Novelist Paulo Coelho finds the perfect alchemy of print & digital
Dear friends,
Paulo Coelho certainly has nothing against selling books. He has sold an astounding 100m copies of his novels, writes Jeff Jarvis.
But he also believes in giving them away. He is a pirate. Coelho discovered the power of free when a fan posted a Russian translation of one of his novels online and book sales there climbed from 3,000 to 100,000 to 1m in three years. "This happened in English, in Norwegian, in Japanese and Serbian," he said. "Now when the book is released in hard copy, the sales are spectacular."
So Coelho started linking to pirated versions of his books from his own website. But when he bragged about this at the Burda Digital Lifestyle Design conference in Munich last January, he got in trouble with his US publisher, HarperCollins, whose then head, Jane Friedman, called him.
Friedman had caught Coelho red-handed - one of the supposedly unauthorised versions he linked to had the author's own notes in it. "She said, 'Paulo, come on, don't shit me'." He was pirating himself. So they reached a compromise: each month, a different Coelho novel can be read for free in the publisher's online reader, which prevents making pirated copies. Meanwhile Coelho is off to new digital frontiers. He Twitters. He blogs and enjoys exploring a different kind of writing online. "I think your language for your blog is totally different from your language in the Guardian, right? So we have to adapt ourselves. I have a lot of fun doing this."
Please read a full interview with Paulo Coelho: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2008/08/novelist_paul_coelho_finds_the.html
Have a great day!
Peace and Love
Aart Hilal
(read less)
Paulo Coelho certainly has nothing against selling books. He has sold an astounding 100m copies of his novels, writes Jeff Jarvis.
But he also believes in giving them away. He is a pirate. Coelho discovered the power of free when a fan posted a Russian translation of one of his novels online and book sales there climbed from 3,000 to 100,000 to 1m in three years. "This happened in English, in Norwegian, in Japanese and Serbian," he said. "Now when the book is released in hard copy, the sales are spectacular."
So Coelho started linking to pirated versions of his books from his own website. But when he bragged about this at the Burda Digital Lifestyle Design conference in Munich last January, he got in trouble with his US publisher, HarperCollins, whose then head, Jane Friedman, called him.
Friedman had caught Coelho red-handed - one of the supposedly unauthorised versions he linked to had the author's own notes in it. "She said, 'Paulo, come on, don't shit me'." He was pirating himself. So they reached a compromise: each month, a different Coelho novel can be read for free in the publisher's online reader, which prevents making pirated copies. Meanwhile Coelho is off to new digital frontiers. He Twitters. He blogs and enjoys exploring a different kind of writing online. "I think your language for your blog is totally different from your language in the Guardian, right? So we have to adapt ourselves. I have a lot of fun doing this."
Please read a full interview with Paulo Coelho: http://blogs.guardian.co.u
Have a great day!
Peace and Love
Aart Hilal
(read less)
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