Ebook Piratey: How Do You Secure Your Ebook? -

Latest Update: 5 October 2022

You've spent months, maybe years, working on the ebook. After that, you've released the book, to huge excitement, to the world. There have been a few sales ... however, perhaps not quite so many as you'd have liked.

And then, in the morning, you search the name of your novel hoping you'll find review or twitter posts about it. To your dismay, however, there are websites offering the book for free.

Your eBook was stolen. All your hard effort is now being offered for free on a dodgy-looking web site.

It's an emotional time for every author. Naturally, your first reaction is to work out how you can stop the pirates. You may well be worried that the listing that you've located could be the tip of the Iceberg.

What can you take to fix it? (And do you really need to act at all?) This article will let you understand how you can protect your eBook.

What is Ebook Piracy?

The book you wrote is not released without your consent.

It comes in various forms:

• The person who purchases the ebook shares the ebook with friends or contacts. This may be accidentally (they do not realize that they shouldn't do this) or maybe even in a deliberate way.
• Your ebook has been posted on an online platform available for others to read and download. This is what the majority of authors are thinking about when they consider pirated ebooks. There are a myriad of websites available on the internet however (as we'll discover in the future!) websites often claim they've published an ebook when they do not.
• Your ebook is being offered for sale by an individual ... with your consent. They're taking all the proceeds. This isn't as prevalent like other types of piracy, but it's been reported to be a possibility.

Different Types of Ebook Theft

Another problem is using your work and making it appear as the work of someone else. This isn't exactly what people describe as "piracy" however, it may cause a lot of damage. It's also against law as it's an infringement of copyright.

Also, there is the chance that someone copies part of your work and then incorporates the work into their own, with no permission from you and without even naming your name as the person who created it. This constitutes copying.

However, there are legal safeguards. You may find it, however, that you will not have to do it to the extent. Simply telling people to cease and threaten legal action could be enough.

Combat Ebook Piratey with DRM (Digital Rights Management)

What can you do to prevent ebook piracy?

Another option that is popular is using DRM (Digital Rights Management) tools to protect your files. There are many options to do this by preventing people from sending or sharing ebooks.

It can definitely discourage pirates. It's especially effective in preventing people from buying the book, and then discussing it with their family and friends.

DRM's negatives and drawbacks

Unfortunately, DRM isn't bulletproof. Determined pirates can get over it in one manner or another. Whatever your eBook's security is it's not going to prevent someone from reading it in one place and then retyping identical information on another. Naturally, this would be a time-consuming process - so most pirates simply don't bother.

A major issue associated with DRM is the fact that it can cause a number of issues to the users(and there exist groups who oppose DRM for reasons that include DBD. The customers who purchased your book might find it difficult to obtain and use it as they would like to. This is not something you like to be doing, since it could easily turn them off from buying with you again in the near future.

Hugh Howey, a bestselling self-published author of science fiction, describes his approach to DRM in this way:

I was hoping that it would be as simple to allow other users to access my work. This meant that I would never put DRM on my books. It is the security provided through digital rights management, which means it is difficult to convert my work and distribute them across other sites, and all that. I was hoping to give an incentive to the purchasers, not worry about the theft.

Utilizing DRM to support Social DRM

Social DRM is the process which allows users to get their ebook stamped or watermarked by identifying details such as email address, as well as the dates of purchase. This is possible with PDF documents. This doesn't adversely affect users or their privacy, but it could stop pirates (as it's obvious who is uploading the files).

What other steps can I take to safeguard my Work?

An easy way to make pirates' lives harder without negatively impacting customers is to limit how many instances your book can be downloaded by a customer.

This prevents people from sharing their download links to anyone else.

It is suggested to allow readers download the ebook at minimum three times. If you only let them download the file once, this could cause issues in the event that they delete the downloaded file, or even if they wish to download it onto several different devices (instead of simply copying it across).

The best compromise between meeting the reader's needs and preventing the spreading of piracy is to set the limit on downloads to five. This is the normal practice when using .

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What to Do if you are the victim of pirated Ebook

What do you do when someone is giving an ebook gratis, and will not earn you any money?

If you are victimized by a copycat You can:

• Make contact with them (if they have contact numbers). In some cases, simply asking the pirates to take down your eBook may be enough. They might not wish to deal with you any more.
• Make an DMCA notice to the website hosting service (you are able to find the information on whois.net). DMCA is sometimes referred to as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. There's no set formula to create a DMCA notification of removal, however it does need to include certain elements.

There are emails templates that you can utilize inside the following Google Doc, when it comes to reaching out directly to pirates, or sending notices as per the DMCA notice.

How Do You Know If Your ebook is being pirated

Sometimes, authors discover about a book that is illegal when a concerned reader emails to notify them.

However, most of the time, piracy will not be revealed to the reader. If you'd like find out the extent to which your eBook is copied, there are a few alternatives:

1. Check the ISBN of your book using Google

The title of your publication along with"download, "download" to Google and then see what results come up. You may find sites that have or say they be able to have - your book available.

Make sure you are aware of what you click , however ensure that you use a reliable anti-virus program and running to guard yourself. Most pirate websites contain ad fraud or even worse.

2. Create Google Alerts

The book may be integrated with Google Alerts to be notified when you and your book get mentioned on the internet. This is a fantastic way to be up to date with new review or discussion of your book - it can help you determine how much of your work has been pirated.

3. Make use of tools such as Mention.com

Mention.com works similarly to Google Alerts. It offers advanced features, such as being able to receive daily recaps, and you can also be notified when there's an increase in sudden individuals mention your name or the title.

Commonly asked questions

Here are some common questions customers frequently have about book piratey:

Do I need to copyright My Ebook?

No. In the majority of countries, your eBook has copyright rights once you've completed it. You don't need to make any changes in order to be copyright. Most authors put an acknowledgement of copyright near the middle or at the upper right of the book. However, there's no requirement for this.

The website is offering my ebook for downloading ... however, do they really possess the ebook?

The majority of the time, not! There are numerous sites that offer ebooks for free, however they don't really provide the eBooks. Actually, as Dave Chesson clarifies the reason, they're out to make people pay for the privilege of a subscription ... and they're trying to spread malware and viruses.

Do I really need to spend time and Time Fighting Piracy?

In the case of a brand new book author ... most likely you're not. You could spend a lot of time fighting pirates, and this might not affect your sales for your books at all.

In this article by the Alliance of Independent Authors discusses:

"Chasing off pirates who aren't infringing copyrights or affecting the profit of your business isn't efficient. Time and money can be better spent on writing, editing and enhancing the quality of your marketing as well as polishing the content of your publications as well as a host of other tasks that contribute in a way that is more valuable to the success of your business."

A situation where it makes sense to tackle the issue of piracy is when it's dominating results in a web search. If sites of pirates have been ranked very highly on Google in cases such as the one Tim Grahl's is a part of and you're interested, then it's time to act:

"My author friend found himself trapped in a situation where was the third result on Google for the title of his book was a site from a different country which offered the PDF of the book at no charge."

Are I Concerned About Ebook Piracy?

If you're an aspiring author, then you're not. The risk of being tainted is much greater risk for authors. When you talk about your work, they aren't able to afford to pay for them.

Many people believe that pirates could benefit authors since it puts your book in the hands of many different readers ... Many of whom might be paid readers.

If you're a seasoned author , you may be noticing that piracy could hurt the popularity of your book. YA author Maggie Stiefvater posted about her experience on her Facebook page on Facebook and explained how printing sales for the third volume in the series were higher than sales on ebooks and how the pirated copy hurt the following installment in the series.

I was then informed by the publisher that they had cut the printing run of The Raven King to less than half that which was produced for Blue Lily, Lily Blue. It's not a problem, remember, they told me that the popularity of Blue Lily didn't justify printing more copies.

Maggie Stiefvater demonstrated the negative effects of piracy on sales when they released their own fake pirated copy of the 4th volume in which they were simply repeating the initial four chapters. The print run went out of circulation, with ebook sales skyrocketing too (until real copies of the book started being stolen).

The creator Elizabeth Lennox related a similar experience with piracy which led to a drastic drop in sales

In the end, I noticed that my sales had reduced by one-half. I was shocked. I was awestruck. happened until my husband informed me that my books had been discovered on pirate sites. Following that, we hired an attorney who issued takedown notices, and on the next day the sales started to rise again.

In the end, book piratey won't go disappearing. It's your responsibility to determine whether you're willing to fight this or not. In the majority of first-time authors the decision will make more sense to concentrate the efforts on marketing your book ... as well as writing your following.

If you're experiencing a significant decrease in sales, or if the websites that promote piracy show up extremely high on Google searching for your book's title or author's name, you need to act. Sending out DMCA notifications is the ideal method to address the issue: remember, you can download templates to apply in this Google template.

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