Wizard hero Richard Rahl smites wrongdoers with his Sword of Truth. His creator, the bestselling fantasy author Terry Goodkind, turned to Facebook to name and shame a fan who pirated a digital version of his latest novel, The First Confessor.

Goodkind, whose epic Sword of Truth fantasy series has sold 25m copies around the world, according to its publisher Tor, took the unusual move of deciding to self-publish The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus as an ebook exclusive. The book was released earlier this month and quickly shot up Amazon's bestseller list, but despite it being made available in a multitude of formats, for $9.99, pirated editions soon started to appear.

Goodkind was outraged, and decided to name one of the pirates on his Facebook page, posting the perpetrator's details – including a photo – and prompting an onslaught of online fury against him. "So Josh, how about it — no respect for a hard-working author and fellow racing enthusiast? Not even for someone that is emphatically trying to reach out to people that might consider pirating our hard work? Can't be bothered to read and consider our note on piracy in the front of the book?" wrote Goodkind. "How ironic you claim to be a fan of books that uphold truth and honour above all else. We hope the price of fame is worth the cost of your infamy."

The named pirate's Twitter and personal webpages have subsequently been removed, and Goodkind said that immediately after his post, almost all of his piracy links were deleted as well. The pirate "took it upon himself to exploit and freely share our work for all of this last year. In response, we decided to share what had been his work from last night," wrote Goodkind.

"We feel we've accomplished what we set out to do here. We exposed someone that claimed to be a fan, a reader of books, had accessibility to the books, had every incentive to purchase and support them, but instead chose not only to disregard the work, the values within it, and our own personal pleas. In being transparent with everyone here about what it has taken to get this book delivered to readers and to enable this story to be told, piracy is an inevitable chapter of that tale still being written. [Josh] Press went to great lengths to make sure we heard his voice and saw his efforts, thus he has been introduced into the story here."

Unlike the Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho, who has called on "pirates of the world" to "unite and pirate everything I've ever written" because he believes that pirated editions increase his sales, Goodkind says that "piracy does nothing to promote the sale of books – it is the free distribution of content at no cost to the reader with no incentive to later re-purchase".

Goodkind's approach – a more aggressive tactic than that taken by the novelist Lloyd Shepherd, who engaged on a forum with book pirates earlier this year – drew both praise and censure from readers. "Get him Terry... He deserves it..." was one typical reader's response, while tweets to the pirate himself from Goodkind's fans ranged from "I hope they fry your ass" to "Shame on you!". Others, however, were concerned about a "mob mentality" and called it "highly dubious" and "vigilantism".