"The biggest problem for most authors isn't piracy, it's obscurity."
-Tim O'Reilly quoted by Cory Doctorow

Doctorow is Down Under, a guest of honor speaker at the 45th Annual National Science Fiction Convention in Brisbane, Australia. Today in part one of a two part interview with Articulate, Gary Kemble asked Doctorow about his decision to release his books in electronic format- FOR FREE .

I mentioned Doctorow in an earlier post (Adding to the Whuffie, March 16,2006), and the fact that Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is as famous for its innovative Creative Commons copyright as it is for its entertaining plot and nifty futuristic concepts.

In today's Articulate interview, Doctorow tells us a little bit about why he decided to give his great science fiction books away FOR FREE .

The reasons, in my interpretation of order of importance, are as follows:

1) Science fiction authors get readership by word of mouth. And if you think word of mouth is powerful, just think about spreading the word via online bulletin boards, discussion groups, mailing lists, forwarded emails, googling for something to read.

2) "I didn't see it plausible that it would be possible to effectively restrict the copying of electronic books." (direct quote from Doctorow)

Doctorow is part of a group of spec fiction authors and publishing houses who believe that distributing eBooks online for free may improve readership and book sales in the United States.

Doctorow says that when he made the decision, he didn't know where his income would come from. He saw visions of donations by happy readers, commissioned articles, speaking engagements- clearly that portion of his theory has panned out. But, most importantly, Doctorow says that he had a gut feeling that giving away books would sell books.

So, I looked up the amazon.com sales rank for Doctow's latest book, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town . Today his sales rank is 206,575 . That puts him on par with books like Steve Martin's Shopgirl (recently made into a film).

So, is Doctorow at the top of the sf best seller list? No.

But he's hardly on the bottom, either.

I compared the sales rank for Doctorow's most recent book to those of his fellow speakers at the conference this weekend. Results are as follows:

Bruce Sterling: 37,462 Visionary in Residence
Sean Williams: 483,198 The Crooked Letter
Kim Wilkins: 443,042 The Autumn Castle

At worst, Doctorow's innovative approach to publishing isn't doing him any harm. And I'm curious to see what the future holds for Doctorow. He has and will always have a special place in the hearts of the technology-loving science fiction audience.