We’ve seen this before, with individual authors like Paulo Coelho and David Pogue, who both found that as more people were able to get unauthorized copies of their ebooks, their sales actually increased. So, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, but some new research looking at the impact on sales of unauthorized files getting out found a “significant jump in sales” (found via Michael Scott):
Brian O’Leary discussed his firm’s research on the effect on sales when a title finds its way into an unsanctioned online market. The findings — a significant jump in sales — have surprised many in the business.
To be fair, he does go on to say this doesn’t mean just “don’t worry about” unauthorized access. Instead, he says it’s important to figure out what kind of unauthorized access helps sales and what kind hurts — and that still needs to be studied. But, the early results certainly suggest that the stuff that helps quite often outweighs the stuff that hurts (sometimes by quite a bit).
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