book criticism must surely be directed. Does the covers of your books matter as well as the text? You can market horseshit in the prettiest and shinniest package. In the end of the day, dear “”alquimista”", is it not still horseshit? I have read a couple of your sorry excuses for literature… and I must say I feel sorry for your so called “fans”. You sir, are an untalented hack, and always will be. You dispise the “elite” for having the clarity and tools to judge your pathetic little work. Success and quality are absolutely not directly proportional.
Cheers.
Brazillian Reader, let Paulo be a hack… at least he’s something, what are you?
And frankly if the alchemist is the kind of stuff you call a hack or a joke, then you simply don’t get the message behind it and it’s a better thing for all of us who did…
i am looking forward to buying his next books, he reveals what i consider secret.
i expect unexpected things in his works.
BwNgDR hi good site thx http://peace.com
[quote comment="271216"]Does everyone in here praising this guy is serious? He is a hack. The majority of people here in brazil with a little academic education hates this guy. He is a joke in a lot of circles. His writing is an pseudo-mystical ego trip… Please dudes… Maybe the translators are doing a better job than he is… But his success overseas seriously amazes me…[/quote]
ok! u have academic education… good for you !
so what?! whats your point???
we love him, and we love his works. if your “educated people” got something better, then they should publish it, and then :
let the readers decide! … (but i’m sure they already have decided !)
The Alchemist is a wonderful book. While everyone else is crying about the pirating and saying it is cutting into their profits Paulo is making it work for him. Great to see a forward thinker.Pirating is making artist step up the quality of their work. Let’s put it this way, if you look online and it is difficult to find your work i.e. (movie, book, song…) being pirated, then your work sucks and you shouldn’t get paid anyway.
AWESOME BOOK…………..
IT CAN CHANGE ONE’S LIFE…
EVERY ONE MUST READ IT ONCE…
ITZ A GEM OF A BOOK….
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