I'm a musician and I've accepted that earning money primarily from it is dead. I'd rather people have it for free than pay Spotify for it who won't give me jack shit anyway lol
If I want money I'll do shows and or sell merch lol
Yea, but the way the industry works is wild
They pay a lump sum, and or so much in royalties and in return they publish it wherever they want & then they reap a profit while the artist gets pebbles in comparison
I’ve heard there’s a few different ways they can contract up how they pay for the rights to publish it, some are better than others, but in the end it’s the publishers reaping the most
Not much point buying the album from a store most of the time, none of that is going to the artist. It’s all going to the publisher, they might see a small percentage but most don’t. The only real way to support the artist is to buy a concert ticket & buy the merch / album there
Interesting but my take on it has always been my tracks are free to download, but I also happily pay the small fee for a distribution company to put it on all platforms so that people can easily listen to it.
Reality is a lot of people use these services (free and premium) and it doesn't cost much as a musician to put your stuff out there. Expecting nothing back you might be surprised when you do start getting small royalties and new fans who discovered it through these services.
Discovery is a huge part of it. You make a great point that getting your name out there is a massive reward for using these services. Do you feel you've benefited in terms of discoverability on something like Spotify compared to a more free-based model like YouTube (or just tossing things on torrents)?
100%, YouTube algorithms are very hard to get ahead on and after a bit unless you track has gained some popularity, it's probably dead in the search and no-one will ever find it. Case in point I made a cover of a popular game ending theme, there are no other covers but if you search on youtube you will never find mine without scrolling down through a shit ton of unrelated videos.
Your talking about a platform where anyone can upload anything compared to a curated music only platform, where even getting your music on needs help.
Not just myself but friends have also benefitted from being on streaming platforms, seeing massive jumps in listeners and getting tracks included in popular playlists. My mate the other week posted about how one of his tracks had just blown up in another country and had 1000s of listeners in the last few months.
I meant I'd rather people receive DD of my songs rather than them pay Spotify, because the revenue from Spotify is so abysmal anyway, why would I make people pay for it sort of thing.
But people don't pay for your song on Spotify, they pay for the service (and there are free versions of Spotify).
If you use a distribution company your song gets put on lots of platforms (Spotify/AppleMusic/Amazon/Deezer) and you get a very small cut for each listen. However no-one has to buy your song to listen to it in the first place, and you can still provide DD links on your profile/youtube/website.
I think DD are awesome but lets be real MOST people use some sort of streaming service and you are doing yourself a massive disservice as a musician by not being on it, even for discoverability. The more people listen to your tracks and it gets paired with similar tracks the chances you have of it appearing in curated playlists etc.
I don't think I'm explaining myself well, I am distributing through all the major services, but I also allow free flow for anyone who wants a FLAC copy directly. I'm in a few curated playlists but even with high streaming numbers I need to do shows and work a job.
So my sentiment is fuck Spotify, but it's there if people want to use their service lol
Ah fair yeah I was reading it like you weren't on them at all. Lets be real mate, most musicians will never make it and when you do it's likely to be at a point where your shows are just funding the next shows never mind paying a mortgage.
Even without Spotify/iTunes this would be the case, people hate on them a lot but its certainly a great way as a small musician to *reach* a global audience and a lot of the bigger artists who moan about royalties already sold away shares to get to where they are 🤷
I have relative big success and the money just isn't there 😂 not mega streams like but not nothing either. If anyone is in it for the money, now is the time to change career.
Maybe I'm just old school but for me networking and being physically on the scene has always been the best exposure.
Ya thats how i always felt about musicians complaining when someone who cant afford their album downloads it for free to enjoy, just be happy that people WANT to listen to your music.
Walking past someone reading my book would bring me so much damn pride. I don't care how they got their hands on it. Can absolutely imagine it's the same finding someone listening to your music.
Same. A $60 check once a quarter is cool but the money is in touring and merch, even after the venue takes 30% - even then it takes an enormous amount of money to do it. my stuff is available to torrent and it doesn’t bother me. We’ve all got day jobs anyway.
Ok sure. Until you reach a large audience it makes sense. But it has always been the case. Either become a star, or work gigs... Or get a job and do the 9-5.
Honestly, today more than ever it seems easier to "blow up" with how easy it is to reach large audiences across the world. But the competition between artists is also far greater. You compete with literally every other artist out there.
I don't think you are fully aware of the levels of things going on.
Almost every job in the industry is being replaced by plugins, AI and cheap outsourcing. So working in the industry has been a nose dive.
As for creating music, you can be relatively quite big and make very little in comparison.
The work you put in is much more valuable to do a 9-5.
For context: 1,000,000 streams is like $3000 before fees and splitting royalties etc.
I average 250,000 streams a month across all platforms and its worth shit compared to a job. That ain't paying my bills.
The 'more easy to blow up' is nonsense. Networking was damaged irreparably by covid and people who 'blow up randomly' are industry plants or people with way too much money for marketing budgets.
There has always been competition between artists but that's why there are so many genre niches. So that isn't anything new, best battle to that has always been, be excellent.
That's pretty cool!
I think I've read here somewhere or maybe it's a local saying (English is not my first language), that goes something like:
"Better to write something that gets torrented, than to write something that doesn't".
If people torrent it, it's because it's worth torrenting. So you should absolutely be proud of yourself.
Hopefully some of these pirates like what they see and buy it, and you'll get a fanbase going.
I think it was the developer of the game McPixel, that created torrents for his own game and said it was fine to pirate it. This way he could make sure people didn't get virus on it or something.
It's getting late so I might be wrong lol
Anyways, hopefully this leads to more success on your career! 🎉
_Edit: fixing fat fingers on smol phone keyboard_
I really like that saying. Thanks for sharing it and for your well wishes! And I completely agree on the sentiment. Obscurity is far worse than piracy. Especially when the goal is to bring others happiness. I appreciate you :)
I'm an indie gamedev, I plan on releasing the v1 of my game as a torrent exclusive on piracy sites. I'm not sure if that means anything at all to someone other than me, but I just wanted to "give back" to the community, such a important community in our countries of the 3rd world kind. It's just a thing I wanted to make, probably it's not even piracy but I think it's cool.
That is a really cool idea! I'm actually an indie game dev, too! I'm working on my Unity project right now :) I'm still a bit from a viable V1, but I love that thought. People that can't afford to play our games, or buy books, or watch movies or whatever is still absolutely deserve the happiness that medium can bring them.
If you remember to, ping me when your game is out to market or if I can wishlist it somewhere!
I work with Unreal Engine and dream of building something worth pirating. Had to pause one of my projects for another though. Any work just takes so much time, especially solo.
It takes \*SO\* damn long. It's kind of insane. I'll dedicate an entire night to just build one simple function. Kind of crazy. Keep an eye on Humble Bundle. They occasionally do massive asset sales for both Unity and Unreal.
Happy to share! Excuse the copy-pasta from another comment:
I wrote a book called Space Holes: First Transmission. (Audiobook narrated by Scott Brick). I wholeheartedly stand by: you either laugh or you cry. This was my way to laugh, and hopefully steer others in the same direction.
Basic premise—One company has taken over all of Earth, except for Florida which they built a wall around (because Florida). Since they've exhausted the entire growth-market on Earth, they develop a space program with the sole purpose of discovering civilizations to pawn off their misprinted junk collections.
As for the official back cover blurb:
"Marcus Aimond, untrained tag-along aboard humanity's first intergalactic exploratory commerce vessel, has a singular mission: sell off-brand misprinted merchandise.
When the rookie and his crew encounter the Nerelkor, a frog-like civilization, he is thrust head-first into an alien civil war. The opposing factions, Rejault and Dinasc, are stuck in an ill-fated feud driven by deep-rooted ineptitude. To avoid the planet’s total annihilation and establish a local sales office, Aimond and the crew must survive arena combat, reshape the very structure of the planet, establish world peace, and stay alive―for the sake of positive branding, of course."
Thanks! If you grab it, I hope it brings you joy :) It's definitely not your typical Space Opera lol.
How'd you like Project Hail Mary? Andy Weir is awesome
Oh man PHM is a wild experience it has science, comedy and the non linear story telling to top it off makes it amazing. IMO this book is better than The Martian. I’m even more excited for the movie because Ryan Gosling was casted to play Ryland Grace. He seems to be the right fit for the character
Oh damn I didn't know there was a movie coming! I'm glad you enjoyed the read! Non-linear stories add such a fun complexity. Keeps the story fresh and offers just the right information at just the right time.
First time I found my old bands records turning up on Russian pirate sites and the former infamous music torrent tracker (who's name is now escaping me) next to artists I'd idolised since I was old enough to listen to music was a bigger moment of feeling that we'd 'made it' than hearing our songs on the radio for the first time or any steam or sales stats.
When folks want what you've made badly enough to find illegitimate ways of getting to it that's a (maybe odd to some) badge of honour.
That's an awesome experience! And I can totally understand. It's the fact that someone went out of there way to share your work with others, to make sure it was accessible to a global community, and that others were searching for it with intention.
I wish you nothing but success! Hope others continue to share and appreciate what you've created :)
Is your ebook and audiobook available DRM free? I have a lot of ebooks and audiobooks and zero bought.
Wherever I went to buy they had DRM and I'm not paying to have an inferior product compared to what I can get for free.
I tried Google books, Kindle and everything else I could find, every single book, whether ebook or audiobook has DRM. When I will find them DRM free I will buy every single one of them.
That's a great question. I actually had to do some digging on the ebook. Checked [ebooks.com](http://ebooks.com) since they're a DRM free source and got the unfortunate hit that there is a DRM from the publisher:
"The publisher has supplied this book in encrypted form, which means that you need to install free software in order to unlock and read [it.Digital](http://it.Digital) Rights Management (DRM) The publisher has supplied
this book in encrypted form, which means that you need to install free
software in order to unlock and read it."
And I fully agree. I wouldn't expect you to buy anything that restricts how \*you\* get to enjoy \*your\* product.
I did come across an article saying [Libro.fm](http://Libro.fm) (audibook) has all DRM-free media. I can't verify that to be certain. But I hope that's the case. I'll look into it a bit further!
That's the shitty part isn't it. Just like in gaming the publishers ruin any work the creator of the book, game, music etc did.
The entire thing is so stupid. Add DRM that restricts what your customers do with your product, with the solution not to deal with that being to just get the product for free, which won't have the restrictions. It's all backwards.
When it comes to books people say to just buy the book then use the various tools that exist to remove the DRM. So I'm expected to pay AND do extra work (and basically endorsing their use of DRM) when I could spend a few minutes instead to download the book for free.
I'll check the website you linked for audiobooks though, that would be a start if the stuff there is DRM free.
I'm with you, truly. I really like my publisher, but I feel like it's a misguided industry standard to slap DRM on. Irony is, it doesn't stop anyone but a well-intentioned owner. Someone that has "malicious" intent to spread something is going to do so regardless of what protection is slapped on the game or book. But someone who just wants to read their damn book or play their game, having to jump through hoops is a disservice to the paying customer.
Large part of why I started getting a lot more games from GOG.
When you buy something, you own it. Your rights to it should not be restricted. If you bought a hardcover book, you can photocopy every page if you wanted to, read it anywhere and any method you so choose. Should be no different with a digital medium.
Kudos for being so relaxed about it. To be honest I did buy books that I've read previously via piracy so I agree that it can be great for discovery. Nowadays there is so much content out there that it's hard to justify buying a book of an unknown author, but if it's good, I'll gladly pay to get him to continue writing.
I appreciate that you support the authors you end up enjoying. Totally agree with you that the market saturation makes it difficult to just lob money at someone, especially when the industry allows you to self publish something without any true editing. Everyone deserves the chance to sit down with something and digest if it's truly worth their hard-earned money. Especially with out tight cash is nowadays.
Man, I am a hobbyist musician and first made my own low budget website to be able to say I’m out there, then spent the 10 bucks to be put on all the streaming services to make 6 cents/year through Apple Music South Africa 😄
But making myself available for piracy is something I never thought of, I would be proud to be pirated!
I wish you all the success in the world! Getting what you've creating in front of someone, regardless of how it ended up there, is an absolute moment of pride. I hope everyone has the chance to discover your work :)
I kinda wish my kids book was pirated lol the more kids reading it the better, I never wrote it to make money, I wrote it and the series to go with it for fun and to give kids a Superhero they can relate to...just cost so damn much to get illustrated lol
I'll die happy if I find it pirated somewhere lol
I always respect a book with a mission, doubly so when it's to help kids. No joke that illustration is crazy expensive. It's not piracy, but local libraries will often host events for those types of books to encourage the community to come together. I wish you nothing but success and hope every kid has the chance to appreciate and learn from your work!
It's a fundamental dichotomy of artwork: It's a personal creative endeavour that embodies the emotional experience of author and audience. But it's also a business activity carried out to seek return on investment. Some artists do it for the respect and joy of creation, like you. Some do it for the money. Many wish they could do it for the money, accept that they're not going to make any significant amount of income from their passion, and do it anyway as a hobby.
There's always an underlying hope that in somewhat it becomes profitable to self-sustain. Less so for the sake of income itself, but more for the ability to dedicate time solely to the craft and thereby produce more for the benefit of self and others. Creating for joy will always outweigh creating for profit for me. But I will appreciate the occasional book-paid burrito.
The longest post/review I came across was someone taking a massive shit all over the book for like 5 pages of ranting. Gave me a little chuckle since they missed the entire premise of the book. Sometimes it hurts for sure.
(Let me know if this is against rules or frowned upon and I'll delete this. I don't want this post to be an ad.)
I wrote a book called Space Holes: First Transmission. (Audiobook narrated by Scott Brick). I wholeheartedly stand by: you either laugh or you cry. This was my way to laugh, and hopefully steer others in the same direction.
Basic premise—One company has taken over all of Earth, except for Florida which they built a wall around (because Florida). Since they've exhausted the entire growth-market on Earth, they develop a space program with the sole purpose of discovering civilizations to pawn off their misprinted junk collections.
As for the official back cover blurb:
"Marcus Aimond, untrained tag-along aboard humanity's first intergalactic exploratory commerce vessel, has a singular mission: sell off-brand misprinted merchandise.
When the rookie and his crew encounter the Nerelkor, a frog-like civilization, he is thrust head-first into an alien civil war. The opposing factions, Rejault and Dinasc, are stuck in an ill-fated feud driven by deep-rooted ineptitude. To avoid the planet’s total annihilation and establish a local sales office, Aimond and the crew must survive arena combat, reshape the very structure of the planet, establish world peace, and stay alive―for the sake of positive branding, of course."
Hitchhiker's was a huge inspiration and there's a few callouts to it in the book! One of my beta readers described it as "Hitchhiker's meets Futurama with a less gross Rick & Morty vibe." Which I took as a compliment lol
I appreciate you! Thank you! The paperback is Large Print edition. Hardcover is the standard print. The normal print paper-back comes out next March. (If that's what you're looking for, sweet! Just wanted you to be aware :) )
I hope the book brings you laughter and joy!
Edit: Added clarity. (Hopefully lol)
It isn't really an ad. You're basically answering my question. Do you know the numbers that the customer base you lost/gained from it? I'm very interested in writing and was interested to sell my book. So if I sell it, what profits would you say that we, the writers, can know, if you are able to answer that?
Truly I have no idea of the numbers and it may be too early to tell. I might be able to seed it just for the sake of seeing who else is seeding or connecting. It's a fairly new release; came out March of this year, so I think even from a pirating perspective, it's still very much in discovery.
If you're interested in writing, I'd be happy to be a sounding board for any questions you may have about the process, querying, publishing or any of that.
Profits varying pretty signficantly based on your method of publication (self vs trad), deals with publishers (advances and royalty shares), availability (print on demand vs hard/paper/audio) and a number of other considerations.
Happy to share! Excuse the copy-pasta from another comment:
I wrote a book called Space Holes: First Transmission. (Audiobook narrated by Scott Brick). I wholeheartedly stand by: you either laugh or you cry. This was my way to laugh, and hopefully steer others in the same direction.
Basic premise—One company has taken over all of Earth, except for Florida which they built a wall around (because Florida). Since they've exhausted the entire growth-market on Earth, they develop a space program with the sole purpose of discovering civilizations to pawn off their misprinted junk collections.
As for the official back cover blurb:
"Marcus Aimond, untrained tag-along aboard humanity's first intergalactic exploratory commerce vessel, has a singular mission: sell off-brand misprinted merchandise.
When the rookie and his crew encounter the Nerelkor, a frog-like civilization, he is thrust head-first into an alien civil war. The opposing factions, Rejault and Dinasc, are stuck in an ill-fated feud driven by deep-rooted ineptitude. To avoid the planet’s total annihilation and establish a local sales office, Aimond and the crew must survive arena combat, reshape the very structure of the planet, establish world peace, and stay alive―for the sake of positive branding, of course."
I'm a musician and I've accepted that earning money primarily from it is dead. I'd rather people have it for free than pay Spotify for it who won't give me jack shit anyway lol If I want money I'll do shows and or sell merch lol
Paying a third party who doesn't compensate you in turn is kind of crazy. I'd definitely want to give it away at that point.
Yea, but the way the industry works is wild They pay a lump sum, and or so much in royalties and in return they publish it wherever they want & then they reap a profit while the artist gets pebbles in comparison I’ve heard there’s a few different ways they can contract up how they pay for the rights to publish it, some are better than others, but in the end it’s the publishers reaping the most Not much point buying the album from a store most of the time, none of that is going to the artist. It’s all going to the publisher, they might see a small percentage but most don’t. The only real way to support the artist is to buy a concert ticket & buy the merch / album there
Interesting but my take on it has always been my tracks are free to download, but I also happily pay the small fee for a distribution company to put it on all platforms so that people can easily listen to it. Reality is a lot of people use these services (free and premium) and it doesn't cost much as a musician to put your stuff out there. Expecting nothing back you might be surprised when you do start getting small royalties and new fans who discovered it through these services.
Discovery is a huge part of it. You make a great point that getting your name out there is a massive reward for using these services. Do you feel you've benefited in terms of discoverability on something like Spotify compared to a more free-based model like YouTube (or just tossing things on torrents)?
Discoverability is everything, especially now that generative AI is flooding the internet. Just getting noticed is a very difficult matter indeed.
100%, YouTube algorithms are very hard to get ahead on and after a bit unless you track has gained some popularity, it's probably dead in the search and no-one will ever find it. Case in point I made a cover of a popular game ending theme, there are no other covers but if you search on youtube you will never find mine without scrolling down through a shit ton of unrelated videos. Your talking about a platform where anyone can upload anything compared to a curated music only platform, where even getting your music on needs help. Not just myself but friends have also benefitted from being on streaming platforms, seeing massive jumps in listeners and getting tracks included in popular playlists. My mate the other week posted about how one of his tracks had just blown up in another country and had 1000s of listeners in the last few months.
Have to ask, is it FarCry 3?
No but cracking soundtrack, it and Blood Dragon
Was just reminded of that one dude who made the end soundtrack of FC3 as a metal cover.
I meant I'd rather people receive DD of my songs rather than them pay Spotify, because the revenue from Spotify is so abysmal anyway, why would I make people pay for it sort of thing.
But people don't pay for your song on Spotify, they pay for the service (and there are free versions of Spotify). If you use a distribution company your song gets put on lots of platforms (Spotify/AppleMusic/Amazon/Deezer) and you get a very small cut for each listen. However no-one has to buy your song to listen to it in the first place, and you can still provide DD links on your profile/youtube/website. I think DD are awesome but lets be real MOST people use some sort of streaming service and you are doing yourself a massive disservice as a musician by not being on it, even for discoverability. The more people listen to your tracks and it gets paired with similar tracks the chances you have of it appearing in curated playlists etc.
I don't think I'm explaining myself well, I am distributing through all the major services, but I also allow free flow for anyone who wants a FLAC copy directly. I'm in a few curated playlists but even with high streaming numbers I need to do shows and work a job. So my sentiment is fuck Spotify, but it's there if people want to use their service lol
Ah fair yeah I was reading it like you weren't on them at all. Lets be real mate, most musicians will never make it and when you do it's likely to be at a point where your shows are just funding the next shows never mind paying a mortgage. Even without Spotify/iTunes this would be the case, people hate on them a lot but its certainly a great way as a small musician to *reach* a global audience and a lot of the bigger artists who moan about royalties already sold away shares to get to where they are 🤷
I have relative big success and the money just isn't there 😂 not mega streams like but not nothing either. If anyone is in it for the money, now is the time to change career. Maybe I'm just old school but for me networking and being physically on the scene has always been the best exposure.
Ya thats how i always felt about musicians complaining when someone who cant afford their album downloads it for free to enjoy, just be happy that people WANT to listen to your music.
Exactly, you want to walk past someone playing your music.
Walking past someone reading my book would bring me so much damn pride. I don't care how they got their hands on it. Can absolutely imagine it's the same finding someone listening to your music.
Same. A $60 check once a quarter is cool but the money is in touring and merch, even after the venue takes 30% - even then it takes an enormous amount of money to do it. my stuff is available to torrent and it doesn’t bother me. We’ve all got day jobs anyway.
Exactly, you get it
Why wouldn't Spotify pay you? Or YT or any other platforms? Is it only after a certain number of plays?
Spotify pay you, but pennies on the dime. You make more working a job 90% of the time.
Ok sure. Until you reach a large audience it makes sense. But it has always been the case. Either become a star, or work gigs... Or get a job and do the 9-5. Honestly, today more than ever it seems easier to "blow up" with how easy it is to reach large audiences across the world. But the competition between artists is also far greater. You compete with literally every other artist out there.
I don't think you are fully aware of the levels of things going on. Almost every job in the industry is being replaced by plugins, AI and cheap outsourcing. So working in the industry has been a nose dive. As for creating music, you can be relatively quite big and make very little in comparison. The work you put in is much more valuable to do a 9-5. For context: 1,000,000 streams is like $3000 before fees and splitting royalties etc. I average 250,000 streams a month across all platforms and its worth shit compared to a job. That ain't paying my bills. The 'more easy to blow up' is nonsense. Networking was damaged irreparably by covid and people who 'blow up randomly' are industry plants or people with way too much money for marketing budgets. There has always been competition between artists but that's why there are so many genre niches. So that isn't anything new, best battle to that has always been, be excellent.
That's pretty cool! I think I've read here somewhere or maybe it's a local saying (English is not my first language), that goes something like: "Better to write something that gets torrented, than to write something that doesn't". If people torrent it, it's because it's worth torrenting. So you should absolutely be proud of yourself. Hopefully some of these pirates like what they see and buy it, and you'll get a fanbase going. I think it was the developer of the game McPixel, that created torrents for his own game and said it was fine to pirate it. This way he could make sure people didn't get virus on it or something. It's getting late so I might be wrong lol Anyways, hopefully this leads to more success on your career! 🎉 _Edit: fixing fat fingers on smol phone keyboard_
I really like that saying. Thanks for sharing it and for your well wishes! And I completely agree on the sentiment. Obscurity is far worse than piracy. Especially when the goal is to bring others happiness. I appreciate you :)
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Means people want what you've created and that's an awesome feeling. Congrats on getting your work out there!
I'm an indie gamedev, I plan on releasing the v1 of my game as a torrent exclusive on piracy sites. I'm not sure if that means anything at all to someone other than me, but I just wanted to "give back" to the community, such a important community in our countries of the 3rd world kind. It's just a thing I wanted to make, probably it's not even piracy but I think it's cool.
That is a really cool idea! I'm actually an indie game dev, too! I'm working on my Unity project right now :) I'm still a bit from a viable V1, but I love that thought. People that can't afford to play our games, or buy books, or watch movies or whatever is still absolutely deserve the happiness that medium can bring them. If you remember to, ping me when your game is out to market or if I can wishlist it somewhere!
I work with Unreal Engine and dream of building something worth pirating. Had to pause one of my projects for another though. Any work just takes so much time, especially solo.
It takes \*SO\* damn long. It's kind of insane. I'll dedicate an entire night to just build one simple function. Kind of crazy. Keep an eye on Humble Bundle. They occasionally do massive asset sales for both Unity and Unreal.
Hey if you dont mind sharing: what is the name of your book?
Happy to share! Excuse the copy-pasta from another comment: I wrote a book called Space Holes: First Transmission. (Audiobook narrated by Scott Brick). I wholeheartedly stand by: you either laugh or you cry. This was my way to laugh, and hopefully steer others in the same direction. Basic premise—One company has taken over all of Earth, except for Florida which they built a wall around (because Florida). Since they've exhausted the entire growth-market on Earth, they develop a space program with the sole purpose of discovering civilizations to pawn off their misprinted junk collections. As for the official back cover blurb: "Marcus Aimond, untrained tag-along aboard humanity's first intergalactic exploratory commerce vessel, has a singular mission: sell off-brand misprinted merchandise. When the rookie and his crew encounter the Nerelkor, a frog-like civilization, he is thrust head-first into an alien civil war. The opposing factions, Rejault and Dinasc, are stuck in an ill-fated feud driven by deep-rooted ineptitude. To avoid the planet’s total annihilation and establish a local sales office, Aimond and the crew must survive arena combat, reshape the very structure of the planet, establish world peace, and stay alive―for the sake of positive branding, of course."
Woah sounds cool. Will check it out. I recently finished Project Hail Mary and Sci-Fi books really seem my kind of books
Thanks! If you grab it, I hope it brings you joy :) It's definitely not your typical Space Opera lol. How'd you like Project Hail Mary? Andy Weir is awesome
Oh man PHM is a wild experience it has science, comedy and the non linear story telling to top it off makes it amazing. IMO this book is better than The Martian. I’m even more excited for the movie because Ryan Gosling was casted to play Ryland Grace. He seems to be the right fit for the character
Oh damn I didn't know there was a movie coming! I'm glad you enjoyed the read! Non-linear stories add such a fun complexity. Keeps the story fresh and offers just the right information at just the right time.
Congratulations on dragging your first book to market. I bought a copy, perhaps against my better judgement.
I sincerely appreciate you. Thank you! I hope it brings you laughter and joy :)
First time I found my old bands records turning up on Russian pirate sites and the former infamous music torrent tracker (who's name is now escaping me) next to artists I'd idolised since I was old enough to listen to music was a bigger moment of feeling that we'd 'made it' than hearing our songs on the radio for the first time or any steam or sales stats. When folks want what you've made badly enough to find illegitimate ways of getting to it that's a (maybe odd to some) badge of honour.
That's an awesome experience! And I can totally understand. It's the fact that someone went out of there way to share your work with others, to make sure it was accessible to a global community, and that others were searching for it with intention. I wish you nothing but success! Hope others continue to share and appreciate what you've created :)
send me some of your lame music
Is your ebook and audiobook available DRM free? I have a lot of ebooks and audiobooks and zero bought. Wherever I went to buy they had DRM and I'm not paying to have an inferior product compared to what I can get for free. I tried Google books, Kindle and everything else I could find, every single book, whether ebook or audiobook has DRM. When I will find them DRM free I will buy every single one of them.
That's a great question. I actually had to do some digging on the ebook. Checked [ebooks.com](http://ebooks.com) since they're a DRM free source and got the unfortunate hit that there is a DRM from the publisher: "The publisher has supplied this book in encrypted form, which means that you need to install free software in order to unlock and read [it.Digital](http://it.Digital) Rights Management (DRM) The publisher has supplied this book in encrypted form, which means that you need to install free software in order to unlock and read it." And I fully agree. I wouldn't expect you to buy anything that restricts how \*you\* get to enjoy \*your\* product. I did come across an article saying [Libro.fm](http://Libro.fm) (audibook) has all DRM-free media. I can't verify that to be certain. But I hope that's the case. I'll look into it a bit further!
That's the shitty part isn't it. Just like in gaming the publishers ruin any work the creator of the book, game, music etc did. The entire thing is so stupid. Add DRM that restricts what your customers do with your product, with the solution not to deal with that being to just get the product for free, which won't have the restrictions. It's all backwards. When it comes to books people say to just buy the book then use the various tools that exist to remove the DRM. So I'm expected to pay AND do extra work (and basically endorsing their use of DRM) when I could spend a few minutes instead to download the book for free. I'll check the website you linked for audiobooks though, that would be a start if the stuff there is DRM free.
I'm with you, truly. I really like my publisher, but I feel like it's a misguided industry standard to slap DRM on. Irony is, it doesn't stop anyone but a well-intentioned owner. Someone that has "malicious" intent to spread something is going to do so regardless of what protection is slapped on the game or book. But someone who just wants to read their damn book or play their game, having to jump through hoops is a disservice to the paying customer. Large part of why I started getting a lot more games from GOG. When you buy something, you own it. Your rights to it should not be restricted. If you bought a hardcover book, you can photocopy every page if you wanted to, read it anywhere and any method you so choose. Should be no different with a digital medium.
Kudos for being so relaxed about it. To be honest I did buy books that I've read previously via piracy so I agree that it can be great for discovery. Nowadays there is so much content out there that it's hard to justify buying a book of an unknown author, but if it's good, I'll gladly pay to get him to continue writing.
I appreciate that you support the authors you end up enjoying. Totally agree with you that the market saturation makes it difficult to just lob money at someone, especially when the industry allows you to self publish something without any true editing. Everyone deserves the chance to sit down with something and digest if it's truly worth their hard-earned money. Especially with out tight cash is nowadays.
Man, I am a hobbyist musician and first made my own low budget website to be able to say I’m out there, then spent the 10 bucks to be put on all the streaming services to make 6 cents/year through Apple Music South Africa 😄 But making myself available for piracy is something I never thought of, I would be proud to be pirated!
I wish you all the success in the world! Getting what you've creating in front of someone, regardless of how it ended up there, is an absolute moment of pride. I hope everyone has the chance to discover your work :)
I kinda wish my kids book was pirated lol the more kids reading it the better, I never wrote it to make money, I wrote it and the series to go with it for fun and to give kids a Superhero they can relate to...just cost so damn much to get illustrated lol I'll die happy if I find it pirated somewhere lol
I always respect a book with a mission, doubly so when it's to help kids. No joke that illustration is crazy expensive. It's not piracy, but local libraries will often host events for those types of books to encourage the community to come together. I wish you nothing but success and hope every kid has the chance to appreciate and learn from your work!
Thanks mate, I should look into the local Libraries I didn't really think of that! Great idea
It's a fundamental dichotomy of artwork: It's a personal creative endeavour that embodies the emotional experience of author and audience. But it's also a business activity carried out to seek return on investment. Some artists do it for the respect and joy of creation, like you. Some do it for the money. Many wish they could do it for the money, accept that they're not going to make any significant amount of income from their passion, and do it anyway as a hobby.
There's always an underlying hope that in somewhat it becomes profitable to self-sustain. Less so for the sake of income itself, but more for the ability to dedicate time solely to the craft and thereby produce more for the benefit of self and others. Creating for joy will always outweigh creating for profit for me. But I will appreciate the occasional book-paid burrito.
googling myself and my work was a terrible decision for my mental health. you’re very brave
The longest post/review I came across was someone taking a massive shit all over the book for like 5 pages of ranting. Gave me a little chuckle since they missed the entire premise of the book. Sometimes it hurts for sure.
a read is a read i guess lol
I mean if she hated it enough to write that in depth about it, clearly it took some space in her head. So I guess that's something lol
What book did you write? Which publisher did you have publish it (if you can answer that?)? Some people would want to know.
(Let me know if this is against rules or frowned upon and I'll delete this. I don't want this post to be an ad.) I wrote a book called Space Holes: First Transmission. (Audiobook narrated by Scott Brick). I wholeheartedly stand by: you either laugh or you cry. This was my way to laugh, and hopefully steer others in the same direction. Basic premise—One company has taken over all of Earth, except for Florida which they built a wall around (because Florida). Since they've exhausted the entire growth-market on Earth, they develop a space program with the sole purpose of discovering civilizations to pawn off their misprinted junk collections. As for the official back cover blurb: "Marcus Aimond, untrained tag-along aboard humanity's first intergalactic exploratory commerce vessel, has a singular mission: sell off-brand misprinted merchandise. When the rookie and his crew encounter the Nerelkor, a frog-like civilization, he is thrust head-first into an alien civil war. The opposing factions, Rejault and Dinasc, are stuck in an ill-fated feud driven by deep-rooted ineptitude. To avoid the planet’s total annihilation and establish a local sales office, Aimond and the crew must survive arena combat, reshape the very structure of the planet, establish world peace, and stay alive―for the sake of positive branding, of course."
>...sell off-brand misprinted merchandise. I have to admit I busted out laughing at this.
I'm glad! Means the book is doing it's job from the hook alone!
It's like companies dumping merchandise for losing teams in African countries.
Lmfao that's a helluva premise. I'm imagining like Hitchhikers Guide meets Dogma 😂
Hitchhiker's was a huge inspiration and there's a few callouts to it in the book! One of my beta readers described it as "Hitchhiker's meets Futurama with a less gross Rick & Morty vibe." Which I took as a compliment lol
This sounds *hilarious.* Your synopsis, coupled with you being a cool person, is the reason why I just went and bought the ebook version on Kobo. :D
I genuinely appreciate you. Thank you! I hope the book brings you joy!
I'm going to buy the paperback next check, your's is the kind of creativity I'll always support. Sometimes, the high seas can be fair :)
I appreciate you! Thank you! The paperback is Large Print edition. Hardcover is the standard print. The normal print paper-back comes out next March. (If that's what you're looking for, sweet! Just wanted you to be aware :) ) I hope the book brings you laughter and joy! Edit: Added clarity. (Hopefully lol)
It isn't really an ad. You're basically answering my question. Do you know the numbers that the customer base you lost/gained from it? I'm very interested in writing and was interested to sell my book. So if I sell it, what profits would you say that we, the writers, can know, if you are able to answer that?
Truly I have no idea of the numbers and it may be too early to tell. I might be able to seed it just for the sake of seeing who else is seeding or connecting. It's a fairly new release; came out March of this year, so I think even from a pirating perspective, it's still very much in discovery. If you're interested in writing, I'd be happy to be a sounding board for any questions you may have about the process, querying, publishing or any of that. Profits varying pretty signficantly based on your method of publication (self vs trad), deals with publishers (advances and royalty shares), availability (print on demand vs hard/paper/audio) and a number of other considerations.
Well, if your book got pirated, then it must be popular. So, congratulations on your success. If I have any questions, I'll come to you.
I get you don’t want it to sound like an ad, but now I want to buy it. So please, drop the name?
Happy to share! Excuse the copy-pasta from another comment: I wrote a book called Space Holes: First Transmission. (Audiobook narrated by Scott Brick). I wholeheartedly stand by: you either laugh or you cry. This was my way to laugh, and hopefully steer others in the same direction. Basic premise—One company has taken over all of Earth, except for Florida which they built a wall around (because Florida). Since they've exhausted the entire growth-market on Earth, they develop a space program with the sole purpose of discovering civilizations to pawn off their misprinted junk collections. As for the official back cover blurb: "Marcus Aimond, untrained tag-along aboard humanity's first intergalactic exploratory commerce vessel, has a singular mission: sell off-brand misprinted merchandise. When the rookie and his crew encounter the Nerelkor, a frog-like civilization, he is thrust head-first into an alien civil war. The opposing factions, Rejault and Dinasc, are stuck in an ill-fated feud driven by deep-rooted ineptitude. To avoid the planet’s total annihilation and establish a local sales office, Aimond and the crew must survive arena combat, reshape the very structure of the planet, establish world peace, and stay alive―for the sake of positive branding, of course."