<p>If you read the comments from people who admit to 'illegal downloading' in my first article you'll see a common thread in their attempts to justify what they do. As Allison Brennan has already pointed out book thieves <i>always</i> try to come up with some justification, whatever the circumstances. But price seems to be one of the most common ones.</p>
<p>We steal books because they're too expensive on our $300 ereader or $600 laptop. Simple as that.</p>
<p>Really?</p>
<!--more--><p>I'm published in something like twenty languages and my English language editions sell on export in many, many different territories. Book prices vary around the world because of local market conditions. In some countries books are a luxury item. If they have to be shipped halfway across the globe as exports, then whacked with a hefty import tax, they will be pricey too. But the ripoff of ebooks and audio books mainly affects English language editions at the moment, because most ebooks and audio titles are in English. The pirate sites may flit between Korea and Uzbekistan or wherever. But the people downloading those stolen books -- the thieves -- are mostly, it seems to me in English language countries.</p>
<p>You only have to look at where ereaders sell in big numbers to understand where most of the piracy is happening. That's in the US, with, I suspect, the UK coming up hard behind.</p>
<p>Looking at the prices of printed mass market books on Amazon US and in the chains it doesn't seem to me that books are extortionate. I won Best Mystery of the Year from the American Library Association for <i>The Garden of Evil.</i> You can currently buy that in paperback on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Garden-Evil-David-Hewson/dp/0440242983/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1262428563&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">Amazon for $6.99</a> and on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Garden-of-Evil-ebook/dp/B0015DTUWK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1262428563&amp;sr=8-2" target="_blank">Kindle for $5.99</a>. Less than a similar paperback would have cost five or ten years ago.</p>
<p>The same thing has been happening in the UK where book prices have been steadily falling too. My latest paperback here, <i>The Cemetery of Secrets,</i> is listed at £6.99 but discounted to <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0330508768/ref=s9_sima_gw_s0_p14_t2?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&amp;pf_rd_s=center-1&amp;pf_rd_r=1CQ379Z0TYENY77X3X78&amp;pf_rd_t=101&amp;pf_rd_p=467198433&amp;pf_rd_i=468294" target="_blank">£4.86 for the paperback</a>. This is a reissue of <i>Lucifer's Shadow</i> and Amazon still lists that original paperback from 2001 at its original price - £9.99, then <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lucifers-Shadow-David-Hewson/dp/0007335148/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1262429446&amp;sr=8-4" target="_blank">discounted down to £9.46</a>.</p>
<p>Books are considerably cheaper than they were ten years ago. So how exactly is the reader getting ripped off in the US and the UK? Are we really supposed to believe that people who currently steal books online will one day see the price fall to a level where they say, 'Oh <i>now</i> I'll buy it.' Oh, come on. People steal because they want to and they can get away with it. Pricing books at 99p won't stop them. Yes, some theft could be attacked by making the purchasing process much easier -- as it is with iTunes or the Kindle Store, but without the ties to specific hardware and standards. But price? No.<br /></p>
<p>It's worth pointing out too that falling retail book prices are nightmare for everyone in the publishing industry. They squeeze publishers' margins at a time when business is bad anyway. For authors there's a significant change too. Once upon a time royalties were based on the retail price of a book. If a publisher chose to discount the title they had to make up the difference. Now, as far as I can see, authors' royalties are based on actual selling price. So my royalty on <i>The Cemetery of Secrets</i> is half what it was for <i>Lucifer's Shadow.</i> Or to put it another way, I have to sell twice as many books to make the same money.</p>
<p>No point in complaining. That's how things are. But it gives you an inkling, I hope, why authors view the 'it's all about pricing' argument with some scepticism. Yes there are new business models that will come with digital publishing. Yes publishers need to be more creative when it comes to pricing, promotion and distribution.</p>
<p>But can anyone in the US or the UK with enough money to own an ereader and/or a computer honestly say they steal books because they can't afford to buy them? Authors can spend years writing a book, putting in vast amounts of work that they never really recoup. You can buy all that for less than the price of a fancy glass of beer. Is that really too much to ask?</p>
<p>Well if it is: try a public library.</p>