­“You are welcome to download my books for free and, if you enjoy them, buy a hard copy – the way we have to tell to the industry that greed leads to nowhere,” the 64 year old writer wrote in his blog, signing off as "The Pirate Coelho".

 

The man behind ‘Veronika Decides to Die’ urged his fans to recall the example of the former USSR where a lot of books were spread around in the so called ‘samizdat’ form of dissident activity. People reproduced censored publications by hand and passed them from one to another despite the high risk of being caught by the authorities and going to prison.

 

According to the novelist, some writers should share their ideas with their readers rather than care about making a profit from their work.

 

Coelho said that back in 1999 when his ‘Alchemist’ came out in Russia he posted the Russian edition online for free downloads. Despite that, 10,000 copies were sold in the country that year; a million copies by 2002 and 12 million by 2012.  

 

"The more often we hear a song on the radio, the keener we are to buy the CD. It's the same with literature. The more people 'pirate' a book, the better. If they like the beginning, they'll buy the whole book the next day, because there's nothing more tiring than reading long screeds of text on a computer screen," he explained.