Warning: this post is not necessarily all that engaging for most readers. It’s mainly aimed at fellow writers who are trying to decide whether or not to do the KDP Select program and drills down into the fairly dry details of my little experiments.

And, for those of you writers who have read many many of these KDP Select follow up posts, I’d say the three things that make these figures a little different, at least to the other reports that I’ve read on KDP Select results are:

1) I’ve got several books in multiple genres;

2) I’ve tried the promo on different days in different ways, with vastly differing results;

3) the improvement in sales has been palpable and gratifying, but not the kind of mind-blowing figures others seem to have experienced.

I should also mention that I’m not a big promotions person. It pisses me off when I add someone back who has added me on twitter, and they immediately direct message me with a generic message of welcome and an invitation to buy their book (replete with a link, of course). Similarly, the autobot tweets from people repeating slightly differently-worded suggestions that I go check out their books, depending on how frequent, will either ensure that their tweets get ignored or if too frequent, will lead to my unfollowing them because of the nuisance factor. Since that stuff doesn’t work for me and annoys me, I’m not about to do it to other people. Golden rule and all that.

So anyway, most of these free offers have been made without really telling anyone. The two January ones were done without any mention at all. I wanted to see the results of minimal intervention–change one thing (paid to free then back to paid), and see what happens, rather than mixing it up with multiple variables (promo).

In February, of the three giveaways, I scheduled the contemporary romance one, without telling anyone and let Amazon/the market do its thing; I tweeted the historical fantasy 1-day giveaway. Finally, the short story anthology giveaway, I blogged, which in turn promoted it on FB and Twitter as part of the auto-publish settings. As you’ll see below, my best results in downloads/sales were for the contemporary romance, which I didn’t promote at all. This was likely a function of genre rather than personal effort.

This is also useful to me because while I love socializing on twitter and FB, I hate promoting on either. I want to chat and make friends, not sell! I’d also rather be writing in my spare time, rater than marketing, for the most part. So, I wanted to see what actually yielded results for me, and what were just extras. Minimal effort, maximum results, and all that.

An Inventory of Genres

I have three contemporary romances under a different name. I’ll call those CR 1, CR 2, and CR 3. I also have a 3 in 1 bundle which basically offers all three of them for the price of two.

I have two regencies, under Kathryn Anthony: The Clarendon Rose (TCR) & An Immodest Proposal (AIP).

I have one Historical Fantasy, Konstantin’s Gifts (KG), and–as of February–two speculative fiction short story anthologies: Persephone’s Library and other Short Stories (PL) and Of Myth & Memory (OMM–yes, this acronym makes me grin).

KDP Select Enrolment

Primarily as a result of indolence, I decided not to bother putting the three contemporary romances on Smashwords. So they were already exclusive to Amazon. I enrolled these into KDP Select a while back but didn’t do much about it beyond that.

My sales figures, meanwhile, were dismal. Here’s the baseline: from selling 100 or so books in August, the figures dropped… and dropped… and dropped. In December, I sold ten books–and I don’t mean per title. Ten books total, across the four contemporary editions, the two regencies and  PL, the one short story anthology (which has sold a total of 5 copies, since its release in early October).

Then I read the article I mentioned above and got intrigued. I was poised to release KG on Amazon, and knew I wouldn’t have time for a while to put the final touches on it that I wanted to do for Smashwords and print, so  thought, what have I got to lose? I enrolled that for a single term, and started scheduling free giveaways–for CR1 and for KG.

The Power of Free

CR1 had sold about 11 copies between August and mid-January. I scheduled a 2 day free promo. While it was free, there was something like 2K downloads in the US and 400 or so in the UK (2K in two days approximately translates to the top 200 in the overall free kindle store and the top 30 or so in the Contemporary Romance free kindle store–again, fyi. When stuff is free, I don’t know that it’s an accomplishment of any kind per se, to be high in the listings, but it does provide some useful data on relative download rates, like where contemporary romance rates are situated, in the context of the wider range of downloads).

In the wake of the free promo, it started selling better. Not in the thousands, but steadily and noticeably. As in, after an average of 2 copies a month for the preceding five months, it sold 36 copies in the second half of January, after it became paid once again. The sales of my other CR titles also started selling a lot better.

KG was released in January. I scheduled the two-day free promo about a week after the release, so I could establish a baseline. Unfortunately, I haven’t broken out my tracking figures into weekly or daily sales (I may do this at some point–but until mid-January, it would have been depressingly filled with zeroes) and my memory is fuzzy on where the spikes occurred in sales, and by how much. But, it was also noticeable–a few sales before the free.

Then, the free: it did about half as well as CR1 for free downloads, but I attribute this to genre. Bear in mind that I only got to about the top 30 in free downloads on the contemporary romance listings. With half as many downloads, I got into the top 10 for free downloads in the Historical Fantasy lists (a little depressing, considering how much more work I put into KG, but whatevs)–and meanwhile, I was in the high 100s to low 1000s for the overall listings. The point here being that GENRE IS KEY to some of these figures that people are citing. Timing is also important, as demonstrated by my next experiment.

I next scheduled a single day free promo for KG on a Saturday in February. Slow, slow, slow. It still got into the top ten, which tells me that *all* historical fantasy downloads were slow on that Saturday in February. I’m not sure if it’s that Saturdays are generally slow–but they may be.

See, at the same time, I also set CR2 for a free, 3-day giveaway. Here, I was curious to see whether the free offer, sustained over several days, would yield higher download figures or not. In the first two days (weekdays), the downloads were strong, and I got into the 120s in the overall free Kindle lists, and the top 20 for contemporary romance—again, this speaks to the density of downloads in these areas, not to the inherent accomplishment of lots of people downloading my no cost–and therefore low-risk–book.

In this case, my total, three day downloads were about 3,500. BUT 2,500+ of that was on the weekdays, and the downloads dropped noticeably on the Saturday.

So: weekdays may be better for free books (I had assumed Saturday would be better, as people are on the weekend and looking for stuff to read, but I now infer that maybe on weekdays, people are trolling for free books as an escape from the work week, while Saturdays are filled with errands, social engagements and so on).

My final experiment is with OMM. As I mentioned, PL, my post-apocalyptic ss anthology, has hardly sold at all. I had braced myself for low sales, having read, from multiple sources, that ss’s, even by the big names, don’t sell as well as do novels. Fine. But wow–5 copies in 2.5 months… So, given my results with the CRs and KG, and the free thing, I decided to see how a similar model would work with the SS form. PL is still on Smashwords, BUT I’ve enrolled OMM in KDP Select, and did a 2-day free offer the day after release, on the assumption that like PL, it probably wouldn’t sell much on its own. The results?  A goodly number of downloads over the two day period (around 340 or so in North America, which was sufficiently high to get it into the top 20 free for short stories). However, bearing out my experience with short stories not selling, it would seem that, unlike with the novels, which continued to sell after they reverted to being paid downloads, there have been no actual sales of the anthology now that it’s back to paid. This is, however, anomalous and so I can only assume that either 1) February is a really slow time for book sales or 2) short stories don’t sell. Or, of course, some combination of the two factors.

Conclusions

For whatever reason, it seems to be true: free offers somehow cause some kind of shift in the algorithms or something, and that book becomes more findable on Amazon (or more visible, perhaps). For me, this has led, not only to increased sales for the one book, but for increased sales across all the same-genre books, in the case of the CRs. Unfortunately, I only have one Fantasy novel at this point, so I wasn’t able to test whether this cross-sales benefit would manifest across the genres, but my understanding is that it would (this is analogous, I think, to the idea of the backlist, which has served publishers in such good stead, for so long).

I would also tentatively conclude that this benefit lasts about 2 weeks. In both cases, sales slowed down about two weeks after the free offers (the first time, this coincided with the new month, so I thought it might be that something shifts in the sorting of titles algorithm at the changeover of the months. To test that, I scheduled these free giveaways earlier in the month), subsiding to a trickle that is slightly higher than the pre-free levels, but much lower than the levels right after the free offer.

My final takeaway is that alas, KDP Select does benefit indies, with some mysterious consequences that combine increased visibility with increased sales. I am going to experiment a little with my regency TCR, which isn’t doing much of anything, anywhere. I’ve taken it off Smashwords, and am waiting for it to get unlisted from the channels. After that, I’ll enrol it and report any interesting results. All my other books that are already on Smashwords will stay there, for the forseeable future.

Given the results, my plan going forward is to enroll new books into a single, exclusive 3-month term with KDP Select when I release them, during which I’ll try to leverage and optimize exposure using the free promos etc. Then, I’ll opt out and put them on Smashwords, which will, in turn, add them to all the other distribution channels. We’ll see how all that works… As usual, if there are any interesting results, I’ll report back here. So, stay tuned!

*My brother, upon hearing the main title of my latest anthology Of Myth & Memory, said, “It sounds like a Joseph Campbell book”, to which I replied, “Yes, indeed it does.” So, the title of this post is a somewhat whimsical hat tip to that *other* JC, the wonderful comparative mythologist. (Aside: When I told my bro that the sub-title was “Fictions and Labyrinths” he chuckled. Then, we both said, simultaneously, “Borgesian.” Yes, he and I have just a few common cultural and literary paradigms, and the subtitle is definitely an homage to Jorge Luis Borges and his two game-changing short story anthologies, “Ficciones” and “Labyrinths”, for all that I make no claim to his mastery of story-ness and of concept, nor to his amazing ability to create stories that are puzzles and thought experiments all rolled into one. But the other reason I chose that sub-title is because I liked the way that Myth/Fiction and Memory/Labyrinth resonate with each other…)

I should mention that you don’t actually need a kindle to read it–you can download the free kindle app for a number of different smartphones, including android phones, ipads, iphones, and blackberries!

Here’s the blurb:

Each of the stories in Of Myth & Memory are inspired by myths and fictions.

“Her Final Tale” tells of the last story told by Scheherazade, and the double-edged gift she receives in return.

“The Village of the Lost” is about Hana Kutari, whose mixed blood allows her to straddle the mundane and spirit worlds, while preventing her from ever fully being a part of either.

“Katabasis” is a narrative of rivalry, loss and sacrifice that blends motifs of Snow White with the myth of Inanna’s descent into the Underworld.

Award-winning story “The Swan Maiden“, meanwhile, tempers loss with redemption and healing.

Also included are the stories “Lucretia’s Smile“, “the River of Sigh“, and “Magda’s Ghost“.

Excerpt from the short story “The Village of the Lost“:

“-You seek the lost child?

Hana Kutari stood among the ancient trees of the coastal forest, her eyes filmed by the fine membrane of her second sight. It coated her vision, functioning like the inner eyelid of a cat—except that instead of protecting her eyes, these membranes opened a different world to her.

The spirits in this part of the world were similar to and yet different from the kami of her people. They welcomed her as a long-lost cousin from a faraway land.

She nodded. -I seek a girl. She disappeared from her home–

-She must be returned to her people. But she cannot, so long as she bears her Oropean name. She must take back what she has lost—and then, long-forgotten things will be remembered and she will be returned to her people at last.

Hana frowned. Surely it hadn’t been as long as all that since the girl had left her tribe? But then, time moved differently in the spirit world.

-Where can I find her?

-In the village of the lost ones. Tlingishin.”

Photo by D Sharon Pruitt; used under a Creative Commons License

The day after that oh-so-notorious, greeting-card-company-created celebration of love, desire, and the burnings & yearnings of the human heart, my father-in-law went in for a routine angiogram, to check the status of his heart. There had been a couple of occasions in recent months when he had experienced pain and restricted breathing that had, fortunately, subsided after a few moments.

Still, he figured he’d best check it out. He mentioned it casually, during a visit, and tried to dissuade my husband from giving him a ride, insisting it was nothing to worry about.

My husband and I, meanwhile, were packing and preparing for a romantic getaway from the grey and skeletal Ontario winter, during my mid-semester break. We had used the funds from the sale of a VW van we were no longer going to have time to use, and were all primed to fly down south, to sample some of the Cuban delicacies in Miami, before boarding a relaxing cruise that would whisk us away to Arruba and Curacao, among other such glamorous locales.

But, as we all know, the heart sometimes has other plans: in this case, my father in law’s–and indeed, our own–as we learned the shocking news.

My father in law’s angiogram revealed that his left artery was 90% blocked, and several veins also had major blockages. The doctors moved him to the ICU immediately. They were astonished that he had lasted this long, given the severity of the blockage. He, meanwhile, had experienced so few symptoms that he needed some persuasion to undergo the triple bypass that the doctors were recommending. He wanted to go home for the evening, but they pointed out that his heart could give out at any time, and he needed to stay under observation until they could get him into the OR.

Normally, the wait time for surgery can be weeks or longer. They got him into surgery the next day.

Yesterday was one of the longest days I’ve experienced in a very, very long time. While elsewhere in the city, an airplane with two standby-filled seats took off for Miami, we sat in a crowded lounge with other families of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Every now and then, a surgeon in scrubs would emerge and speak with one or another cluster of anxious people, whose expressions would either subside in relief, freeze, or crumple, depending on the nature of what they heard from the low-voiced doctors.

Finally, it was our turn. The surgeon sought us out, and delivered the news: he was out, stabilized, and apparently doing fine.

This morning, less than 24 hours after his major surgery, we were allowed to stop in for a brief visit. He was sitting up, eating, talking. Exhausted, of course, and in severe pain. But it was still astonishing to see–less than a day earlier, his chest had been opened, his heart exposed in its full, vulnerable peril. And now, it had been rewired, repaired, closed back into his chest, and here he was: sitting up, eating, recovering.

So this year, we’re celebrating what I’m calling Valentine’s Week in a different way. This year, it isn’t about greeting card companies, heart-shaped candy boxes nor any of the other trappings of the season. It’s about taking the time to feel deeply and truly grateful for the strength of the human heart: of a human heart that has survived the trauma of blockage and surgery, and of all those hearts that keep beating, strongly and bravely, in cardiac wards here and everywhere. It’s about seeing, with wonder, reverence, and sadness, the steadfast love in all those hearts of loved ones who are waiting for the news about whether their husband, wife, mother, father, son, daughter has survived the surgery.

Happy Valentine’s Week, everyone, and may your hearts be strong, and good, and filled with love.

There are challenges to opera of course. It’s a stylization of life that many don’t find accessible. The fact that the voice acquires its full range and power when women are a decade or two older than the supple young characters they’re playing (ditto for men) doesn’t help.

All the same, the music takes me somewhere. Its distillation of moments of emotional power and intensity, around dramatic expressions of narrative, often leaves me on the edge of tears (or indeed, over the edge).

For instance, there’s a moment in Tosca when Scarpia, the villain (who happens to be the chief of the Vatican Police), sings an absolutely magnificent invocation. See, he’s fascinated by Tosca, he lusts after her, and wants to dominate her spirit. He’s a nasty piece of work, but it’s such a beautiful piece–potent and sinister, yet oddly moving in the way that it combines the sacred and the profane. It’s unquestionably my favourite moment in that entire opera (even though Tosca’s aria Vissi d’arte is more traditionally lauded). Tre Sbirri is on my “kickass opera” playlist and I’ve heard it enough that it seems to have enmeshed itself in my psyche.

The result?

Konstantin, the villain in Konstantin’s Gifts, and his obsessive love for Vasya, the protagonist. It’s different, of course–the setup and situation are not in the least similar. But the underlying obsession is the same. And this is where it began–in Scarpia’s obsession with Tosca, distilled into a a musical work whose beauty is the more resonant to me because it stands in opposition to the sentiments being expressed. The music serves as a subtext: its form, with the Te Deum as counterpoint, underscores the way in which Scarpia’s lustful obsession with Tosca has supplanted even his love of God:

NOTE: So if you watched the above clip, you’re probably wondering what I was wondering: WTF’s with the KKK people in the church? And in an adaptation of a Puccini opera, set in Rome, no less–not what I’ve ever considered to be a hotbed of the Klan. Turns out, the white hoods were markers of certain orders and confraternities in the Catholic tradition–so no, not related to the chilling symbols they became in North America, as a result of their being co-opted by violent racists. I haven’t seen this version of the opera–I’ve only ever seen it live–so I was rather puzzled by what the hell those guys were doing there.

As an aside, the fact that they’d stick with that detail, given what followed re the co-opting of the outfits, raises the interesting question of the tension between historical accuracy–it would be revisionist to take those guys out, if they were a standard part of a service at the time–and the distracting fact of their presence for a large swatch of the population. I saw that clip and was totally distracted from the performance by the guys in the hoods. I mean, seeing people dressed that way is deeply sinister and, if done casually rather than with intent, it is also upsetting and offensive to most people in North America.

It only occurred to me that such symbols, which seem so monumental and horrifying, might not be as offensive or disturbing elsewhere (bizarre as that may seem, to my culturally-entrenched perspective) when I saw those crazy Jackson Five guys in blackface on that Australian Gong show thing–and the Aussies seemed genuinely confused about why Harry Connick Jr. was so upset and offended by it (it’s on YouTube, if you haven’t seen it). I was watching the clip with my mouth open, thinking “how could this not be horrifying & upsetting?” The analogously offensive equivalent there apparently involves something similar in which white people dress as Aborigines. The other famous example of the relativism of such things is the swastika, which is an ancient Sanskrit symbol still commonly used in India. Hitler and his crazy Aryans-are-Germanic-rather-than-Indian thing, co-opted that symbol but good, and it takes some adjustment to realise that no racial/racist statement is being made when you see that symbol in India.

/aside on cultural relativism

image by vectorarts.net under a (cc) license (attribution 3.0; share alike 3)

Since learning that my book got pirated (it’s since been taken down, at my request), I’ve had a number of fabulous conversations with people about this issue. The question of the rights and wrongs of piracy is both fascinating and profoundly relevant to creators seeking to get their work “out there” in the digital environment.

So, I thought I’d do a follow up post, summarizing the positions and issues (and thereby add my voice to the multitudes on this topic).

the problem

Digital is a mixed blessing. Free distribution means that indie creators:

1. no longer have the expense of a per-unit cost for producing their works; and
2. no longer need to rely on the supply chains and distribution channels that they previously needed to get their work “out there.”

It’s all basically free. Which means that those bent on piracy have the same ease of no-cost reproducibility and distribution as do the creators.

People I’ve chatted with–both online and in person–have tended towards either one or the other of two general positions (with lots of grey in between as well, of course): what I’ll call the legal or principles-based position, and the functional or outcomes-based position. I should note, briefly, that the names are meant to be descriptive rather than value-based (in case that’s not obvious!). Also: Most of these folks are creators, or are sympathetic to creators, so their views are in the context of whether or not a creator should exercise his or her rights.

principles-based 

This position has its basis in law (copyright law, generally) and in ethics/morality. There are a few ideas, here.

1. Acts of piracy break the law. Control over the reproduction (copying) of written expression is protected by copyright law, and that protection comes into existence at the moment of creation (when the expression is “fixed” into tangible form). Copying it without permission is illegal.
2. Acts of piracy are morally wrong. This position is part of what the courts are protecting in upholding copyright law. It’s the idea that a creator has put in both hard work and creativity to encapsulate his or her unique vision into words, and then put it out there in the hopes of receiving some compensation for that combination of skill, work, and creativity. This needs to be protected, both in order to reward hard work / incentivize future hard work AND because this is inherently the right thing to do.

These are, I think, the two main facets of the principles-based argument against piracy. If there are other nuances or perspectives on the principles-based side, please feel free to mention them in the comments.

outcomes-based

The outcomes-based position involves a 180-degree shift in perspective. Again, there are a lot of nuances involved in this position (indeed, it presumably is slightly different from one person to the next on precise reasons). But, in general, this isn’t about piracy per se, but about “free,” reach, and distribution. So, piracy becomes a sub-venue in this larger notion of distribution–the wider the reach of your work, the more you will benefit.

Two important clarifications here:

1. for many proponents, it’s not about immediate distribution of the work–about boosting numbers today or tomorrow on Amazon free listings, etc. Everyone knows that there will be some crazy number of downloads if the book is free.
2. instead, it’s about having readers out there, who might not wager money on an unknown author, but who, having read that unknown’s work for free, will be delighted to pay for the next book (and many books ever after).

The metaphor that suggests itself here is that of tactics (protecting your revenue by having pirates take down your work wherever you find it) versus strategy (letting that pass, on the reasoning that in the long term, you’ll sell more copies because when your next book is out, you’ll have more readers who have read and liked your work out there, a subset of whom will pay for it next time). It’s a battle versus war notion, and I suspect that many of the outcomes-based advocates would argue that in winning the short-term battle of preventing people from downloading your book for free, you’re losing the war of having your work read widely enough to have created a larger base audience for your future books.

commentary

At the extremes, the two positions are paradigmatically different. The principles-based position presents the Kantean notion that the act is wrong in itself, and larger consequences are irrelevant. It rankles to allow piracy to happen, so it must be stopped. Several people with whom I had this discussion held this position. They didn’t care that there was a reasonably good possibility (based on anecdotal evidence, at least) that in a year or two, those who allowed for free distribution (both legitimate and illegitimate) might have a larger reader base, and larger sales figures than those who enforced their legal rights. They could not let pass the inherent wrongness of the act itself.

The outcomes-based position, as the name implies, only cares about final results. So not necessarily today or tomorrow’s loss of revenue, but the way that wider distribution affects long-term growth. They felt that since the copyright is their right to enforce, they’d just hold off on enforcing it, because they 1) felt the evidence of long-term growth was sufficiently compelling to allow it to pass and 2) were not sufficiently bothered by the inherent wrongness of it, from the moral/legal perspective, for that to be determinative.

My problem, of course, is that I’m poised between the two. I feel persuaded by the long-term evidence of growing readership. But then, the Kantean in me is bothered by the unauthorized copying. I suspect that after the initial few strong reactions to piracy (in which my emotional response bolsters that rather petite Kantean inside my mind), the longer-term perspective will prevail, in my case.

Ultimately, given the current technologies and developments, the final facet to a functional perspective is that right or wrong, unauthorized copying is here to stay. It’s likely that laws won’t change this–it’s too easy to do, and to do it anonymously. Any law that seeks to get around that anonymity would likely result in an invasion of privacy that would be objectionable to most users–including many creators (in other words, the very people whose rights are being protected). DRM also probably won’t change this, as many see it as a challenge–and, as far as I’m concerned, given the larger implications of DRM regarding fair use, I would hope that it would always be circumventable.

I also dislike DRM because I feel it imposes a kind of moral infantilism upon users by depriving them of the ability to choose. Some will copy, and some won’t, but I think that should be their choice.

And, ultimately, I think there are enough people who will be willing to pay for the work of creators whom they respect–or who will pay simply because they feel it is the right thing to do–that things will even out in the end. Now of course, this means that a writer’s job is potentially more difficult, because it means that every book has to be good–of a sufficiently high quality to win the respect of readers, such that they’re willing to support that writer by buying future books, rather than grabbing pirated copies. But it also involves understanding that in order to reciprocate, and return those readers’ respect by not imposing cumbersome DRM stuff on their e-books, you’ll need to accept that some readers, no matter how they love your work, will not respect you enough to pay for it.

I’d rather respond to the people whom I respect–and that includes those who may begin with a free copy, because they don’t want to risk their money on an unknown quantity, but who will do the right thing in the end, by paying for works they value–and use that paradigm to guide my future actions, even if that means losing a bit of revenue from those who don’t understand respect.

Sure–I may never get rich off writing. But then I kind of knew that to begin with.

It’s funny how so many of these adaptations of classics are becoming like Shakespeare–it’s a matter of comparing renditions, productions, and portrayals of the well-known and beloved characters, rather than seeking the definitive version.

One of the things that struck me this time was the notion of plainness and how that must have been a significant protection for women of little means at the time. If you were thrust into the role of dependent (or, of course, servant) and were attractive, then I suspect that the world would have been a dangerous place indeed. The minority of women in that situation would have been lucky enough to get a marriage offer. And in the mean time, attracting the attention of the husband or the son of the household would have led to possible rape and brutalization, as well as ruination and disgrace. In a world where women had little autonomy and almost no legal agency, they would have had to walk a very fine line indeed.

Being plain would have served as something of a shield in such situations. Presenting yourself as nondescript, and fading into the background would have been the safest option in such times, I would think. Someone who attracts neither the amorous attentions of the men nor the rivalrous resentments of the women would at least have survived in such adverse and oft-challenging circumstances. That kind of invisibility would have been an advantage in other ways as well–it would have allowed an astute observer to learn a good deal about the dynamics of the interactions and relationships between the people who had power over her finances and her life.

Indeed, I would suspect that this was what happened with the Bronte sisters: they learned much during their placements, as silent observers. Certainly, Anne’s Tenant of Wildfell Hall was apparently based on what she saw while working as a governess.

And of course, the advantages of being plain hold true today as well–though in a very different way, in a time when most people have the means at their disposal to be gorgeous and call attention to themselves. And indeed–I’ve generally found that women, regardless of shape, size, and so on, can be plain or lovely, as they choose. It’s a matter of self-presentation and confidence.

As for me, I generally chose plain. I’ve been closer to the centre of attention in the past, and frankly, I could take it or leave it–with a preference towards the leaving. It’s far more interesting to be on the sidelines. As an observer by nature, I prefer it. I like it when gazes slip over me and move on to the next person–as well as when they don’t. That reaction to my nondescript exterior, among many other factors of course, tells me something about a person.

And as regards the film–I’d say this latest Jane Eyre is worth checking out. The sense of spaces, of openness, and of ambience, is potent. The countryside feels vast, beautiful, and weighted. I also loved the impression of insularity. Such vast spaces and heavy weather meant that human society, food, warmth, and other requirements of survival kept you close to the houses, with their draughty doors, windows, and corridors. It kept you close to fires and blankets, even as the dampness penetrated the walls and radiated off the stones and brick. I felt that sense of the immediacy of nature in this version–as well as a sense of how restricted life would have been for women, confined to the sheltering spaces, in their impractical garments, and how someone like Jane would have chafed at it.

A few additional impressions:

• I felt the relationship & interactions between Jane and Rochester weren’t developed enough for my liking (i.e. many of the ongoing interactions that formed the basis of their growing connection and love for each other were not included), but they still did a really nice job of showing why Rochester might have been fascinated by Jane’s unique and fresh perspective, her self-contained and measured intelligence, and her candour in a world of pretence, affectation, and weary cynicism.
• the age difference was really striking, somehow and I had to make some effort not to be creeped out, as Jane looked about 15 or 16 in a number of the scenes.
• a few moments, when Wasikowska was sitting by the fire, she strikingly evoked some of the illustrations of Charlotte Bronte.
• loved the ambience and feel of the work–evocative and often bleak. I also loved the feeling of solitudes in the places. The sense of vast landscape and the tininess of so many of the dwellings on the face of that open countryside brought out the vulnerability of human life in that time, against seasons, and the challenges of nature.
• In one scene, Jane is ensconced in a cottage in the midst of hills and darkness, and she has a knock at the door. Though I knew the story–and so knew it wasn’t going to be some crazed axe-murderer–I still felt a touch of fear at the possibility that it could be anyone, at her door, in the middle of nowhere. The vulnerability of that situation really struck me–as did the haunting and remote nature of the context.

I suppose a few of the negatives of the film just arose from the shortcomings of doing it as a film rather than a mini-series. You can’t bring out facets of the whole motif of the madwoman in the attic as metaphor for the repressed psyche of the Victorian woman, nor the full scope of the relationship between Jane and Rochester. They still did a rather good job of establishing the fascinations and the affinities between them, however. If you’re a fan of the book, it’s a credible adaptation–definitely worth checking out.

I've redacted the person's username, under "about the author", because as far as I'm concerned, this isn't about demonizing an individual. It's about a larger issue.

In the open seas of Digital Media and the ability to self-publish, there are dangers–shoals, shallows, and hazards around the low barrier to entry. And then, there are pirates.

What would/do you do when you learn your work has been pirated?

(And yes, I’m actually asking and want to know what you think. This article isn’t a “how to deal with pirates” piece. I don’t know how. I want to hear your thoughts.)

The Background

I suspect most writers/creators out there have similar stories of hard work, scarce time, and writing/editing squeezed in whenever possible, over the long haul–4 years, in my case. This is mine:

I had the idea for Konstantin’s Gifts years ago. It arose from the notion of a man of science (based on the historical figure of Prokudin-Gorskii), traveling in a land of superstition, taking photographs that must have seemed magical in the more rural areas. As part of his entourage, this man travelled with creatures of folklore: a werewolf named Vlad, a vampire named Peter (this was my own, private joke: a werewolf named Peter would conflate the Russian “Peter and the Wolf” into one person, which I thought was funny, but maybe too obvious, so I switched it–the vampire name, Vlad, went to the wolf and Peter became the vampire), and a rusalka (a siren figure from Slavic mythology). The man of science believed that these “conditions” were all derived from viruses–diseases that could be cured. And that was the kernel of an idea that became Konstantin’s Gifts.

In part out of interest, and in part in order to research this novel, I re-enrolled in University and studied Russian History. I planned. And then I started writing. Over the past several years of law school, amid crazy schedules and commitments, I spent any little pocket of time I could find, working and revising this book. And finally, I did a “soft launch” (as I saw it called somewhere) on January 12th, on Amazon.*

Pirates!

January 20-21st, I tried a free promotion and had a few downloads as a result (reports forthcoming). On January 24th, the book apparently was uploaded by someone onto an “upload your original content onto this site” place–though unlike Wattpad, where much of the stuff seems to actually be original content, this site pretty much looks to be a piracy clearinghouse. Certainly the person who uploaded my book and has ~300+ other works up there, makes no pretence of uploading her own stuff that I can tell. All the books under her account (at least at a cursory glance) were by other people.

Including mine. With the cover art that I commissioned from the artist, and paid to license/use–with money I don’t really have (law school debt, babay! And i just got another $3000 invoice today for the bar exams I’ll be writing this summer, cause they like to gouge us on this stuff).

Now, to put this into further context, while I’ve had a few sales (which is just *so* exciting! I mean seriously!!), I haven’t yet made back even the cost of the cover art license, leave alone any of my other expenses on this book (not to mention the investment of years of time and effort). And of course, as a self-publisher, that’s all out of pocket.

My husband was totally outraged when I told him. I mean, seriously furious. He’s seen how hard I’ve worked to get this book finished and to publish it and he was just enraged that someone would do this. As for me–I’m more… ambivalent.

I also feel a bit blindsided. I naively thought people only bothered to pirate famous authors–and I’m not self-deluded enough to imagine that I’m there yet. So–I guess I was wrong. Anyone can be pirated, even if we’re indie authors, full-time students, deep in debt, who’ve paid for it all out of pocket, and most people don’t know us from Adam.

I’ll also say that it rankles to see her username under “about the author” on the account listing (since it’s supposedly an “upload your own stuff” site, any uploads are attributed to the user). I worked so hard on this book, and to see it as being “by” someone else, even just as a non-customizable part of the account setup, really felt like a blow to me. But clearly, this isn’t about trying to pass the book off as her own. She has my cover up there, and that’s got me listed as the author. She also has the author attribution in the description along with the cut and pasted back cover copy for the book from the Amazon site.

So now, I’m faced with the question: what to do?

Now, I think this is an important thing to clarify: as mentioned above, I really don’t want to demonize this person (which is why I haven’t linked to her account). On the one hand, it *is* piracy, but on the other, this is a more complex question than it used to be. It’s not about her as an individual, ultimately. It’s about the larger issue.

See, pirates these days are readers (or music lovers, film lovers, etc.). So, just as I’m not some wealthy and faceless corporation, the typical pirate is not (necessarily) some nasty, evil profiteer and thief. Sure, they obviously get a thrill out of putting the books out there for free and stickin’ it to the man (even if the man in this case happens to actually be me and other writers like me), but this is a free site–so no profits. Plus, it seems pretty clear that many pirates–including this woman–love books.

That’s the new face of piracy, these days: book lovers who either thoughtlessly or intentionally want to spread the joy by distributing the object of their love, despite a legal regime that says they can’t. Some presumably love the reputation they get, either as discerning readers, or just as someone who has lots of awesome free books for their followers, who no doubt are very appreciative.

So basically, she’s reaching my *audience* with her pirated copy of my book. She’s maybe reached some people who’d never have found out that I even existed. Maybe also some people who can’t afford to buy the book. Plus, of course, people who *wouldn’t* buy the book because they only ever download free stuff.

But yes–she has also probably reached a few people who would pay for it, if it weren’t free and so dang easy to get at. And it is easy. After all this hard work, it does kind of break my heart to see how high up on the google search this free copy of my book happens to be.

My take on the two sides of the issue:

Why I should just let it go and not report her:

• Piracy is here to stay–it’s too easy to digitally copy books and make them available, no matter the DRM (and I don’t use DRM). We need a better system that encourages legitimate use and makes it easier for people to download legitimately and compensate creators. Otherwise, it’s like a multi-headed hydra–chop off one head, and several more grow in its place.
• Given that piracy is going to happen sooner or later, maybe it’s better to appeal to people’s conscience: insert a note (which I forgot to do when I uploaded to Amazon) at the beginning or end of the book, asking readers to please buy a copy if they liked it and pointing out the amount of work I put in, and that the publication etc. was all out of pocket for me.
• Do I really want to spend time and energy hunting down pirates when both t&e are scarce commodities in my life? I’d probably be far happier using them in the service of working on other books instead. I love writing. I don’t particularly enjoy hunting pirates, telling them to take stuff down and feeling embittered, pissed off and Grinch-y. So I know the answer to which of those two courses of action would make me happier.
• I may find a few new readers–people who might be willing to show their support, if not with this book, then with the next book I write.

Why I should report it:

• I put a lot of work–and creativity–into this book. Blood, sweat, tears–the whole nine yards. It’s hard not to feel hurt, personally, by such an act–even though I know it’s not even remotely personal.
• I’d really like to make back the cost of my monetary investment at least–and preferably more than that. A bit of income would really really be welcome right now. Plus, it would be a nice recognition of all the work and thought and craft I’ve put into the book over the years. This is undercutting that. Potentially big time.
• If I want to give it away for free, shouldn’t the where’s and when’s of it be my choice?
• Legally, I have copyright in the book. The work is my property–and this distribution of it is infringing on my rights (in violation of the Bern Convention, an international treaty on copyright. The infringer is located in a signatory country).
• As mentioned above, it rankles to see this other person, who is infringing on my copyright, listed as the creator–anywhere (even if that’s not something she did intentionally).

So. What would you do? Lodge a complaint and issue a takedown, or just let it go? And why?

*I’ve blogged elsewhere about my ambivalence about KDP direct. But, after I uploaded KG to Amazon, my anal self decided I wanted to do one more pass before releasing it on Smashwords and in print. I also realised that with my current workload this would not happen until April. I was curious to experiment with how KDP affected a Fantasy-genre work, in comparison to a Romance work. So, I figured, I’ll enroll KG for one term and experiment with my two different genres, then blog about the results. Experiments still underway, but I will be reporting my results in April (or that’s the plan, at least!).

UPDATE as of Feb. 3, 2012: I posted a note on the wall of her account, explaining my situation (student, debt, self-publishing, NOT rich, etc.), and asking her to please take down the book. By evening of the same day that I posted the note, she took down the file.

Thanks everyone for your support and your comments! I’d still be curious to know what future readers/writers who are stopping by think of the piracy issue and how to deal with it.

Also: if you’re someone who uploads copyrighted content and redistributes it for free, I’d really & genuinely be interested in hearing what your justifications are for it. To clarify: I think I get why people DOWNLOAD the work. But what drives you to break the copyright and UPLOAD it, esp. if the upload is just on a free, filesharing site?

I invite you to comment, or to get in touch with me about doing an interview or a guest blog. I would be willing to publish your comments under a pseudonym, if that is your preference. If you’re interested, feel free to drop me a line, using the email address listed under my contact info.

Basically, I’d be interested in:
1) why you do it, even though you presumably know it’s illegal. What makes it worthwhile to break the law for this, esp. given that you’re distributing, not downloading, so presumably it’s not just simply “free stuff”?

2) whether, beyond what the law says, you think creators, as a result of the hard work, creativity, and craft that they have put into their works, have some “moral right” to be able to decide how their work is to be distributed (i.e. sale, give it away, license it to someone else to sell or not). If you don’t think this gives a creator a certain set of “it’s just the right thing to do” moral rights (so not the legal term of art) over their work, what is your rationale in saying the hard work/creativity etc. doesn’t matter? If you do think this gives the creator that moral right how do you reconcile that with your breaking copyright and enabling the redistribution of their work?

3) are there other ways that you justify it? What makes it okay for you to do this? Or, do you think it’s not okay, but do it anyway–in which case, what does motivate you (acquisition of friends and admirers; cachet, etc.)?

I’m trying to understand what it is that motivates people who upload works.

I was recently drawn in by the fantastically slick film trailer for “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”:

I seriously love this piece at so many levels. The editing, the saturation–and most particularly the way in which the music and the images/text pulse together, such that the music is closely integrated with the visuals and adds the sense of an implacable, sinister escalation of tension and danger. Wonderfully done (so good that it will no doubt be cliche within a year or two).

It actually got us out of our comfortable, on-demand film-viewing chairs and into the movie theatre–a not inconsiderable feat (esp. considering that you can’t pause films in the theatre, the popcorn is absurdly pricey, and we always seem to get stuck in front of a pair of Whispering Demons who are under some mysterious obligation to provide a running commentary during the film).

But out we went–and discovered that the actual film is rather different to what the trailer implied.

Make no mistake: it’s an excellent film, dealing with themes of moral ambiguity and steeped in a hauntingly bleak ambiance. It portrays the creaky juggernaut that is international espionage in the late 60s and early 70s–a world as treacherous and dangerous as it is methodical and plodding. The plot is somewhat intricate (neither of us had read the book), and requires that one pay close attention to the cast of characters and intrigues (I only ended up missing one connection in the logic of the narrative, and felt pretty good about that) and though there are moments of tension–because there is much at stake–there are never James Bond-type action sequences or gadgets. Indeed, this film evokes the inverse of Yeats’s line, “that is no country for old men”. Those who enter this country of moral torpor, quick betrayal, mixed allegiances, grey weariness, and an odd sort of collegial courtesy, become old quickly. They stay, because this is what they’re good at.

Smiley, the protagonist, is as memorable for his sharp intelligence, dogged meticulousness and his ability to make the right connections, as he is for his weary, near-empty implacability. He’s a man with few illusions about the moral superiority of the side he’s on, and this has drained him and made him into a grey figure of repressed grief. The fact that he stays with his wife despite her shenanigans, becomes emblematic of his feelings about his country and his work. He stays in the biz out of a love and loyalty that persists despite knowing its deep-running flaws and imperfections–and also perhaps because he doesn’t believe there’s anything better out there.

There is also a wonderful centrepiece of a scene that for me was worth the cost of admission, in which Smiley recounts, while drunk, a long-ago encounter with an adversary. Beautifully, breathlessly bleak, and so well wrought (conceived, written, lit, acted, filmed) as to unlock insights which illuminate the rest of the film.

So, this made me ask myself: how does all this reflect on the trailer? That fantastic and stylish piece of cutting, editing, and synchronization ultimately promised something rather different to what the film happened to be (for one thing, I probably would have waited to watch it at home if I’d known what the film really was like). The large brushstrokes were accurate, but the details of presentation, tone, feel–they were all rather different and created different expectations. This seems problematic.

One mitigating question is whether the same target audience would like both works–which would at least mean that the trailer would capture the attention of people who would want to know of such a film and see it. They’re both cerebral and stylish, but with a different sense of pacing and a very different ambiance to each other.

As well, if it packs people in to see it (or rent it, etc.) then should the hook matter? I’d say, yes. Given that even going to a film with certain expectations and then discovering it’s rather different–in other words, something you’d enjoy if you were in the right mood for it, but as it happens you weren’t–can backfire. A taut espionage thriller is promised, but a moody, intricate, engaging but rather slow-moving espionage drama is what gets delivered.

Something I’ve been thinking about, as I contemplate my approach to my book trailer. How to capture the tone I’m seeking, that will not only find the right audience, but also evoke the right feel? A work in progress–though for now still just in the back of my mind.

I’ll end with another example of the importance of branding–and a fantastic piece of trailer art. You may have already seen it–it basically re-cuts the trailer for “The Shining” as a touching, romantic comedy. Check it out:

“My Winnipeg” is one of those movies that makes you feel an elusive, underlying sense of sadness and poignancy, even as you laugh at the humour and absurdity of the imagery. It’s not a particularly coherent narrative, but is also quite wonderful in the imagined history and fantastical mythologies it builds around Winnipeg. If you’re an art film type, it’s definitely worth checking out.

My kind of show. I love geeky premises that involve the application some specialized skills that others don’t have and require the characters to think through the problem before acting upon it. I also love it when a show sets itself the challenge of being bound by certain concepts or principles that have to be obeyed as part of the crime solving process.

Except it rarely works that way. Numb3rs is a case in point. To disclaim: I’m not a math person. Nonetheless, even I had a bit of a problem with the solution to the pilot (warning: spoilers in the next two paragraphs. Skip them if you don’t want to know specifics about the pilot).

The approach to tracking down the serial killer involved looking at the seemingly random areas where the victims were picked up. The sleuths assumed that because he chose those areas, they probably weren’t random at all, but were about avoiding getting too close to where he lived, on the no defecating in bed principle. So, they plotted a likeliest area where said killer might sleep, based on the scatter points on the map. This allowed them to detect a false data point. They also made the necessary queries and performed the requisite stalker-DNA tests, but when these turned up nothing, the math whiz re-ran the numbers with the same data points, on the basis of two points of origin rather than one (home and work, rather than home). The workplace was added to the data already in place about the likely residential area and they continued searching.

Even as a non-mathy type, I felt like this required some explanation. Surely if you’re looking at the same data points, and you run them through a calculation based on one point of origin, and then another calculation based on two points of origin, you’d end up with three different spots? My husband seemed to feel this was problematic as well (he’s more of a math type and has a fascinating affinity for numbers) and had a few other issues with the mathy stuff.

[/spoilers]

It made me think: should I just suspend disbelief and substitute the word “magic” for “math” in shows like this, or should I feel annoyed that they promised some actual science as part of the show’s premise, but then didn’t abide by its principles?

See, I don’t care about realism if it’s fake science. Anyone who feels that the flux capacitor or Trek tech should be based on actual science rather than sciency sounding sleight of hand may be missing the point. In those shows, the implausible device or plot enabler is about allowing them to get on with the story (e.g. the transporter beam, which allows the plot to keep moving rather than requiring many hours’ passage between finding a planet and the away team arriving on the surface, as well as other made up tech that gets around other cumbersome “how do we get them there?” questions).

That doesn’t bother me so long as there are consistently applied limitations on the device that allows for it to traverse some otherwise difficult gap in logistics while not becoming a deus ex machina of infinite power.

BUT, if a show takes on an actual science as the enabling paradigm, should it stick to its principles?

I’m less decided on that. In many instances, if the show is original, well-plotted and otherwise tight, I’m inclined to grant it a little–or a lot of–latitude on the science side of things. For instance, I found the first season of “Prison Break” compelling (the subsequent seasons were okay. As well, after S1, it was less about Michael as civil engineer, and more about Michael as a chessmaster type who is engineering and planning their next moves in a series of intractable-seeming puzzle-traps).

But in S1, civil/structural engineering was the “magic”. The science of it was often patently absurd. A quick example is the episode where Michael uses his tattoo of a devil’s head, traced on paper, and then projected against a particular wall, to drill holes in the wall, while missing pipes that could cause catastrophic explosions. But, there seems to be no notation about how large the projection needs to be, so the pipes and correct drill points could be anywhere on the wall. Nonetheless, it was a compelling episode with lots of tension and many closeups of Michael looking all cerebral and intense–so who gives a crap about how big the projection needs to be?!

The law shows are sort of similar. There, it’s not science, but a set of principles and ideas crafted by humans–given that, the law as magic (i.e. unexplained, task-specific, problem-solver) isn’t as bothersome. It doesn’t feel too crazy that by scouring the case law, the character might find the precise case they need in order to win a fantastic victory for their client. For the show to be good (rather than the obscure case basically being the deus ex machina), the lawyer will still have to think through some genuinely clever application of the principles or do something similarly cool with the made up information.

That usually works for me. Plus, it’s also not too far from reality. Even in law school and as a summer student (as opposed to actual practice), I’ll have been doing long searches, scouring the case law to look for something that will support or advance our position, and have stumbled upon just the right thing, or even some other case that undermines some other part of the other side’s position. It’s an exciting moment, and not unlike the television version, where the escalating and percussive musical cues start and the character gets all agitated and ready to burst into court with an eleventh hour breakthrough (though obviously that last part never happens).

Then there are the in-between-y shows like The Mentalist, Sherlock (the new BBC tv series–not the film), and Talk to Me. Here, the keen observation skills of the main character, and their abilities to draw accurate inferences from what they see, allows for the cracking of the case. Many of the inferences are dubious at best (e.g. Sherlock deduces from the ways in which Watson’s phone is damaged that whoever gave it to Watson was an alcoholic. The kind of damage around the charger input on the phone that he uses for making his inference doesn’t lead to the inevitable conclusion that the person is habitually drunk. I don’t really drink, but have scratches around there because the input plugs are often annoying and finicky and I’m often thinking of other things while I’m plugging in so I miss the teeny tiny connector sometimes).

But, in those cases, perhaps we can make allowances for the idea that there’s more at work than just the stated inferences. If the person is exceptionally observant and intuitive, maybe other inferences they’ve made, that they aren’t even in a position to articulate, allow for such conclusions. Possible.

So–what about those shows where it’s supposed to be science–and the consistency of scientific principle and paradigm–that’s the key which unlocks the correct answers? Are the creators setting themselves an unreasonably high standard, if they wish to sustain a lengthy series in which math solves crimes? Or are they assuming that there’s the same kind of viewer complicity I’ve mentioned above–”we’ll give you math-like trappings and an entertaining show if you’ll agree not to examine the actual math too closely.”

Maybe the episode just wasn’t compelling enough to allow me to shrug off the inconsistencies (too much sleight of hand and not enough plot twists or shots of Michael Scofield looking intense). All the same, in such shows, the science seems to me to be part of the fundamental premise. I’ll give Numb3rs another chance, but now they’ve awakened my critical faculties, and that’s never a good sign.

“Everything is mathematics” says the math whiz brother several times in the episode. It feels like a promise. So then, why does his math look an awful lot like magic instead?

(Note: This applies to books as well–and by extension, to plotting and working out logistics at the story planning stage. These are questions to ask yourself when you’re thinking about how characters in your stories are going to Get Things Done, esp. if you’re writing thrillers/suspense involving expert knowledge on the part of your protag, or speculative fiction that involves special technologies or abilities.)