eBooks

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Some thoughts from a writer (and reader).

Earlier this month, I wrote a post that briefly touched upon my experience as an author finding my copyrighted books freely distributable on a pirate Web site. (Refer to “Copyright for Writers and Bloggers – Part I: Why Copyright is Important.”) The post generated some comments that made me think more about the electronic versions of my books that my publishers sell: eBooks.

About eBooks

An eBook is an electronic book. While some eBooks are published in electronic format only, others are published in print and then are followed up with eBook versions of the same book.

Sometimes both print and eBook versions of a book are put out by the same publisher. This is common with modern-day titles. But there are also a number of eBook publishers out there who take older titles that are still in copyright and make arrangements with the publisher or author to create and sell eBook versions. And, of course, anyone can take an out-of-copyright book, like the works of Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe — the list goes on and on — and publish them anyway they like: in print, electronically, or even tattooed on someone’s leg. Project Gutenberg came into existence by making out-of-copyright works available to the world and that’s what you’ll find among its thousands of titles.

eBooks are available in a wide variety of formats, from plain text to PDF to Windows Help Viewer format. They can include or exclude illustrations. They can contain hyperlinks to make it easy to move from one topic to another. They can be printable as a single document or by pages or sections.

My first involvement with eBooks was way back in the 1990s when I used a program called DocMaker on the Mac to create my monthly, freely distributable newsletter, Macintosh Tips & Tricks. I later moved to PDF format. 10 Quick Steps, one of my publishers, publishes all of its books as PDFs optimized for onscreen reading. I later published some of my own eBooks in the same format.

eBooks and Copyright

eBooks are usually sold with the same licensing used for software. One copy, one user. This is pretty basic stuff. Although I admit that I’ve never read an EULA for an eBook, I assume that if an buyer is finished with it and wants to give his/her only copy to someone else, he can. After all, that’s how books work. And, as someone who has legally transferred ownership of software by selling it (after removing the original from my computer), I’m pretty sure eBooks have a legal second hand market.

Unfortunately, due to their portable nature — pop them on a CD or compress them and send them in email or leave them on an FTP server for others to download — they are often the victim of piracy and copyright infringement. People put eBooks — whether they obtained them from legal means or not — on pirate Web sites, FTP servers, or other file sharing systems for free or paid download to anyone who wants them.

As this problem becomes more and more widespread, readers begin to think that there’s nothing wrong with downloading and sharing illegally distributed eBooks. They begin looking to illegal sources of eBooks rather than legal sources, hoping to save $10 or $15 or $20. They justify their participation in this illegal activity by saying that “knowledge should be free” or that the publisher makes enough money or that eBooks cost nothing to produce. And soon this affects the sale of both printed and electronically published books.

Who Suffers?

Are you an author concerned about illegal distribution of your eBooks? You may be interested in the new Authors Against Piracy group I’ve started to discuss the issue and share solutions. It’s a private group, so you’ll need an invitation to join. Contact me to introduce yourself. Be sure to identify your most recent published work; the group is open to published authors only.

The real victim of this is the author, who often makes less than a dollar for every book sold.

Most authors these days can’t afford to just write for a living. Some of them have regular day jobs. Others are consultants or speakers or programmers or some combination of those things.

About 95% of my net income comes from writing books and articles. My helicopter charter business, which is still in its infancy, eats up all the cash it brings in. (Helicopters are extremely costly to own and operate.) And between writing and flying, I simply don’t have time to do anything else to earn money.

So when I find my books being illegally distributed on pirate Web sites, I get angry. Can you blame me?

Is It Worth It?

In the comments for my “Copyright is Important” post, reader Nathanael Holt asked this question: “Do your digital sales warrant the increased risk posed by piracy?”

This is a really good question — one I had to go to my royalty statements to answer. And, after a quick glance at that most recent 60-page document, I’d have to say no.

For example, one of my recent titles sold more than 2,600 printed copies in the quarter ending March 31, 2007. That same title sold only 2 electronic “subscriptions.” Another title, which is older and which I have found online on pirate sites, had 9 copies of the PDF sold during the same quarter, earning me less than $15.

My conclusion from this: eBook versions of my books aren’t selling very well. And apparently the ones that get out there are going to pirate Web sites.

I’ve e-mailed my publisher’s royalty department to get lifetime figures for all of my in-print titles. I’m hoping the numbers they deliver will paint a more rosy picture. But I doubt it.

I’m an eBook Reader, Too

This is disappointing for me. You see, I’m an eBook reader.

A while back, I was looking for a book about .htaccess. That’s a normally invisible configuration file found on servers. I wanted to modify the .htaccess file for my Web site so it would do certain things for me.

This is an extremely technical topic and one I didn’t expect to find a book about. But I did: The Definitive Guide to Apache mod_rewrite by Rich Bowen. And after a bit of research, I learned that I could either buy the book from Amazon.com for $40 and wait a week to get it or buy it as an eBook in PDF format from the publisher’s Web site for $20 and download it immediately. I admit that the deciding factor was the length of the book: 160 pages. Since I like to be able to look at a computer-related book (rather than switch back and forth between a book and an application onscreen), I could print it for reference.

And that’s what I did: I downloaded the book as a DRM-protected PDF and sent it to my printer. Within an hour, I had the whole thing in a binder and was editing my .htaccess file to my heart’s content, with all kinds of notes jotted in the margins of my new reference book. (That’s another thing: I’m far more likely to mark up a printed eBook than a printed and bound traditionally-published book.)

I also read eBooks on my Treo (when I’m trapped somewhere with nothing to do).

The only reason I don’t buy and read more eBooks to read onscreen is because I think I spend enough time in front of a computer without using one to read, too.

What Does All this Mean?

Well, first I need some solid information from my publisher regarding lifetime eBook sales. Then I need to sit down with my editor (figuratively, of course — we never see each other in person) and decide whether eBook editions of my work are something we want to continue to publish. If we decide to go forward, we need to come up with a solution that will protect eBooks from piracy.

What Do You Think?

Have you ever bought an eBook? Why did you buy that version instead of a traditional print version? Did you like it? What do you think about eBooks in general: pricing, formats, licensing, etc?

Don’t keep it all to yourself! Use the Comments link or form to share your thoughts with me and other readers.

What’s In a Name?

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Apparently, a lot.

I’ve been thinking it over for about six months now and have finally made a decision: I need a real name for my Web site/blog.

Maria Langer, The Official Web Site* and WebLog** is not cutting it, primarily because no one follows the asterisks to the footnotes in the footer, which say:

* Read with tongue planted firmly in cheek. (In other words, it’s a joke, folks. No, I’m not so full of myself that I think there are unofficial Maria Langer Web sites.)

** Don’t believe everything you read. (That’s my disclaimer, in case you find something inaccurate. It’s also for the folks who like to say that I’m making claims that aren’t true. Maybe I know that. Now my readers do, too.)

I think the name of my site is turning off people who don’t get it. And I don’t want them to get turned off by a name. I’d rather they get turned on or off by content.

Unfortunately, my imagination is completely tapped out and I can’t come up with any fresh, new, witty names for my site. This is what has taken me so long to make the name change decision. Obviously, if I already had a great new name, I’d just start using it.

Whatever name I do come up with must reflect the fact that the site is a mix of content, with everything from first person accounts of the things that go on in my life to illustrated how-to articles about using your computer or software. Visitors use Macs and Windows, so to include either operating system in the name just wouldn’t be right. Ditto for references to flying or Wickenburg or writing or any one specific topic I cover here. I need a name that’s more general.

I’ve got some ideas that might work, but I’d be interested in getting suggestions from the folks who have been following the site for a while. Use the Comments link or form or Contact Me with your suggestions.

I’d appreciate the help.

RedBubble Cards

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Very impressive.

Let me start off by saying that I’m probably one of the pickiest people on the planet. I’m not easy to satisfy and even more difficult to actually please. I have a reputation as a whiner and a complainer.

But I like to think of myself as a perfectionist. I want things to be perfect — or as close to it as possible. (That’s my story and I’ll stick to it.)

RedBubbleThat said, I just received my first batch of cards from RedBubble. I placed the order about two weeks ago and they arrived in yesterday’s mail from Australia.

And they are beautiful.

Grand Canyon with CloudsThe artwork I chose — photos taken by me and several other RedBubble photographers — was perfectly reproduced on high-quality heavy stock paper. The matte coating applied gave each photo a nice protective finish. The back of each card included a thumbnail view of the image, along with the photographer’s name and the URL of his/her RedBubble portfolio.

These are, by far, the best quality photo greeting cards I have every seen. I am pleased beyond measure. I am, in fact, tickled pink.

Best of all, some of the cards have my own photos on them, so I can show off my work to the people I write to. (Hey, why the hell not?)

If you haven’t checked out RedBubble, you should. Not only is it a great resource for printing your own artwork as cards and wall art and t-shirts, but it’s a great place to shop for high quality art by extremely talented artists.

Copyright for Writers and Bloggers – Part I: Why Copyright is Important

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Copyright basics for the Internet age.

Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control –€” a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which “€œall rights reserved”€ (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy –€” a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation –€” once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally –€” have become endangered species.

Creative Commons is working to revive them. We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them –€” to declare “some rights reserved.”€

This is the text you can find on the History page of the Creative Commons Web site. It explains, in part, why Creative Commons was formed and what it is trying to do.

In this three-article series, I’ll explain what copyright means to me and how I use Creative Commons on my Web site and blog to protect my work.

Copyright Is Important

CopyrightAs a professional freelance writer, I live in the first world: one where every last use of a work is regulated. Sure, I write computer books for a living. But did you know that some of my book contracts lay out the movie rights for my work? Movie rights for a computer how-to book? Are they kidding?

Sadly, they’re not. They really do take into consideration every last possible use of a work — even if that use is not very likely.

Copyright is important not only to me but to my publishers. Each book contract I sign lays down the rules of who owns the work and who has the right to market, promote, and sell it. We work together to come up with a contract that both parties are happy with, then work together to produce and sell the work so we can both make money. In general, this works pretty well. I write, my books appear in stores, and I get paid. My publisher produces my work, puts it in stores, and gets paid. We’re happy.

How Copyright Infringement Hurts Everyone

When things go wrong is when people take our work — because it really is both mine and my publisher’s together — and illegally reproduce it, either by hard-copy or digital means, and share it with others. This reduces the potential paying market for our product. How many copies of a book do you think we could sell if someone else was giving them away for free to anyone who wanted them?

And when copyright infringement like that exists and becomes widespread, books don’t sell well enough to be worthwhile to produce. Publishers don’t make enough money on certain titles, so they publisher fewer books or, worse yet, go out of business and stop publishing books altogether. Writers find it harder and harder to get book contracts, so they don’t write as much — or they stop writing.

The result: there are fewer resources out there for people who want to learn new things with the assistance of a knowledgeable author and a book they can read and refer to over and over.

All because enough people thought that our work should be distributed for free.

This hit home recently when I discovered a Web site that was distributing, free of charge, two of my books in electronic format. But it wasn’t just my books they were distributing. It was over 300 different computer how-to books — some of which were only a few months old — and tutorial DVDs and even software. The site’s slogan was “Because knowledge should be free.”

What they don’t understand is that their actions are taking away the livelihood of professional writers who work hard to write those books. Authors are people who rely on the income from books sold to survive and thrive and care for their families. Every book illegally distributed rather than sold is money from a writer’s pocket.

You’ve heard the phrase “starving writers,” haven’t you? (I never did like the idea, myself.) Think about that the next time you illegally download a pirated eBook or photocopy pages of a library book to share with your friends.

What’s Next

In the next part of this series, I’ll explain how Creative Commons helps writers and bloggers license their Internet work for use by others.

In the meantime, let’s get a discussion going. Got some thoughts about copyright protection and piracy? Use the Comments link or form for this post to share them.

I Don’t Like Being Seriously Dugg

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The activity finally winds down — I think.

In yesterday’s post, “Getting Seriously Dugg,” I reported the history of a blog post that rose quickly to stardom in the world of Digg users. But that report was done early in the day, before the shit hit the fan (so to speak).

The Heat is On

The Digg count continued to rise throughout the day. And the hits kept coming. All morning long, there were at least 100 visitors online at my site at once. This is not normal here. And it was rather frightening. I kept expecting something to break.

But it wasn’t just the popular Digg post that was getting hits. It was the post about getting Dugg, too. Soon, it had more hits than the dugg post — even though it wasn’t dug by anyone at all. I’m still trying to figure that one out.

Things came to a head at 11:15 AM when I got an e-mail message from my ISP:

Our Hosting Operations Admins have alerted us to an issue with your hosting account. The account has overutilized resources within the shared environment. As a result, the account has been moved to an isolated server for Terms of Service violators. You have 30 days to research and resolve this issue. After this time, the account will be evaluated again. If the issue is resolved, the account will be migrated back to the shared environment. If it persists, you will need to move to a full Dedicated server.

I got on the phone immediately and called my ISP. To my knowledge, I hadn’t violated any terms of service by getting hits. My plan allows 2,000 GB of bandwidth per month. The billing month starts on the third — that day. So far, in all the years I’ve hosted there, I’ve never exceeded 6% of my monthly allowance. Just because I was getting 30 times the usual number of hits I get in a day, it was still not much more than I’d get in a total month. So there was no way I’d even come close to 10% of the monthly allowance — let alone exceed it.

The guy who answered the phone was extremely polite but equally clueless. He had to talk to Advanced Hosting. He couldn’t let me talk to them. They gave him a song and dance about too many domain names pointing to the same site. He attempted to hand the same thing to me. I told him that that shouldn’t matter since none of those domain names were advertised anywhere. Besides, there were only about a dozen of them pointing to one site and maybe 15 pointing to another. I wasn’t aware of any limitation.

“I’ve been dugg,” I told him. When I got no answer, I asked, “Do you know what that means?”

“No,” he said.

I explained that it meant that one of my blog’s posts had become very popular and that people were flocking to my site to read it. I told him this was a temporary thing and that it should be back to normal by the end of the day. I hoped.

He told me that if I continued to get so many hits to my site, I’d have to get a dedicated server. I told him I’d evaluate after I’d seen my stats for the day. (My account is updated daily in the middle of the night.)

We hung up.

A Brief Intermission

I went flying. I took a couple from Virginia on an hour-long helicopter tour in the Wickenburg area. I showed them mine sites and canyons from the air. We saw a lot of cows, too. Afterward, I goofed off at the airport, chatting with two jet pilots who’d come in and were waiting for passengers. Then I went shopping for dinner. I got home and had a snack. Then I looked at Digg. It was 4 PM.

What Happened in Five Hours

The post that had started it all now had more than 1,200 diggs. It had been viewed almost 30,000 times. The post about that post, which hadn’t been dugg at all, had been viewed more than 40,000 times.

But thankfully, there were only 33 people online. So the flood had begun to subside.

On the Digg Technology page, my dugg post was listed near the bottom, under newly popular. (Ironically, on the same page, near the top, was a post about how Digg was losing popularity. That had more than 1,200 diggs, too.)

The Morning After

It’s the next day. I can now look back objectively on my blog’s day with a Digg Top 10 Tech post by studying some of the stats for the day and how the differ from other days.

My ISP reports that for the first day of my billing period — yesterday — I used up .55% (that’s just over half a percent, folks) of my monthly bandwidth. That means that if every day was like yesterday, I’d still come in at less than 20% allowable bandwidth. So I don’t know what “terms of service violation” they were whining about.

W3Counter, which I use to track page hits and visits, says I got just over 27,000 page hits yesterday. Look at the chart below; it makes my site look flat-line dead before yesterday. Honestly — it wasn’t that dead.

Hits

Today’s hits are about 3 times a normal day. Nice, but I’m willing to bet it drops down to normal within the next few days.

W3Counter also sent me an e-mail message warning me that their free service doesn’t cover sites that get more than 5,000 hits a day.They say I need to upgrade to a pro account for $4.95/month. We’ll see how long before they disable my current account — I’m not paying them to tell me how many hits I get when I can easily set up some stat software with a free WordPress plugin. (ShortStats, which we wrote about in our WordPress book, comes to mind.)

(I have not been able to reconcile page hits as reported by W3Counter with article reads as reported by a WordPress plugin. I have a sneaking suspicion that the WordPress plugin counts bots.)

Digg, as a source of hits, kicked Google out of the top spot on my site. Google used to account for 54% of my visitors. Now, for the 14-day period tracked by W3Counter, Digg is the big source. Google doesn’t even make the list any more, with all the different Digg URLs people used to find my site. So my sources stat is completely skewed and pretty much useless for the next 13 days. And 93% of the hits in the past 14 days have been to the 18-year-old mouse story.

Meanwhile, WP-UserOnline reports that yesterday saw the most users online at once on this site: 375. I don’t think this site will ever see that many concurrent users again.

My RSS feed subscriptions have more than doubled. That’s great. (If you’re a new subscriber, thanks for tuning in. And don’t worry — I don’t write about Digg every day.) It’ll be interesting to see if that number continues to climb or if I manage to scare all the new folks off by failing to provide more Diggable content on a daily basis.

My Google AdSense revenue for yesterday was right in line with an average high day. When you consider that I got about 20 times my normal number of page hits yesterday, you might think that I’d get 20 times the revenue. I didn’t. Obviously, Digg users don’t click Google ads.

The last I checked, the 18-year-old mouse story got just over 1,357 Diggs. I think that I actually encouraged the extra Diggs by placing the Digg icon at the top of the post. I’ve since taken it away from all posts.

I’ve realized that I don’t want to be seriously Dugg. Other than the surge in new RSS subscribers, there really isn’t any benefit to it.

What do you think?

Have you been slammed by being dugg? How did it affect your hosting account or other services? Use the Comments link or form to let the rest of us know.