The Alchemist is a seminal book, simple yet oddly profound, one that almost everyone seems to have read at one time or another.
With over 100 million copies of his titles sold worldwide, the Brazilian author must be doing something right. But who would have guessed it was supporting the online piracy of his own works?
Fortune Editor David Kirkpatrick sat down with Coelho at this year’s Davos and the result is a must-read.
Intrigued by his growing sales in Russia, Coelho used the Bittorrent site - a favorite for illicit distribution of media - to seek out and download online translations of his books as well as audio versions. By 2006 he was hosting an entire sub-site he called The Pirate Coelho, with links to books in many languages. While he did not play up his own role, he did quietly include a link on his official site.
Also of interest is Coelho’s vision of a movie version of The Witch of Portobello:
None of Coelho’s books has ever been made into a movie. But now he is using the Internet to let his readers make one for him, based on his latest book, The “Witch of Portobello.” It tells the story of its protagonist from the point of view of multiple people who knew her at various times in her peripatetic life. Now Coelho and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500) have created a competition, inviting anyone worldwide to submit a segment as they envision it. Coelho plans to knit together 15 winners and release the film.
Enjoy.
For those wanting more, this is Coelho’s speech at the Digital, Life, Design conference in Munich which prompted Kirkpatrick’s article:
From the The Pirate’s Dilemma site.
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