The problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity

Gary Doctorow, a science fiction writer, gave this great answer to the question why do you give away your books?

Giving away ebooks gives me artistic, moral and commercial satisfaction. The commercial question is the one that comes up most often: how can you give away free ebooks and still make money?

For me — for pretty much every writer — the big problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity (thanks to Tim O’Reilly for this great aphorism).

Expanded answer here.

I love that.

It’s morally satisfying and commercially smart. To quote my friend and Thought Leaders founder Matt Church, make your information free and your experiences expensive.

Some of the people who get your free information will want to pay for your expensive experiences. And the more people who get your information the better.