Hacker News Reader

Comment by zaarn | Hacker News Reader

I think this is more a story about the publisher; it wasn't piracy that decided to cut the print, it was the publisher.

However, the problem with "piracy doesn't hurt sales" is that it is only true when you provide a service just as good as the pirates.

If buying your book on amazon is a hassle, moreso than downloading a PDF on a forum, then people will pirate it. Amazon requires you to search the book, put it in your basket, go to checkout, pay, then download it on your kindle and read. The forum download requires you to download it and put it on your kindle. Maybe it is time for a Netflix for Books, especially with more digital books being sold.

That my assertion holds water is I think proven by piracy being on the rise again, now that streaming services have more exclusives, making it harder and more expensive to get the shows legitimately.

View on HN

You seem to have the gist of it.

She doesn't seem to see the irony in:

> someone who pirates the book was never going to buy it anyway, so it’s not a lost sale.

Yet her whole story is pointing out that there was a point in time when a whole bunch of people were eagerly awaiting book 3 but the only actual way they could get it was to download a pirate copy of the "e-arc". She does see how the piracy on book 3 hurt her on book 4, but doesn't seem to believe that the root problem was that the only way for legitimate fans to join an ongoing discussion about the piracy-released version of her book was to also pirate the book.

She didn't want the e-arc released for book 4 for the wrong reasons. It was not that she wanted to avoid a scenario where the only way fans could get a book they were eagerly awaiting was to pirate it, she just wanted to avoid the e-arc copy being the copy which is pirated.

I don't see how her "proof" proves anything other than the fact that piracy exists. Neil Gaiman's experience directly contradicts her belief as well.

Downloading to Kindle is automatic. Amazon's Netflix is Kindle Unlimited.

Then Kindle Unlimited might not be hassle free enough or priced too high for the selection if piracy continues to be a problem.

The competition operates with zero cost to the consumer, works 24/7 to bring the newest content to the end user as fast as possible and has more employees. Amazon doesn't compete with that.

> Downloading to Kindle is automatic.

Except when it isn't. The last time I was on vacation I learned the hard way that sometimes the Kindle will create an entry for a new book but only download it when you try to read it... So I'd recommend opening all newly purchased and "downloaded" books beforehand to make sure the books were really downloaded.

I have no idea how to get a random PDF onto my kindle. Getting a book there is easy though.

You can find and buy one on the device itself, or find and buy one on Amazon and it'll magically show up on the device. It literally is just clicking a single button.

I can't even imagine a way you could remove any steps from the process if you were designing it from scratch.

Buying one would still involve going through checkout, which is atleast 2 steps for me.

That and the book price is not competitive with piracy.

  >> no idea how to get a random PDF onto my kindle.

Amazon gives you an email address; just attach the file to an email.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email

https://calibre-ebook.com

> Amazon requires you to search the book, put it in your basket, go to checkout, pay, then download it on your kindle and read.

Nowadays you can buy a lot(if not all) Amazon ebooks with a single click, and the Kindle will sync it automatically. No basket or checkout involved. You won't get a pirated copy on a kindle that fast and uncomplicated.

It's still more expensive than piracy, even accounting for effort you have to put up to do it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com