Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31888
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

> Is there a practical, effective way to prevent this IP theft?

**Yes.**

As someone who has pirated countless books, I might give you some insight into my frame of mind. There's a very simple way you can counteract this "theft":

**Put a donation link on your website**.

You'd be surprised if I told you how many times I wanted to donate to an author after reading their book but couldn't because they didn't take the simple step of enabling it.

Prefer a easy to use payment method - paypal and bitcoin are good candidates. You don't have to phrase it as "paying for pirating". "Supporting my writing" would be appropriate.

As a reader, here's **things I care about** , in order of importance:

- I want to **read your book**
- I want to **finance your future books** (so I can read them as well)
- I want to **get a sense of contributing** to the development of culture and society

Here's some **things I don't want** :

- **complicated DRM schemes** that at best make my e-reader slow, or at worse, don't work with my model at all, or make me unable to read on my computer.
- **lose access to my book** when I migrate to another book publisher service, e-reader or computer.
- I don't care about **exclusivity agreements**. I won't create a new account in a new publisher _again_ just because your book is there. 
- I don't care about **middlemen** like amazon profiting at your and mine expense in an age where data distribution is virtually free.
- I don't care about **the price of your e-book being virtually identical to the price of a paper copy**. No matter what the actual production costs are, I feel I'm getting ripped off.

Finally, please consider subscribing to a crowdsourcing/patron platform like Patreon. Or letting donators leave a message. **The only thing better than supporting authors you love is doing it publicly.**

Summary:

**I want to read your book in whatever way I see fit. Please just make it easy for me and take my money.**

Original score: 40