Eric Flint
Jim Baen and I set up the Free Library--see http://www.baen.com/library--about a year and a half ago.
Leaving aside the various political and philosophical issues, the premise behind the
Library had a practical component as well. In brief:
in relative terms an author will gain, not lose, by having titles in the
Library.
What I mean by "relative terms" is simply this: overall, an author whose
work is in the Libarary is far more likely to see increased rather than decreased
sales. Or, to put it more accurately, exposure in the Library will generate more sales
than it will lose.
As a practical proposition, the theory behind the Free Library is that,
certainly in the long run, it benefits an author to have a certain number of free or cheap
titles readily available to the public. By far the main enemy any author faces, except
a handful of ones who are famous to the public at large, is obscurity. Even
well-known SF authors are only read by a small percentage of the potential
audience. Most readers, even ones who have heard of the author, simply pass them up.
Why? In most cases, because they don't really know anything about the
writer and aren't willing to spend $7 to $28 just to experiment. So they keep
buying those authors they are familiar with.
What the Free Library provides--as do traditional libraries, or the old
familiar phenomenon of friends lending each other books--is a way for people to
investigate a new author for free, before they plunk down any money.
That was the premise behind the Free Library when I first set it up. At
the time, since I had no experience to go by, I was basing that on common sense
as well as Jim Baen's experienced judgement as a longtime publisher.
Now, a year and a half later, our original assessment has been
demonstrated in practice. The Library's track record clearly shows that the traditional
"encryption/enforcement" policy which has been followed thus far by most of the
publishing industry is just plain stupid, as well as unconscionable from the viewpoint
of infringing on personal liberties.
The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that, based on
facts.
Let me begin by posing a simple question. Does anyone have any real
evidence that having material available for free online--whether legitimately or
through piracy--has actually caused any financial harm to any author?
The entire argument for encryption rests precisely upon this
presumption, which has never once been documented or demonstrated. To the contrary, it
has been cast into question any number of times, and I am about to cast it into
question again.
Facts You Need To Consider
1) The first title to go up into the Library was my own novel,
Mother of Demons. That was my first published novel, which came out in September of 1997. At
the time it went into the Free Library--in the fall of 2000--that novel had sold
9,694 copies, with a sell-through of 54%.
As of today, according to Baen Books--a year and a half after being
available for free online to anyone who wants it, no restrictions and no questions
asked--Mother of Demons has sold about 18,500 copies and now has a sell-through
of 65%.
"Sell-through" refers to that percentage of books shipped which are
actually sold. Many books are never sold at all, but are returned to the publisher.
Sell-through is therefore always expressed as a percentage. "Net sales" also refers
to books sold, but in absolute numbers.
I would like someone to explain to me how almost doubling the sales
and improving the sell-through by 11% has caused me, as an author, any harm?
The opposite is in fact the case. Mother of Demons
began its life as a typical first novel, with very modest sales and sell-through. Today, it has better than average
sales and much better than average sell-through--a change that took place
simultaneously with the book being available for free online.
I like to think that at least some of the reason
for Mother of Demons' success is that I've become a better-known author in the last four years. Still, it is
impossible to argue that the Library has hurt me. To the contrary, I think there is every
reason to believe that the added exposure the Library has helped the sales of
Mother of Demons as well as my other books.
And the exposure is considerable, by the way. There were more than
130,000 visits to the Free Library in the last quarter of 2001, almost 1500 a day.
To date, my best-selling title (as a solo author) has been my novel
1632. That book came out in hardcover in February 2000, and was reissued in paperback
in February 2001. I put it in the Free Library at the same time as it came out
in paperback format.
Today, more than a year later, the paperback edition of
1632 has a net sales of about 34,000 copies and has a sell-through of 88%. If being available for free
in the Library has hurt 1632, in any provable way, I'd be puzzled to see how.
Let's now look in closer detail at the progress of another title in the
Library, An Oblique Approach, the first volume in the Belisarius series, which I
co-authored with David Drake. I think these figures demonstrate the impact of the
Library more clearly than any other.
An Oblique Approach went into the Library a few days after
Mother of Demons--i.e., it's been available for free for a year and a half now.
First in paperback in March of 1998, An Oblique Approach
had no hardcover edition. Here are the royalty figures on that novel, beginning with the first period for
which figures are available and ending with the last.
The first column gives you the royalty period; the second, net sales of
the book as of that period; the third, the cumulative sell-through as of the end of
that period; the fourth and last column, the new sales which took place during
that reporting period:
Period Net sales Sell-through Sales this period July-Dec 1998 30,431 70% 30,431 Jan-June 1999 35,977 80% 5,546 July-Dec 1999 36,812 78% 835 Jan-June 2000 37,607 77% 795 [An Oblique Approach goes into the Library mid-way through this period] July-Dec 2000 39,268 77% 1,161 Jan-June 2001 41,172 77% 1,904
The most interesting--and unusual--aspect of these figures are the ones
on the right, in the column titled "sales this period." From the beginning,
An Oblique Approach has enjoyed an excellent sell-through, so it would be surprising to
see much change there. The average for SF paperbacks in the industry as a whole is
no better than 50%, and probably a lot closer to 40%. In short, in terms of
sell-through, An Oblique Approach is doing almost twice as well as the average.
The overall sales figures are not especially surprising either. An initial "out
of the gate" sales figure of about 30,000 is nothing outstanding, but is
eminently solid for a paperback title. The average paperback sells, traditionally, about
15,000 copies--but the actual figure has probably been lower for several years now
because of a "soft" market.
Given that the standard experience is that 80% of a book's sales happens
in the first three months, it's not surprising that the sales are concentrated in
that period. In the next period, January-June 1999, the novel had a solid
5000-plus sales. And after that, we see:
What usually happens. Within a year after a novel comes out, the sales
drop right through the floor. After that, sales steadily dwindle away. And, sure
enough: in the third and fourth periods, An Oblique Approach
sold considerably less than a thousand copies each period--835 and 795 respectively, showing the
expected slow and steady drop.
It's what happens next that is significant. Because, all other things
considered, those "sales this period" figures
should have kept steadily dropping. Slowly, perhaps, but what most certainly shouldn't have happened is a sudden rise in
sales--and a rise which increases in the next period.
Nor can this be explained, as the sharp rise in sales of
Mother of Demons perhaps can, as the result of me becoming better known as an author. David Drake is listed
as the lead author of An Oblique Approach--and Dave has been a very well known
SF author for twenty years. Granted, my increasing popularity as a writer was
responsible for some of that increase, just as the fact that Dave's popular
Lord of the Isles and With the Lightnings
series started coming out during this period.
But... but....
Nonsense! Between the January-June 2000 reporting period and the
period one year later, the sales for that title--which had now been out for two
years, remember, long past the time when it should have been selling very
much--were suddenly almost 250% higher. 239%, to be precise: 1904 compared to 795.
What happened in the interim? Well, obviously I can't prove it, but it
seems obvious to me: An Oblique Approach went into the Library in the fall of 2000.
It would certainly be absurd to claim that being available for free had somehow
hurt the novel's sales! I can guarantee you that most authors would be delighted to
see a two-year-old title suddenly showing a spurt of new sales.
It's worth noting, by the way, that the second volume in the series,
In the Heart of Darkness, shows much the same pattern.
In the Heart of Darkness went into the Library at the same time as
An Oblique Approach, a year and a half ago.
In the last period before it appeared in the Library (Jan-June 2000),
In the Heart of Darkness sold 1,704 copies. A year later, during the equivalent reporting period,
it sold 1,886.
The difference is certainly not as dramatic as the difference in sales of
An Oblique Approach, and isn't the near-doubling of sales experienced by
Mother of Demons. Still, the mere fact that sales increased at all instead of declining
is significant.
Why These Figures Are Significant
Before I move on to my next point, I want to take the time to emphasize
the significance of these hard figures. I stress "hard figures" because those
people arguing the "encryption/enforcement" side of the debate
never come up with hard figures. Harlan Ellison, for instance, insists that he has lost sales because of
piracy, but to the best of my knowledge, has never once demonstrated that this is true.
Not once has he done more than endlessly assert the axiom that since a title of his
was pirated he must therefore have lost sales of that title.
I think my hard figures demonstrate how absurd that claim is. It does
not follow that simply because a copy is available for free that sales will therefore
be hurt. In fact, they are more likely to be helped, for the simple reason that
free copies--call them "samplers," if you will--are often the necessary inducement
to convince people to buy something.
There's a different analogy which I think, in many ways, captures the
reality even better. Anyone who has ever bought a car--new or used--knows
perfectly well that one of the standard techniques used by a car salesman is to offer you
the opportunity to take a "test drive." Far from being concerned that a test
drive represents "lost mileage," car dealers know damn good and well that it's often
the test drive which closes the sale.
Does it always? Of course not. Usually, in fact, people simply take the
test drive and wind up walking away. Does the car dealer then start moaning
about "lost sales," or whine about the mileage he's given up on a new car?
Hell, no. The dealer just shrugs his shoulders, writes it off to the
inevitable overhead expense of his business, and offers the next customer a test drive. But
if car dealers followed the practices of most publishers--and, to the best of
my knowledge, the entire music recording industry--they would sternly refuse to
let anyone even sit in one of their cars unless they'd already paid for it.
I leave it to you to imagine just how long such a car dealer would stay
in business. Sadly, the common sense of a used car dealer is beyond the grasp of
the supposedly sophisticated publishing industry.
As a practical proposition, I look on the Free Library as the literary
equivalent of a "test drive." And, by the way, I've gotten many letters from people
who've told me that's exactly how they eventually came to buy a book of mine.
They heard about me, weren't sure... then tried out one of my novels--or
another writer's--in the Library, and found themselves happy with the result.
Everyone should also remember that the titles available for free in the
Baen Free Library--very much unlike pirated copies--have the following two
unusual characteristics:
a) They are readily available in a well-known, well-advertised and
stable web site. I stress "stable" because one of the inevitable characteristics of pirated
copies is that trying to find them is a monstrous headache in the first place. For
obvious reasons, pirate servers tend to disappear. In fact, every time I speak publicly
on this issue I urge my audience--please! be my guest!--to test my claims by
going online and trying to steal one of my titles. (The one you find easily and
immediately in the Baen Free Library doesn't count, of course. That one is not pirated.) And
I confidently advance the prediction that they will soon discover that the amount
of time and hassle they have to go through in order to find a pirated copy
somewhere of an Eric Flint title--again, excepting the legitimate copy available in the
Free Library--is hardly worth the effort.
b) The titles--again, very much unlike the typical pirated product--are
in excellent shape, having been professionally prepared, and are available
for downloading in no less than five different electronic formats. We even provide
the reader software, if the reader doesn't have it already.
Try finding any pirated copies of which you can say the same, even if you
can find them in the first place. As anyonewho has ever looked at a pirated
edition knows, as a rule they are very sloppy scanned-and-barely-proofed editions
which are miserable to read.
And yet... and yet... despite the fact that these
completely legitimate copies are available for free--easily, conveniently, and professionally prepared--I
have been able to demonstrate no discernable financial damage done to me as the
author. To the contrary, I have been able to advance a very strong case that being in
the Library has helped the sales of those books.
In short, much like a smart car dealer, we not only allow people to "test
drive" our writings, we also make sure that the showroom is clean, brightly lit, and
the product itself is shiny and sparkling. And it's located on a prominent corner on
a major virtual boulevard. And is also well advertised--starting very soon, Baen
Books will be putting ads for the Free Library in the back of many of its paper titles.
The Feedback is Overwhelmingly Positive
Since we set up the Free Library, I've received a total of 1,161 letters to me
as "Librarian." Well over a thousand letters in about a year and a half--and, at
a rough estimate, I'd say that well over half state specifically that, as a result
of becoming exposed to an author through the Library, the sender of the letter
went out and bought at least one book of theirs in a print edition.
I will grant you immediately that this is purely anecdotal evidence. Still,
the fact remains that I have well over a
thousand anecdotes. How many does Harlan Ellison have, based on which he filed his now-famous lawsuit? Five? Six?
As many as a dozen?
The thing you should not overlook for a moment is that
every argument in this dispute except mine is based on anecdotal
evidence. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only author who has put up free titles and then tracked
the actual effect on royalty statements. I can marshal a huge number of anecdotes
to support my viewpoint. My opponents can marshal, at most, a handful. And
even that handful is suspect, since they base their logic on the assumption that the
author has lost sales because a title has been pirated. I think that assumption is
highly dubious, and is precisely what needs to be proved in the first place.
Keep in mind the difference, because it's quite significant. Not all
anecdotes are equal. I can point to hundreds of letters where a specific person says
specifically: "based on reading Book X in the Library, I went out and bought it." Whereas
the anecdotes of my opponents are not specific at all. In essence, what they do
is simply demonstrate that someone put up a pirated edition somewhere. Fine. But
it does not thereby follow that a sale was lost. Who knows if the person
who downloaded that title would have bought it in the first place? In order for
my opponents to have anecdotes which carried the same weight as mine--even
in quality, much less in quantity--they would have to show statements where a
specific person stated that they had intended to buy a copy of Book X but didn't
because they found a pirated one instead. If Harlan Ellison has even
one anecdote of that nature, I'll be surprised.
The Devil's Advocate
Last April, I attended an international conference in London on the
current state of the e-publishing industry. In general, the tone of the conference
was pessimistic, accurately reflecting the general state of the industry.
I was invited to come by the organizers more-or-less as the "devil's
advocate." In my own remarks at the conference, I stated that the fundamental obstacle to
the success of electronic publishing was the industry's obsession with
encryption. The only successful electronic outlet I knew at the time--Fictionwise.com
can now be added to the list, from what I can see--was Baen Books'
Webscriptions. And that was precisely due to the fact that Baen made no attempt to encrypt
its product. As a result, they were able to sell electronic books both cheaply and
with no hassle and aggravation to their customers.
I measure "successful," by the way, using the only criterion that means
much to me as an author: Webscriptions, unlike all other electronic outlets I know
of, pays me royalties in substantial amounts. As of this writing, I've received
about $2,140 in electronic royalties from Baen Books for the year 2000.
That sum is of course much smaller than my paper edition royalties, but it
can hardly be called peanuts. Every other electronic outlet I know of, in contrast,
pays royalties in two figures, at most. My friend Dave Drake has given me
permission to let the public know that his best-earning book published by anyone other
than Baen, in one reporting period, earned him $36,000 in royalties for the paper
edition and $28 for the electronic edition. And that's about typical for a successful
book electronic book.
In contrast, Dave earned probably about as much as I did in electronic
royalties from Baen for the year 2000. I don't know the exact figure, but since a lot of
my Webscriptions royalties come from titles I co-authored with Dave, I'm
guessing that the amounts are approximately equal.
At the London conference--at least in the public sessions--my remarks
were basically greeted with pained silence. But, in private, several
publisher's representatives told me that they agreed with me, but also told me that trying to
get the publishing industry to give up encryption would be impossible. Why?
Basically because the corporate bean-counters who now run most of the publishing
industry just can't bear the thought
of--gasp--giving something away.
There was one exception. A gentleman from a publishing house
which primarily produces textbooks rose in support of my point. He stated that, much
to their own surprise, his company had found that those textbooks which they
made available for free online also had the best sales.
MIT Press
Is this an isolated incident? No, not really. MIT Press discovered the
same thing. Here's an excerpt from a letter sent by a friend of mine after listening to
the President of MIT on a radio talk show:
"I just have a little more fuel for you to add to the fire. Yesterday on my
way home from work I was listening to All Things Considered on NPR a little
before 5pm CST. They had a story on MIT's offer to create a Web site for most of
its classes and to post materials (outlines, detailed class notes, homework
assignments, etc) from each course.
Besides being an interesting story in itself on free information on the net
the guest, Charles Vest, president of MIT, as an aside mentioned that when
college textbook presses (like the one at MIT) put up free e-text copies of their
new textbooks at the same time they published the print version, sales of the
print versions went up."
If it works to increase the sale for things as overpriced as the normal
college textbook....
Enough, Already
All right, I'll stop there. I believe I've provided enough evidence to
support my point. Making one or a few titles of an author's writings available for
free electronically in the Free Library seems to have no other impact, certainly
over time, than to increase that author's general audience recognition--and
thereby, indirectly if not directly, the sales of his or her books.
I personally believe it also places such authors on the side of the angels in
this dispute. For me, at least, this side of the matter is even more important than
the practical side. It grates me to see the way powerful corporate interests have
been steadily twisting the copyright laws and encroaching on personal liberties in
order to shore up their profit margins, all the more so when their profit problems are
a result of their own stupidity and short-sighted greed in the first place.
I will leave you all with one final anecdote. Napster, of course, is held up
as the ultimate "villain" with regard to the so-called problem of online piracy.
The letters I received as Librarian were addressed to the issue of books, not
music. Yet I was struck by how often--perhaps in a hundred letters--the writers
would mention their own experience with Napster. And, in every instance, stated
that their purchases of CDs increased as a result of Napster, for the good and
simple reason that because Napster enabled them to sample musicians, they bought
music they would not otherwise have been tempted to buy because CDs are too
expensive to experiment with.
Am I advocating self-publishing on the Web? No. Tune in next time to
find out why the Baen Free Library doesn't offer unpublished work.
© Eric Flint, 2002
Unless otherwise noted, all contents are copyright Speculations, PMB 400, 1111 West El Camino Real #109-400, Sunnyvale, CA 94087-1057. Please direct all e-mail to Kent Brewster, publisher, at kent@speculations.com.