Concern about Pirated Ebooks

Should you be concerned about your ebooks being pirated? Is there a positive spin to pirated ebooks?

Most people don't have the money to promote their projects they need to, so unless you're a major corporation piracy may be viewed as a form of marketing and promotions vs taking money out of your pockets.

Truth be told many people can't give their intellectual property away. So, having someone wanting to steal it at a minimum lets you know you have something the market values.

For the record I don't want people stealing my intellectual property and it has happened to me, however without having a $1,000,000+ marketing budget I've learned to see the positive benefit from possible piracy, given at a minimum I'm given credit for my work.

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Should Ebooks be Free

Below is a conversation about if ebooks should be given away for free or not. Some of the comments have been edited for clarity.

ZLS Publishing
Should ebooks be Free if the buyer purchases the paperback or hardcover version of the book. Sort of a buy one, get one free incentive.

Joy Farrington 
I think its a good incentive and you wouldn't lose money since its an e-book. But I don't think it shuold be free. It really depends on the author, book, and publishing company and not something that should be a requirement for all books.

JAWAR
It's been my experience that it's good to have special offers to your client base, perhaps having this buy one get one free would be one such special offer.
I've given away ebooks as an incentive to sell some paperbacks, but not as a normal way of doing business as I like to have something special to offer from time to time.
Thank you for the question. What have you decided to do in terms of giving away ebook versions when someone buys a physical copy of your books?

Zls Publishing 
I've never given away any of my authors books for free as an incentive to buy the physical copy. To reviewers I've given them the free ebook copy and some have bought the physical book copy later on down the line because they enjoyed the book that much. Now, I have a magazine in which I've done that where if you buy the physical magazine you get the digital version free and some have enjoyed that and some have not wanted the digital version, just the physical but thanked us for the digital anyway as they passed it on to someone they knew. I think you have to find out what works for you and your book. Different strokes, for different folks. The beauty is that you can always try it to see if it works and if it doesn't you can switch back really quickly.

Kindle Publishing
Ebook Publishing Group

Who Can Legally Steal Your Copyrights

Should you be concerned about your intellectual property being stolen when you post to Facebook?

I've read from other people that Facebook has in it's terms of service that they own or at least may use any content you post on Facebook. That may or may not be true. I have't read it for myself on Facebook's Terms of Service (TOS).

In terms of other people stealing your material it's probably going to happen anyway. However consider that if you only put up a short part of your story, readers will be compelled to want to read more, therefore it will be great to have a link going to your own site, blog or well your book may be bought ie Amazon.

One of the best things you can do at least in the U.S. is to register your copyright with the U.S. Library of Congress that way if someone does steal your intellectual property you have an abundance of legal recourse under the letter of the law. For the record I'm not an attorney and this isn't legal advice. You should always seek the advice of an attorney when considering your legal position, etc. :-)

From a marketing perspective, consider that if you don't have a million dollar budget to promote your book it's not such a bad thing if people use and repost your material, as they are promoting you for free, so to speak. I too write and publish books, so I have a concern about the use of my material. Then I remember all the people who can't give their work away. To have someone wanting to to steal your material isn't all bad when considering the possibilities.

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