Why am I stealing books, poor authors, and how to fix it

"... So expensive we have never sold books yet. We underestimated the demand for this book - we didn’t think that so many copies would be bought. At first we wanted to make a price of 10 thousand rubles, but we found sponsors and made a price of 8 800 rubles. I’m really proud this book and I think that it is definitely worth the money - if you read and implement ... "

Igor Mann, author of the book" Without a budget. 57 effective marketing techniques ”worth 8,800 rubles.

It so happened that I do not buy books, but download them from the Internet. Now you can talk a lot and a long time about the ethics of this approach, but the conversation will not go about that. Moreover, I am more than sure that at least half of those present here do the same.

In short, I do not buy books for several reasons:

1. Books are now unreasonably expensive, even electronic, and I read a lot. None of my modest budgets will be enough.
2. With each book sold, the author receives a penny reward. Everything else is spread with a thin layer over an entire army of publishers and distributors (there are a couple of topics about the economics of book publishing on Habré and GT). And often worthy authors eke out a poor existence, while fashionable but empty ones bathe in glory and money.
3. Modern books are 80% conjunctural slag, for which you do not want to pay for it, especially in advance.
4. Paper books are not convenient for me to read and store.

But!

A couple of days ago I read two books of new products - "Sharks of Steel" by Eduard Ovechkin. These are sketches from the life of submariners on an atomic submarine. I liked the books so much that I read them in just three days. Like all previous books, I just downloaded them from the Internet.

And this is by no means the first time that I had the desire to somehow thank the author. Well, really, I was absolutely calmly ready to transfer 500-700 rubles to him. Naturally, I could not do this. I mean just go and thank the author in a couple of clicks. Imagine that thousands more of these readers will have a desire to throw at least 50 rubles to the author. This will result in an amount comparable to the main fee.

I realized that I lacked a service like a movie search, only consisting of authors. Where can I go in, find the author from the list, or create a payment to the author who is not yet on the list, and "pound" him with any amount. At the same time, any author, having confirmed his identity, will be able to pick up the accumulated amount. Some combination of cinema search and boom starter.

Pros:

1. The author will have the opportunity to receive additional (if not the main), well-deserved income, as well as be closer to his audience.
2. A small but significant blow to piracy will be dealt. That is, it, of course, will not disappear, but will begin to bring benefits instead of harm.
3. Authors will start the gun better and more interesting.
4. Publishers will drop a little to the ground.
5. The most important thing is the education of a grateful reader.

As they say, you need to do such a project, which he would use. This is not enough for me, but you? To what extent this idea has a right to exist as a public project. Or is our society not yet ripe?