Piracy Concerns Rise In Online Book Market
Online books have gained a lot of popularity in the past 2 years. But as an unintended consequence of this popularity, piracy of eBooks has also risen.
Electronic editions of books have been available online forquite a while now, with the first ones appearing around 1994, when the internetwas just starting to be used by individuals rather than scientists and businesspeople.Over the years, they have become much more popular, when increased useof the PDF format came into existence and then with the launch of e-readerdevices such as the Amazon Kindle.People can now purchase and download millionsof books in electronic format, such as romance books.However, the growingpopularity of online books has also meant that they are increasingly appearingon piracy websites such as torrent sites.A recent report by Actua Litte shedsome light on the eBook piracy phenomenon.It may not come as much of a surprisethat out of the top ten pirated eBooks shared on torrent websites, 5 of themare erotic books.The Kama Sutra is in first place.This is not reallysurprising, as erotic content has always been among the top for piratedmaterials online.But the question that remains is, what can online publishersof erotic books do to reduce piracy and increase legitimate sales?There are afew things that can help.The first thing would be to price the eBooks in asensible way.Many online books are available at low prices under $5, howeversome are more expensive and could cost more than $50.The lower the price, theless likely someone is going to deploy the additional effort required to digthrough underground forums and torrent sites in an effort to get the book forfree.Offering multiple payment options is also recommended.Some online usersmay not have access to a credit card or wouldnt want to use theirs to buyerotic material, so offering payment by an electronic wallet system such asPayPal or Moneybookers could be a solution.Since eBooks typically cost only afew dollars, mobile phone micropayment systems are also a good choice forbilling.For membership sites, it is advisable to steer clear of deceptivebilling practices such as offering free access to your website for 2 days andthen billing the user a large amount such as $49.99 per month if they dontcancel before the time runs out.These practices have given the adult industry abad reputation among some users and are some of the reasons as to why manyusers are unwilling to use their credit card online for erotic material andturn to underground piracy sites instead.Lastly, it is always a good idea for apublisher to include a link to their website as well as an advertisement on thelast page of the eBook encouraging the user to visit it for more eBooks.Even ifsomeone has a pirate copy of one of your booksFree Articles, they may be drawnto visit your website and then purchase another book if they like yourselection and it is well priced.
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