Readers and Thieves

Well, today it was my intention to announce a new title that I’ve started work on, and unveil a new cover and other upcoming work. Instead, I’m at a difficult crossroads, wondering if I should simply shutdown my sites and forget all this? See, for the fifth time in under two months, about half my catalogue has been discovered on a pirate site–although of course the members of this site call themselves a “library” and their members are simply “sharing” their books. Call it whatever you like to soothe your conscience, but it is THEFT and the users of these sites are pirates and thieves of the finest order.

I realize we are living in tough times, but you know, every single time you visit a site like these, and “borrow” a book, you rob an author of their earnings. How many of you would like your paycheques hacked up and distributed to thieves? Not many is my guess. A writer is a self-employed individual, what we do is WORK. It’s not amusement or a hobby for many of us. Most readers seem to think we’re all rolling in money and making fat royalties–when the truth is most of us at mid-level publishing couldn’t pay our internet bills with what we make, never mind our rent and food bills. Our books are sold cheap, in 90% of cases for under $5, many even less than that–so why the need to steal the little we make from the months and years of work we put into the stories you supposedly love to read?

You can justify your actions any way you like, the truth is, you’re a thief, and thieves are the lowest of the low. Maybe next time you visit your favourite pirate site you’ll find the book you want, and I hope you feel really good about stealing that dollar from an author who probably is wondering whether it’s even worth trying to publish another book because it’ll only end up in the hands of pirates and their supporters.

Last night 25 of my books were discovered on a pirate site. Included in those titles were two books that were never published by a publisher. They are FREE reads stolen from my personal website - books already FREE!! Placed on my website for my readers to enjoy - not to STEAL!! Are we all supposed to pull our free reads now, too? This material is still copyright protected, and it's still THEFT to post it to another site!!

If you recognize yourself in this statement, maybe, just maybe you might want to consider supporting the authors for a change, not the pirates and thieves you’ve been consorting with so eagerly.

*The pirate flag is a graphic found at: http://good-wallpapers.com/ and is copyrighted to them, not me.