Author Of 'Go The F**k To Sleep' Says Piracy Helped Him... But He Doesn't Support It

Six Years Later, JK Rowling Realizes Ebooks Are A Good Idea... And She Cuts Out The Middleman

from the leapfrog dept

Thu, Jun 23rd 2011 4:00pm — Mike Masnick

It's been six years since we first wrote about JK Rowling's confused refusal to offer an ebook, claiming she was worried about "piracy." Of course, as we explained back then, the argument made no sense, since others had already digitized her books, and the only choice for those who wanted ebook options was to go with an infringing copy. In other words, her moves actually encouraged a lot more "piracy." And while there have been rumors in the past of her growing recognition that ebooks aren't evil, she's now decided to embrace them in a huge way. She's setting up her own Harry Potter-themed site, Pottermore, which will offer ebook versions of all her books for a variety of platforms -- all direct from her. In other words, she's mostly gone around publishers and booksellers, and has decided to go fully direct to fan (while she retains the rights, apparently she is giving her publishes some cut). Wow. Oh, and no DRM (though it will have an identifying watermark).

On top of that, it looks like she's really trying to add more value, as well. The site is going to have social networking features to connect fans of the books, and will also include extra (and new) content (both written and graphical), which apparently will continue to grow over time. The whole thing is set up as an interactive and immersive experience. Basically, she's very nicely realized that she can do more beyond just the book. While I've had my problems with Rowling's approach to the online world in the past, this seems like a huge leap forward. And, yes, she's in a different position than most authors, but I think any author will be able to learn from this, if just to recognize that you can do more to connect with fans outside of just the straight book experience.

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Filed Under: community, ebooks, harry potter, jk rowling

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Nate (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 4:10pm

The site was built by Overdrive. They probably also run it for her, and take a commision. That makes them just as much a middleman as if she sold the ebooks through Amazon.

BTW, her publisher Bloomsbury is also getting a cut, although it's not clear how much. She didn't bypass them.
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Anonymous cowards mother corpse, 23 Jun 2011 @ 4:12pm

In the future we won't have middlemen, big content will be dead. No need for em in the digital era.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 4:24pm

Re:
Overdrive seems more "work for hire" than "middleman".
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 4:26pm

Talk about milking the cow... she'll take every last penny from these kids and their parents.
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Richard (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 4:28pm

Re:
Overdrive. They probably also run it for her, and take a commision.

But I expect it will be tiny compared to a traditional publisher's cut.
What do you expect her to do? Write all the html herself?

BTW, her publisher Bloomsbury is also getting a cut, although it's not clear how much. She didn't bypass them.

Probably because she couldn't, given existing contracts - that will be different for newer authors without a legacy tie-in.
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Ima Fish (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 4:37pm

She's gonna make a boatload of money off of this. The publishers must be shitting bricks.
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out_of_the_blue, 23 Jun 2011 @ 4:41pm

"the only choice for those who wanted ebook options"
NO, doing without an ebook was the other "choice", arguably "right" as the author for whatever reasons didn't put it out in that medium. You give credence to the copyright fascists that you're pro-piracy by omission in this simple case.
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Jay (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 4:46pm

Re:
I'm as much against Big Business as anyone, but there will always be a bigger bully. The thing is, you have to know how to make your own business decisions, and work on using them to your advantage. Sure, they have bigger contracts, but you have the leverage. If you don't like their terms go online.
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Charles, 23 Jun 2011 @ 4:47pm

Pottermore partner
Sony is involved- yuck!
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 5:25pm

Re: "the only choice for those who wanted ebook options"
Yeah and the other choice during prohibition was to not drink alcohol, but hey, guess what actually happened.

Mike's points are about dealing with reality, not the fantasy world the RIAA MPAA etc have in their heads.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 5:30pm

Re: Re: "the only choice for those who wanted ebook options"
And in Rowling's case, her stance against ebooks because of "piracy" concerns, simply ensured that ebooks were only available by piracy and people who would have been giving her even more money didn't have that option.

Now, belatedly, she has realised that the people who want to buy her stuff, are the people she needs to be offering her stuff to and taking money from, to some it sounds outlandish, but it is in fact business.
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Chargone (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 5:31pm

Re: "the only choice for those who wanted ebook options"
only if they're idiots (which a lot of them are).
or completely new to the site, i suppose.

given human nature, if something is not available by standard legitimate means, or non-standard legitimate means, but is available by illigitimate means that don't actually cause anyone any harm at all from the point of view of the person in question, they will take that last option. most will prefer standard legit over non standard legit, non standard legit over illegitimate-non-harmful, and illegitimate-non-harmfull over not getting it at all.

recognizing this and telling people that if they don't want the illigitimate methods to be used they should provide decent legitimate methods... is not actively supporting the use of illigitimate methods.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 5:37pm

Too late, had them a while ago, don't feel like reading them again.
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Nate (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 5:39pm

Given how much money she has, that's certainly possible.
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bordy (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 5:41pm

Re:
...while she retains the rights, apparently she is giving her publishes some cut....

This little bit interested me too. Perhaps someone with more insight into this industry can indulge me: is this sort of concession typically made out of goodwill, bona fide contractual obligations, or is it just a bone tossed to avoid litigation?

(the cynic in me already knows the answer)
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Todd, 23 Jun 2011 @ 5:53pm

Too little too late.
J.K. Rowling is a whore. She lost me as a fan when she sued the author of the Harry Potter Lexicon.
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Gwiz (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 6:03pm

...apparently she is giving her publishes some cut...

Typo? Probably should be "publishers"?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 6:08pm

Re: Too little too late.
having read more details of that case, it really seems like she wasn't wrong there.

they included enough text in their lexicon to reconstruct the whole book. They went too far and should have sought applicable licenses.
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A.R.M. (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 6:37pm

Rot in hell, Rowling.
Perhaps what she should really be doing is passing off a good chunk of her revenues to the poor guy she sued for the lexicon.

I can't wait until her site opens. I'll definitely be taking part in the community forum to remind her what a bitch she really is.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 6:38pm

Re: Re: Too little too late.
It might not be the worst situation, but there are still better ways she could have dealt with it - like, say, reaching out to work with them (or have her editor work with them) to turn it into a (likely bestselling) coffee table book, with a fair profit splitting arrangement. I mean, for someone in her shoes especially, why not?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 7:34pm

Re: Re: Re: Too little too late.
Greed creates greed. Now that she knows what being rich feels like, she just wants more for herself and less for everyone else... like 99% of rich people. Do you blame her? I'd probably do the same, and so would you.
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DogBreath, 23 Jun 2011 @ 7:39pm

Re: Re: "the only choice for those who wanted ebook options"
Mike's points are about dealing with reality, not the fantasy world the RIAA MPAA etc have in their heads.

Totally agree with you. The same can be said for Mike's Connect With Fans (CwF) + Reason To Buy (RtB)

Q: How to make money?

A: Give the people what they want.

If Rowling had released an audiobook of Harry Potter on 8-track tape, she could blame piracy when someone released an mp3, but illegality issues aside, it would ultimately be her fault for not making a profit because... "she did not give the people what they wanted". I think that is where "the customer is always right" phrase comes most into play.
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Jay (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 8:13pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Too little too late.
Kind of hard to swallow when she's had nothing before her success.

I just think it's the emotional reaction to piracy before people understand that piracy := lost sales, if you can make it 10x better to support you through what you can do.
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Jay (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 8:14pm

Re: Rot in hell, Rowling.
I think there's a better way than making such a blunt statement?
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Jay (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 9:56pm

FINALLY! SOMEONE GETS IT!
DogBreath, I'd kiss you for understanding what most trolls try to obfuscate, but everyone would take it the wrong way.

*Bro fist*
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Qritiqal (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 10:29pm

Re:
So, the plumber who fixes my faucet is the "middleman" who allows me to get a drink of water?
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The eejit (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 11:05pm

Re: Rot in hell, Rowling.
Maybe she should be less concerned with that, and more concernede about writing the eighth novel, Harry Potter and the pointless cash-ins.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 11:33pm

Re: Pottermore partner
i stopped reading the wired article when i got to the part "and sponsored by Sony"

yuck indeed, JK Rowling lost me there.

Also if the site has the same "security" that sony's playstation network has, we'll soon head about the Rowling customer data leaks too.
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sam sin, 24 Jun 2011 @ 12:39am

good for her. hope the 'virus' she has contracted spreads like wild fire!
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 24 Jun 2011 @ 2:21am

Re:
The site was built by Overdrive. They probably also run it for her, and take a commision. That makes them just as much a middleman as if she sold the ebooks through Amazon.

Whoosh! That was the sound of the point going over your head. In the normal run of things, the publisher would have hired Overdrive and/or placed the books on Amazon. In those case, she did it herself. The middleman that she cut out was the publisher.
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Richard (profile), 24 Jun 2011 @ 2:22am

Re: Re: Too little too late.
The fact is that if she hadn't earned a penny after the Lexicon came out she would still be in a situation today that she would have grabbed eagerly with both hands if it had been offered to her at the start.
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 24 Jun 2011 @ 2:22am

Re:
Because only children like Harry Potter?
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Niall (profile), 24 Jun 2011 @ 2:42am

Re: FINALLY! SOMEONE GETS IT!
So how long before people start seeing a 'bro fist' as meaning "I would kiss you but everyone would hassle me for it"? :)
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PaulT (profile), 24 Jun 2011 @ 4:48am

Re:
Who are "these kids", by the way? Children just getting introduced to her work and therefore paying for the first time, or the 8-12 year olds who made the work successful to begin with, but are now in their late teens - early 20s?
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Deirdre (profile), 24 Jun 2011 @ 5:11am

In some parts of the internet there are still people arguing up and down about those books. Some of them have built the world of Harry Potter into their delusion systems-- the Snape Wives who have all married Snape on the astral plane are probably the best known. Things are going to get very interesting.

Actually, Rowling has been pretty good about noncommercial uses of her fictional world. Except for the time she sued about the use of Hogwarts castle in a religious festival in India. The Court in India behaved very well, Rowling and her advisors got a black eye.

This is a very clever way to exploit her creation though. It may start a trend.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2011 @ 7:32am

Pottermore a Dud for Many Fans
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=21&art_id=112442&sid=32826392&con_t ype=1&d_str=20110624&fc=7

Interesting article. Seems to indicate that the site isn't anything more than an attempt to milk the franchise.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2011 @ 7:34am

too late
I was ready to buy a few years ago but nothing was available. Even for unreasonable price. I downloaded all books in PDF from somewhere for free.
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Andrew (profile), 24 Jun 2011 @ 8:04am

Re:
From what I have read the only thing that will be sold on the site is the ebooks themselves. Everything else will be free. From all the extra information that she is adding to all the interaction.

Its easy to lump her into the category of milking the cow but I don't think she is in this case. She is embracing ebooks and making a site to encourage more people to participate.
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DogBreath, 24 Jun 2011 @ 11:19am

Re: FINALLY! SOMEONE GETS IT!
There are so many examples of businesses ignoring a paradigm shift until it's too late (at their own peril and profit margin), that it's just too easy for anyone to come to the same conclusion that many of us have already found to be true. As many people here have alluded to, some companies must be dragged kicking and screaming into the current market. Other companies have discovered the way to profit is to adapt to the new ways of doing business, whatever that reality may be. If they chose not to change or participate, that is their choice. The final outcome of whether they will survive in this new world, will ultimately be of their own making.

While this link (Four Mistakes That Killed the Record Industry Before File Sharing) may not be about books specifically, the points raised in the article are true for them, along with the movie industry and other business that seem closer every day to foundering. All because of bad decisions made long before piracy was as much of a "big problem" as it's claimed to be today.

These "choices" appear to have been made all in the name of quick profits and not preparing for the future. If they had understood and heeded the rule that the only thing constant is change, they might have been in a better position to take advantage of the new business opportunities that are available today, rather than a too little, too late attempt to prop up their dying business models.

I think some of their current endeavors are following the "how to spend money but make no profit" business model:

PoF + RtL
Piss off Fans + Reason to Leave = $0.00
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Ric, 24 Jun 2011 @ 3:08pm

Other Example of Success
John Scalzi is a good example of this. He literally made his own career by serializing his first novel and picking up a huge internet following, Then Tor was beating down HIS door to buy. He also runs a lively blog called the whatever, which apparently was popular apart from the novels.

He used the internet to create value. Check out his Google talk, where he lays all of this out.
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