Ebook Piratey: How Do You Protect Your Ebook? -

Updated: Oct 5, 2022

You may have spent many months, or even years, on your ebook. After that, you've put it out to great joy, into the world. There have been some sales ... although maybe not as many as you'd have liked.

Then, a couple of days later, you type in the title of your book in hopes of finding a review or even tweets regarding the book. To your delight, it turns up on websites which allow you to download the book for no cost.

Your eBook is stolen. All your hard effort is now being offered to any person who goes on a questionable web site.

This can be a very difficult time for any author. The first reaction, naturally most likely to be to figure out how to shut down the pirates. You may be worried about the fact that the information you've obtained is only the beginning of the Iceberg.

But what do you need to take care of it? (And are you really required to take any action at all?) This is everything you should know about the importance of protecting your book.

What exactly is Ebook Piracy?

Piracy of your book is released without your consent.

It may take on a variety of types:

• The buyer of the book then shares it with contacts or friends. This may be accidental (they aren't aware that they shouldn't share it) or perhaps even intentionally.
• The ebook you've created is uploaded to the internet to allow people to download. This is what writers are often thinking of when they think of the possibility of pirated eBooks. There are numerous websites that are available on the web, however (as we'll see further!) they can often boast that they have an ebook available when they really aren't.
• Your book has been distributed by another person ... without or without your permission. They're taking all the revenue. It's not as frequent as other kinds of piracy, but this has been confirmed to be the case.

Different Types of Ebook Theft

A related problem is people copying work from you to pass it off as their own work. It's not what people consider to be "piracy" however it could be extremely damaging. Also, it is a illegal act since it infringes on your copyright.

There is also the possibility that you copy a portion of your work and then incorporates the content into their own with or without permission from you and not citing your source. This is considered plagiarism.

If you are in the event of any of these scenarios, you do have legal protections. You may find however it's not necessary to go that in the way you would like to. Just telling them to get off their feet and threaten legal action might be enough.

Fighting Ebook Piracy With DRM (Digital Rights Management)

What can you do to stop the piracy of ebooks?

A popular option is to use DRM (Digital Rights Management) devices to safeguard your data. There are several methods to achieve this, for instance to stop the users from sharing or forwarding your ebook.

This can certainly deter piracy. This can be particularly helpful in stopping individuals from purchasing your book or forwarding your book to their friends.

The drawbacks of DRM

Sadly, DRM isn't bulletproof. determined pirates can overcome it one way or another. Whatever your eBook's security is in place, nothing can prevent someone from reading it on one device , then transferring it on another. It's a lengthy process which is the reason why pirates won't be bothered.

Another issue with DRM is that it may make life harder for your customersas well as other groups that are against DRM due to this reason, like the group called Defective By Design. The legitimate customers who've purchased the ebook might find it harder to get access to and to read the book as they would like to. It's not something you'd want to see happen since it could turn them off from buying your products later on.

Hugh Howey, a bestselling self-published author of science fiction, describes his approach to DRM according to the following:

I was hoping that it was as simple as hell for other people to read my book. This meant that I would never put DRM on my e-books. The protection offered through digital rights management, which makes it difficult to change the content of my books and duplicate them in other places and other. I was hoping to show respect to my customers rather than worrying about the theft of my work.

Utilizing DRM for Social DRM

Social DRM is a method that permits customers to have the book printed or watermarked using data such as email address and the date of purchasing. It can be accomplished for PDF documents. This won't affect negatively users but might deter the use of piracy (as it's clear that the person who downloaded the file).

How can I ensure the safety of my work?

A simple way to make piracy harder - again and without impacting your customers by any means is to limit how many times your ebook can be downloaded by the customer.

Additionally, it prevents users from sharing their download link to others.

It's best practice to allow users to download the book at minimum three times. If you let them download the ebook once, it could cause difficulties if they fail to save the downloaded file or perhaps if they want to download it onto several different devices (instead of copying it across).

An ideal compromise between meeting the reader's needs and preventing pirates from downloading is to set a limit of 5 downloadings. This is the norm when using .

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How to Handle a Situation when someone steals your Ebook

So what can you do when an individual gives away your book without allowing you to earn any income?

If someone pirates your work You can:

• Contact them (if the website has contacts). In some instances, asking the pirates to take down your ebook could be sufficient. They could not care about any hassle with you in the future.
• Problem Send a DMCA note to your web hosting provider (you can locate this information on whois.net). DMCA is sometimes also referred to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. There's no formula specific to use for the DMCA Notice of Takedown, but it must contain specific elements.

It is possible to find email templates to use within the Google Doc, when it comes to reaching out to pirates directly, or for issuing the DMCA notice.

How to Know if Your eBook is being pirated

Occasionally, authors find out about an illegal ebook when an unhappy customer contacts the author to inform them.

However, most pirates won't be disclosed to the author. If you'd like to find the extent to which your book is being copied, there are several choices:

1. Look up your book's ISBN on Google

The title of your book along with"download "download" on Google and then see what appears on the screen. You may find sites that have or are claiming to have! - your book available.

Be aware of what you are clicking on ensure that you're using an effective antivirus program and in use to safeguard you. A lot of pirate websites will be full of questionable advertisements or even worse.

2. Set up Google Alerts

It's possible to create Google Alerts to keep track of the times when your work and you appear on websites. This is a excellent way to stay up to date with recent critiques or discussions of your book - it can also let you find the degree to which your work is being pirated.

3. Utilize devices like Mention.com

Mention.com works similarly to Google Alerts. It comes with advanced features, like the ability to get daily reports, as well as being able to receive email notifications if there is an unexpected rise in the number of people who mention the name of your book or your author.

Frequently asked questions

Below are a list of questions people frequently ask regarding book piracy:

Do I Need to Copyright My Ebook?

No. In most countries, the book will be copyrighted automatically once you've completed it. You don't need to do anything to make it copyright. A majority of authors place an explicit copyright notice at the start or end the text. However, this isn't a requirement.

There's a website which offers my book for the downloading ... But is it really a legitimate source for the book?

The majority of times, it's no! There are many websites offering ebooks as a no cost download but do not provide these ebooks. They instead, as Dave Chesson explains the purpose of these sites is to convince customers to buy a subscription to their site ..., or they're trying to spread malware and viruses.

Do I really need to devote my energy trying to stop Piracy?

If you're just starting out as a writer ... most likely not. You could spend the whole the day trying to thwart the pirates. This might not affect your book sales at all.

For instance, this report is from the Alliance of Independent Authors provides:

"Chasing off pirates who likely aren't infringing on your copyrights or hindering the business's profits isn't efficient. This is time and effort that could be more efficiently spent in editing, writing, revising your marketing strategies, polishing your book's description or hundreds of other tasks that add in a way that is more significant to your prosperity."

The one instance where it may be sensible to take on illegality of books is when it's dominating the results of a search. If pirates' sites appear to rank highly on Google when it comes to situations like the case Tim Grahl's shared and you're interested, then it's time to address the issue:

"My author friend was in an instance where the third result in Google for the book's title was a website from a different country that allowed you to download the PDF of the book without cost."

Do I need to be concerned about Ebook Piracy?

Additionally, if you're an author in the making, it's likely not. Being obscure is higher for authors. If their books are out there but they aren't available for purchase.

Some people even think that the market for piracy could benefit authors as it opens your work in front of a lot greater people ... one who could become paid customers.

If you're a seasoned writer, however, you may find that piracy is harming the sales of your books. YA author Maggie Stiefvater wrote about her experience on her Facebook page on the Facebook page and explained how printing sales of her third volume in her trilogy did much better than the ebooks. She also explained the impact that pirated books had on the following installment in the book series.

Then , the publisher informed me they would be cutting the print run of The Raven King to less than half the printing run of Blue Lily, Lily Blue. It's not a problem, remember I was told by them, however the statistics in Blue Lily didn't make sense to print any more copies.

Maggie Stiefvater was able demonstrate that pirated copies hurt sales by publishing a pirated version of the book's fourth edition, which comprised just four of the initial chapters of the book repeated. The print run been sold out, and the book sales have been soaring (until authentic copies of the book started getting pirated).

The writer Elizabeth Lennox related a similar experience with piracy resulting the obvious decline in the sales of her book:

In one instance, I saw that my sales had been cut in half. I was shocked. It was difficult to figure out what was happening until my husband told me the book was on websites that were pirated. After that, we got an attorney to send removal notices. After that, the sales began to rise up.

In the end, book theft won't go disappearing. You have to decide whether it's worth fighting it or not. In the majority of writers who are new to the industry, it would better be to focus the efforts you put into marketing your ebook ... and as and creating your following.

If you're seeing a dramatic decrease in sales it's not clear why or whether the pirate websites appear high in Google in search results for the name of the book you wrote or your authors name Then it's an appropriate time to address the issue. The sending out of DMCA notices is the most effective method to address the issue Make sure you download DMCA templates that are easy to utilize from this Google Doc.

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