Books and Loss Leaders

In the world of marketing, there's a concept known as a Loss Leader. It's an item that is discounted so deeply that the vendor isn't earning much - if anything - on the sale and could, in fact, be losing money on it. The reason that vendors do this is to entice people into the store and once they're there, they will perhaps purchase additional items that will more than make up for the income lost on the sale item - hence the term "loss leader".

My book, Ricochet, never quite took off though it received glowing reviews. I believe (through pure speculation) that it was due to two books being released about the same time with the same or similar titles: Sandra Brown's Ricochet, which rose quickly to the New York Times bestseller list, and Sue Grafton's R is for Ricochet. This occurred despite the fact that the title was registered with Bowker a full year in advance. And if you search for Ricochet on amazon without the author name, five pages of results are displayed.

So the publisher decided to turn the Kindle edition into a Loss Leader by offering it exclusively on amazon and enrolling it in amazon's Kindle Select program, in which readers enrolled in the Select program can read it for free and presumably the author and publisher still earn income from the experience.

The theory is by offering this one book at a deeply discounted rate (free for readers enrolled) readers will like what they read and return for more of my books which were not deeply discounted.

The gamble has been paying off. Usually around 800 copies of Ricochet are downloaded each month and sales of my other books have increased. Though it's difficult to tell how much the loss leader has to do with it, as advertising, marketing and promotional efforts are also underway, it was deemed a success.

However, last month the book was removed from the Select program. The reason: authors began reporting that once the book was downloaded for free, hackers could easily replicate it and offer it for sale on other sites. And one stipulation for being in the Select program is to agree not to sell the book anywhere except amazon. Once amazon saw the book on other sites (presumably because someone reported it) they were not only removing that book from their website but every book the author or publisher had listed.

So before this happened to me, the book was pulled from the Select program.

I have noticed for years that my books are offered on unscrupulous websites where the books were copied without the permission of the publisher or myself. Each time, the publisher has notified ICANN, who investigates. In every case that was researched, the file also contained malicious software that could infiltrate the reader's computer and retrieve their passwords and sensitive information.

Loss Leaders can be done without being enrolled in the Select program, however, simply by discounting it below the other books. Ricochet continues to remain in the Loss Leader category because while the rest of my Kindle or eBooks are priced at $6.99, Ricochet is priced at only $2.99.

How much does price impact whether you purchase a book?

Free eBooks

Yesterday I was discussing a great book I'd read with a friend of mine, highly encouraging her to read it. It had been on the New York Times bestseller list in 1996, but let's face it: some books are great regardless of their initial release dates.

My friend turned to her mobile device, entered only a few keystrokes and the book instantly appeared on her screen.

"How did you do that so quickly?" I asked.

She explained that she entered "pdf" followed by the book title in a Google search engine (though any search engine would do). Up popped a website where the book had been converted to a PDF file, and with one click, she was able to read it for free in its entirety.

As you can imagine, I saw every color of the rainbow with this revelation. Authors, publishers and book stores (online or brick-and-mortar) do not get paid when a book is given away for free. And any book released over the last fifty years should be assumed to be copyrighted, unless the copyright holder has allowed it to lapse.

Later, I got out my iPad and began searching for my own book titles, followed by "pdf" in the search box. Sure enough, there were my earliest works - works that are still copyrighted, I hold the copyright, and yet there they were free for the taking.

Before I began writing full-time, I worked in the computer field. My specialties were computer crimes and computer intelligence. So I began investigating.

It didn't take long before I discovered that 100% of the websites offering my books for free were located in Russia, the Eastern Bloc (particularly the Ukraine), China and other countries that do not abide by U.S. laws. But that was not all that I found.

I discovered each of the files I investigated contained malicious software code - viruses, worms, trojans and bots.

The viruses could wreak havoc with any computer downloading the file. It can easily destroy information, overwrite legitimate files with malicious files, and propagate itself continuously, eventually making the computer unusable.

The worms were similar to the viruses, but they latched onto other legitimate software, extracting information from the software - information you don't want to share, such as user names and passwords and personal data.

The PDF files themselves are trojans. Trojans get their name from the method the Greeks used to infiltrate Troy's defenses - by delivering a trojan horse that contained warriors inside. The file looks legitimate - it appears to be an exact copy of a book, page by page - but it contains malicious software that, while the reader is reading away, it is busy extracting files, looking for passwords and personal data, and uploading the information to host computers halfway around the world.

In other words, it is stealing your identity, bit by bit.

A fourth malicious software I detected were bots. Bots got their name from robots, morphed into webbots, and finally simply called bots. They perform functions that humans normally would, but at lightning speed. For example, it could be labor intensive for a person to try and infiltrate another's computer and copy each of their email addresses out of their address books. But with a program to do it for them, while the reader is reading away, the bot is working in the background to extract each of the website addresses, which in turn serves as a server to send spam around the world. It can take mere seconds to accomplish.

Some of the files contained all four types of malicious software.

Are there really legitimate websites that allow a person to download a book for free, or are they all frauds?

There are legitimate websites. Before using a website, and most particularly before clicking on a link or downloading a file, check to see where the website is registered. It's a dead giveaway that the site is not legitimate if it's offering free books by U.S. authors out of the Ukraine or Russia. In one instance, I even found my books offered for free out of Australia - but the website was linked to others in China.

Second, look at the date the book was originally released. There are some books that are considered classics that were never copyrighted and are now in the public domain. In the United States, any work published prior to 1923 is considered in the public domain. If the author and/or publisher is located outside the United States, you must refer to that country's copyright law.

If the work was published between 1923 and 1963, the copyright had to be renewed every 28 years (U.S. law). A book that has had continued protection would list each of the copyright dates in the front matter. Each book had to contain the proper copyright notice and the copyright holder had to formally register it.

From 1964 through 1989, copyrighted books were deemed protected into the infinite future - meaning once it was copyrighted, it would always be considered copyrighted. The copyright holder had to complete formal copyright paperwork and the copyright notice had to be included in each book.

However, after March 1, 1989, copyright laws changed in the United States. Once the author puts pen to paper (or types the document), it is considered copyrighted. It does not need a formal copyright notice nor does it require formal copyright paperwork, though both are recommended to prevent the assumption that it is in the public domain. Works published after this date are copyrighted and protected throughout the life of the copyright holder (deemed to be the author unless otherwise noted) plus 70 years.

What does all this mean to you?

It means if you are downloading a free PDF copy of a book from an unknown source through the Internet, chances are the website is violating copyright laws - unless the book is considered in the public domain - meaning it was never copyrighted, is an old book whose copyright has expired, and was certainly released prior to 1964.

The only exception to this is if the copyright holder signed an agreement with the website to offer the work for free, which some authors do through legitimate sites - amazon, for example, often offers free eBooks because the copyright owner elected to allow readers to download it at no charge.

It also means if you're looking to get something for nothing, you might have just downloaded more than you bargained for.

Thursday Thoughts

Have you ever wondered how the copyright of your material is handled in a global market? Consider, for example, an American author who copyrights their work through the United States Government. If the book is for sale in Europe, Asia, or across the globe, is it still protected?

Fortunately, the Berne Convention has addressed this issue. Unfortunately, not all countries are included in it.

The Berne Convention was first accepted in 1886 and has received a number of modifications over the years. The United States, however, only joined in 1988. The intent of this agreement is to honor the copyright of works copyrighted in other countries as if they had been copyrighted in your own. For example, France would honor the United States copyright of a book as if it had been copyrighted in France.

Things can get sticky when a book is simultaneously copyrighted in several countries. The country with the shortest copyright duration has precedence so if one country copyrights the work for seven years and another for five years, the copyright will lapse after five years. The standard, however, is fifty years after the author's death - but if a shorter duration applies, the law can not extend the copyright in one area and allow it to lapse in another, which means the shorter duration will always take precedence.

Books originally uploaded to the Internet (eBooks that are in no other format) are still in a gray zone; there are several court cases being decided now regarding if and how copyrights are protected in these cases.

There are currently 165 countries who honor the Berne Convention. There are roughly 196 countries in the world today - "roughly" because some countries are accepted by some on the international stage and not by others. Though China is one of the countries who have agreed to abide by it, I've found it interesting in recent years to find my books available throughout China - even though they are not legally for sale there.

With the proliferation of small publishers and global accessibility, it makes sense to research your rights wherever your book is sold.