I was at a garage sale and I was perusing a bunch of Wrox books. The seller offered me a ridiculous price and then I noticed he was on the cover of one of them.
I asked him about it and I think he'd rather have the latter benefits than the minuscule compensation:
"Piracy is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it means you receive no compensation for the benefit readers get from the work you put in. On the other hand, pirated books act as implicit marketing, expanding awareness of you and your book(s)."
So I bought the books, but asked if he had another copy of his own book. He said that he did not, because that he guesses he should keep a copy as, after all, he was the author. That's a lot of trauma for him to say something like that.
That could be because in a typical deal the author gets an advance up front and the royalties are so meagre that that's all the money the author ever gets.
In fact any initial advance is often calculated on this basis. A book has to sell exceptionally and unexpectedly well to start paying extra royalties.
So... authors can make a little extra money by selling their five or ten free copies direct to the public. Even at a knock-down price, it's still money they wouldn't get otherwise.
The piracy argument is nonsense. Most technology book authors either have a brand/platform because they're already notable, or they remain unknown, because it's almost impossible to build a brand solely by writing specialist technology books. (This wasn't always true, but it's become more and more true over time.)
Piracy for "exposure" changes nothing. Given the royalty issue, it doesn't even affect most authors' earnings - although of course it does affect publisher income.
I co-authored a Wrox book back in the day. Financially it was absolutely not worth it by itself. But if you were a consultant or speaker who could leverage "published author" into more engagements, then doing it would be a sound investment.
I asked him about it and I think he'd rather have the latter benefits than the minuscule compensation:
"Piracy is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it means you receive no compensation for the benefit readers get from the work you put in. On the other hand, pirated books act as implicit marketing, expanding awareness of you and your book(s)."
So I bought the books, but asked if he had another copy of his own book. He said that he did not, because that he guesses he should keep a copy as, after all, he was the author. That's a lot of trauma for him to say something like that.