In 1996, the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho took the bold step of making the Russian translation of his The Alchemist available for free online. Within a year, sales of the book, which had previously languished at just 1,000 volumes, had grown tenfold.
1996 年，巴西作家保羅・科爾賀身先士卒地將《牧羊少年奇幻之旅》的俄文版放在網上免費供人閱讀，一年內，原本只賣出約 1,000 本的紙本小說銷量便暴增 10 倍。