Another Author Has A Book Leak, And Offers Up The 'Oopsie' Version For Sale
from the another-good-response dept
We recently wrote about how the band, The Dears, responded to its album being leaked online, and compared that with author Stephenie Meyer who decided to punish her fans by stopping work on her series of novels, after a draft was leaked. However, an even better example comes to us from Geoffrey Kidd, who points us to the news that author David Weber accidentally leaked his own latest novel. He had been sending out "snippets" of the work to keep fans interested, but at the beginning of the month accidentally sent out quite a large snippet: the entire work-in-progress quarter-million-word novel. But, rather than complaining and punishing fans, Weber and Baen Books (his publisher, who has long supported offering up content for free as a part of a larger business model) are now selling the "Oopsie" version of the book, while making it clear that this is unedited and probably not the version you want:For those who want it--and we stress this is an early, un-edited, incomplete version--we will sell the "oopsie" now for $10. We are not asking you to buy this version, we do not recommend you buy this version, but if you gotta have it, come and get it.What better way to respond to such a leak. They've basically made a joke out of it, in a way that's endearing to fans, and which might actually net them some additional money from fans who actually want to contribute to the cause.
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Filed Under: authors, david weber, downloads, leaks, stephenie meyer
Companies: baen
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Adapt or Die.
Evolution is one of God's greatest miracles, if your into the whole God thing. If not then its one of life's greatest miracles.
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Re: Re:
o
v
evolve
God told me he is dead.
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Baen get's it.
They encourage their readers and fans to spread the love and give copies of the cd's that come with the hardbacks out to friends and families.
Contrary to the popular belief, every time they give a book away for free, sales of the dead tree edition, as well as that author's entire back catalog go up and stay there.
Look around on the Baen website and the Webscription website to find a series of articles by Eric Flint on the economics of their electronic book system. It's great reading and includes hard numbers on sales trends when you know how to handle and market in a zero-scarcity market.
Scott
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Re: Baen get's it.
Baen Free Library
http://www.baen.com/library
Here you can get a ton of free ebooks, and this is where you can find some of those essays by Flint that Scott mentioned. Click on the "Prime Palaver" link.
Baen's Universe
http://www.baens-universe.com/
This is an electronic SF anthology magazine. Mentioned here because Eric Flint continued his series of articles on the EEvils of DRM and the miraculous results of not treating your customers as if they are criminals through the first couple of years.
http://www.webscription.net/
This is the actual "storefront" site for buying Baen eBooks.
http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/
This site hosts ISO images of the CDs that Scott mentioned as being bundled with some of the hardbacks. You can download the ISO image and burn your own copy of the CD. This site is not associated with, but is completely condoned by Baen publishing.
Their philosophy is pretty simple. Treat people with respect and most of them will return the favor. Those who won't wouldn't be stopped by fancy (and annoying) "copy protection" schemes anyhow.
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Um....this is an orange not an apple
Yes, embrace him as a hero and use him as an example of what other artists or authors should do when their work is actually "leaked" against their will.
Just because you want to compare this to the Dears doesn't mean it's the same thing.
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Re: Um....this is an orange not an apple
What the article above is comparing is the reaction of two different media companies and how they handled the undesired and unauthorized release of their intellectual property.
In one case you have a reaction that most likely negatively impacted sales, in the other, you generate an additional revenue stream from something that's already in the wild.
Neither company can put the genie back in the bottle but they can decide if they want to capitalize on the unauthorized release or take steps to inhibit the revenues they could have generated.
Scott
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Re: Um....this is an orange not an apple
Accidentally.
Yes, embrace him as a hero and use him as an example of what other artists or authors should do when their work is actually "leaked" against their will.
This was "against his will" as well, as it was not intended.
The end result is exactly the same. He did not want the book released, but due to someone's mistake (in this case, his own), it was released.
Just because you want to compare this to the Dears doesn't mean it's the same thing.
Can you then explain why that matters? The situation (work released not in the intended way) is pretty much identical. The differences are inconsequential.
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Being a huge fan, I'll go buy the hardback immediately on release even after I read the "Oopsie" version while I wait. I imagine he'll be a top seller for a couple months even with this oops and general availability, he just writes very good SciFi compared to some of the other stuff out there.
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This is why...
Seems pretty simple, but the other publishers, or pure eBook distributors can't seem to grasp those simple ideas that keep me emptying my wallet to buy Baen's offerings.
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I buy Baen books when I buy books...
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Kudos to all involved
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Ooh, ooh, I know, ask me!
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No Punishment Involved
For some facts, rather than spin, Meyer did not "punish" her fans. She decided for her own personal reasons as an author that she could not continue to work on or complete the draft of the novel that leaked. She did not stop work on her series (she'd previously said that the book published this year was likely the last in the series; the leaked novel was an experimental rewrite of the first book from a different character's perspective).
She did not decide to discontinue that novel to "get" her fans for anyone else. Her fans are undoubtedly disappointed. But it was not punishment, no matter how much you'd like to see it that way.
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Re: No Punishment Involved
She did not decide to discontinue that novel to "get" her fans for anyone else. Her fans are undoubtedly disappointed. But it was not punishment, no matter how much you'd like to see it that way.
Her fans feel differently. It was punishment. They were looking forward to a book, and now they won't get it. The point (which you seem to have totally missed) is that there are better, much more fan friendly ways to deal with it.
Ones that don't piss off her fans, who (yes, indeed) feel punished.
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