Paulo

Coelho is Documented@Davos Transcript Documented@Davos 2012 INTERVIEWER: We're here at Documented@Davos, and I'm here with one of my favorite authors, Paolo Coelho. And we're going to talk about some of his books and Twitter and social media. Thank you for coming. PAOLO COELHO: My pleasure, my honor. INTERVIEWER: So how many times have you been to Davos? PAOLO COELHO: I've been to Davos probably over 15 years. INTERVIEWER: 15 years? PAOLO COELHO: Yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: I was this big when you started. PAOLO COELHO: Yeah, and I was that old. Wow. And I saw a lot of changes in between from this classic business model to this moment when nobody knew where to go. And now we see, I think, internet basically taking over the world. INTERVIEWER: So you're extremely active on social media. How many followers do you have on Twitter now? PAOLO COELHO: In Twitter, I have close to 3 million, and Facebook, 7.3 million. INTERVIEWER: And as someone who writes books, do you write books in the same way that you write tweets? Or do you think about them differently? PAOLO COELHO: They are totally different. And this is the new challenge for writers. I think that 50 years from now, we are going to see writers writing for different platforms. A book is not a tweet. A tweet is not a post on Facebook. What happens to writers today is that somehow they romanticize the past. And then they don't see the present as a new Renaissance. At the end of the day, what happened with the classic Renaissance? It was a technological invention called book in printed form. That changed everything, changed politics, culture, music, paintings, everything. INTERVIEWER: So what is social media changing now?

PAOLO COELHO: It is-- INTERVIEWER: The same? PAOLO COELHO: They are playing the same role as the printed book. Look to the first book that was printed. It was the Bible by Gutenberg. From this moment on, nothing was secret. Everything was public. And then ideas could travel beyond the classic oral storytelling. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. So I wrote a book. And it probably didn't sell close to as many copies as yours, probably pretty close. But one of the most difficult things that I had was actually turning off the internet and not using Twitter and Facebook while I was writing the book. How do you deal with that as someone who is actively on all these different platforms? PAOLO COELHO: OK. To begin with, Twitter is a kind of bar for me. So when I'm writing a book, I write a book once every two years. And I sit down, and I start, and I finish. INTERVIEWER: And so you're not on social media when you're writing? PAOLO COELHO: And during this period that normally takes three weeks, I need some moments to relax. So I go to Twitter. I tweet something. And then I get some input, like chatting with other people. Having said that, of course, in a normal writing day, I wake up at 11 o'clock. And I say, OK, I have a new chapter of the book to write today. And then I check my mail. And then I go to Facebook. And then I go to Twitter. And then I read the news. And then I start answering my emails. I start postponing, postponing, postponing 'til 3 o'clock. And then I say, OK, just to clear my consciousness, I'm going to start writing at least one page. And then there, you jump into this black hole that's called inspiration. And you write. I don't try to fight against my attraction to social media. I try at least to use during the writing the book in the afternoon. But in the very early morning, I can not really simply be awake. INTERVIEWER: So has it affected the way you concentrate, do you think, on books? Do you still read as many books as you did 20 years ago? Or has it-- PAOLO COELHO: Many more, probably. Because today you have different supports like iPad. I don't think-- no, Kindle because iPad is a little bit too heavy.

INTERVIEWER: So do you read on a Kindle, or do you-- PAOLO COELHO: I read on a Kindle. I read on a Kindle. INTERVIEWER: You read on a Kindle. And do you prefer Kindle to print? PAOLO COELHO: That's again, people, oh my god, the smell of the book. You know? And it's so beautiful to have this wall, my library, how intelligent I am, how many books I read. No, no. First, I don't invite people to my house. And so you never see my library. Second, it is so easy. I am now reading a book on J. Edgar Hoover that has 1,000 pages. And I'm carrying it around with a Kindle that weighs nothing. No, I think that this is the future of books as a different platform. We are not talking about different types of writing. We are talking about books. Having said that, books are not going to die. INTERVIEWER: That was my next question. Thank you. PAOLO COELHO: No, they're not going to die. INTERVIEWER: So you don't worry about the publishing industry, based on what's happening with digital media? PAOLO COELHO: They are very worried. They are very worried because they are lost. And when you're lost, the first thing-- my god. The first thing that they do is try to-- INTERVIEWER: Are you getting a phone call right now? Should I answer it? PAOLO COELHO: No, no. It never happens to me because nobody has my contact-- oh, it's-- sorry. INTERVIEWER: It's OK. PAOLO COELHO: I'm sorry. We were talk-- INTERVIEWER: I'm impressed that someone's calling you. PAOLO COELHO: Yeah, my wife. INTERVIEWER: Go ahead and turn it off. PAOLO COELHO: My wife. So back to a question?

INTERVIEWER: The publishing industry. PAOLO COELHO: Yeah, they are fighting against it. So they don't understand. They don't understand what's going on. And it will take a long time for them, because they are in this business for 400 years. INTERVIEWER: So you have no worries about the future of publishing? PAOLO COELHO: As a writer? INTERVIEWER: Yeah, as a writer. PAOLO COELHO: As a writer, I have no worries about writing, literature, authors, et cetera. As for the book business as it is today, I do have worries. Because again, they can not understand what's going on. INTERVIEWER: So you could see with Twitter and so on that it has played a massive role in Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring and things like that. What are your thoughts on that, as someone who has re-tweeted a lot of the things that people have shared? PAOLO COELHO: Well, it starts with Iran, back to the Green Revolution, no? I saw a friend of mine in this classic video that you see on YouTube when a girl is killed. And there's someone that approaches to the girl. And it was a friend of mine. That was a video that was the symbol. Neda Soltan is her name. And I said, well, Twitter, Facebook, can I be helpful? Because I have no other way to be helpful. And I start tweeting. And at the end of the day, I managed to get my friend out of Iran using Twitter and Facebook. Since then, when I start seeing the Arab Spring, I was a very strong supporter from the very beginning. As for Occupy Wall Street, what you see now is that we normal people are empowered much more than governments. So governments, they can control a few things that are necessary to us. But today, the power finally belongs to the people. INTERVIEWER: So I asked on Twitter before we came on here for some questions. And most people asked, how do you get your inspiration for the books that you write? I know it's a little bit of a cheesy question. PAOLO COELHO: No, no. It's not a cheesy question. It's a very important question. Inspiration is, is breathing also in English, is it? INTERVIEWER: Yes. PAOLO COELHO: OK. So I get inspiration from outside. Meaning I breathe.

 And then, I don't take notes. I hate notes. I think that it is a waste of time. And on the next day, I'm going to read these notes, and they are meaningless. So as a to-do, I write a book once every two years. And the very important things remain if I'm breathing, if I'm getting inspiration, inspiration, inspiration. And the only thing that I have to do is to expire. The book is already my soul. INTERVIEWER: So for example, your last book, Aleph. What was the inspiration for that? Where did it come from? Was it just walking around? PAOLO COELHO: Yeah, I was in my comfort zone. Because when you reach a certain point, your tendency is to go to your comfort zone. And then I said, this is not good. I'm going to take three months. I am going to travel everywhere. So I took the Trans-Siberian train, and I went to Vladivostok. I lived an experience. Based on this experience, I have some experience for myself. I never thought I was going to write a book on Aleph. And one day, four years later, I understood what I experienced. But let me add something to your question. INTERVIEWER: Well, you just found the meaning to happiness. You have to tell us what it is. PAOLO COELHO: The meaning of what? INTERVIEWER: Happiness. You just found it while you were on your journey. What was the thing that-- PAOLO COELHO: Wow, this is a question that I never asked myself. I think happiness is an invention of the 18th century to make us comply with everything. OK, we are happy. We don't need to fight against the system anymore. So if you're asking me if I'm looking for happiness, I am not. I'm looking for meaning. I'm looking for excitement. I'm looking for adrenaline. But there is one thing that happened with Aleph. I'm tired to give interviews. I've been giving interviews for 25 years. Not to you. I'm enjoying a lot. But at the end of the day, I said, I have so many followers. Do I really need to give interviews? And I decided to have this experience. I am not giving a single interview. And Aleph was a book that went number one, or at least in top number five, all bestseller lists all over the world, except one country, UK. And that was also a very interesting experience because you have a direct contact with your readers.

INTERVIEWER: So you never gave any media interviews. You only spoke to your readers through Twitter and Facebook and that sort of thing. PAOLO COELHO: Absolutely. And afterwards, of course, when the book was number one, I could give one, another. I gave one for New York Times, but mostly about social media. INTERVIEWER: That's a great newspaper. So do you think that part of the role that Twitter and Facebook play as an author is part of being a conversation in a community? Is that what it is to you? PAOLO COELHO: Of course. How can I-- well, up to now, I sold over 140 million books. That means half a billion people, because the readership of one book is three people. So half a billion people, I can not have direct contact with these people. You can do signings. But then it is 30 seconds, look into their eyes. And the reader does not bring one book. He brings the whole collection. So it's very frustrating, because you can not be there for more than four or five hours. So today, I have this contact. I try to answer as many tweets as I can or post on Facebook. And for me, this opened a new horizon. And they are very creative. INTERVIEWER: Yes, incredible. PAOLO COELHO: People who are there, they're commenting. They're expressing a lot of important things. That is very helpful to me also. INTERVIEWER: So just a couple last questions. But when you wrote The Alchemist, did you have any concept of how important it would be in society, and how big it would be? PAOLO COELHO: Of course not, of course not, of course not. I wrote because I wanted to write. And let's move to these new anti-piracy laws. Because people, they think, oh, you write to earn some money. The last thing in my head as a Brazilian author-- You know, my mama said, go and be an engineer. And then you can write in your spare time. You can not make a living out of writing books. So I said, this is my call. This is what I want to do. So I wrote. I fought for this book. And today, well, The Alchemist is all over the world in 71 languages. But we write. We paint. We do whatever we want to do because we want to share. Sharing is a basis of human condition. If you don't want to share, you're not human, sorry. And now, they're trying to protect your rights to share.

 INTERVIEWER: Yep. So how do you feel about piracy, and SOPA, and all the things-- PAOLO COELHO: I have a site in my blog that's called "Pirate Coelho." And the Pirate Coelho, I don't own the rights of the translations, only the Portuguese. So I try to facilitate them. They go there, and they pirate my books. And then they read. It's so exhausting to read a book in a screen. And eventually, they are going to buy. What I saw, and I can give you as a very concrete fact, is that the sales of my books are going up, and up, and up after I opened Pirate Coelho. INTERVIEWER: And that's because you're reaching a larger audience that then wants to go and buy other books? PAOLO COELHO: Absolutely, yeah, yeah. No, they buy the physical book. INTERVIEWER: Oh, they buy the physical book. PAOLO COELHO: The sales, the physical sales are going up. When I mean physical, I mean also ebooks. INTERVIEWER: So what would your advice be to an up and coming author? Should they allow people to pirate the book, or should they try to fight against it? PAOLO COELHO: No, no. To fight against it is a waste of time and no sense. As I said, sharing, sharing is our condition. It starts with love. Or I can be here in Davos, in this beautiful place. And if I don't have anyone to share my emotions on this valley, it would be devastating. And I can be in a train station with someone that I love, and it is an awful place. No, awful place, airport. OK. I can be in an airport. And if I am with someone that I love, I really don't care. So if people are very greedy about what they did, OK, just forget. Just forget. INTERVIEWER: So you're one of the more famous writers in the world. You've sold 140 million books. The Alchemist has broken Guinness Book records. But you seem so utterly humble. Have you always been that way? Or is this something that's happened with age? PAOLO COELHO: What do you mean by humble, exactly? INTERVIEWER: Well, you seem very humble in your response to--

PAOLO COELHO: No. No. Well, first of all, when success hit me, I was 43, 44. So I've been arrogant before, when I was a lyricist. And I used to write lyrics for songs. And they were a huge success in Brazil. And I'd say, oh, I am the king of the world. But then I, you know. So you understand, that's not like this. And when you go back to when I was 42, 43, I said, I must respect this gift. Because this is a dream, not only my dream but the dream of so many million people all over the world. So let's be respectful. INTERVIEWER: Cool. PAOLO COELHO: Not humble, respectful. INTERVIEWER: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. PAOLO COELHO: My pleasure. INTERVIEWER: And there are more videos on Documented@Davos at scribd.com. [MUSIC PLAYING]