With a nod to GalleyCat’s unofficial Piracy Week, bestselling novelist Tess Gerritsen did some investigative reporting about how many copies of her books are currently being pirated. Gerritsen (pictured, via) wrote a long post about her pirated work.
Here is her report: “[I] checked out how many Tess Gerritsen books were available for free downloading. I found over ninety files available, in a variety of languages, including the entire Jane Rizzoli series. The site tells you how many times the files have been downloaded, and at least 4,000 copies in English have been downloaded. That’s 4,000 book sales I never made. And that’s just the English titles, on just one site. Were I to track down every site on the web that offers free downloads of my books, I’m guessing the number would be many times that number. Thousands and thousands of book sales that never happened because readers got the stories for free.”
What do you think? Include your thoughts in the comments section for a future post. Earlier this week, we posted four perspectives on book piracy, as authors, publishers, and researchers weighed in on the global marketplace for pirated books.