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
114 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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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.
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