Hello my Freaky Darlings,
I’m not a big name Author, hell I’m not even sure I qualify as being a low list Author. I don’t make enough on royalties to pay my rent, so every book sale counts for me. I know that some authors, like JA Konrath, don’t really have a problem with the whole piracy thing, but I’m not selling 300 books a day, I’m not even selling that a month, in fact I haven’t sold that many ebooks in six months. Mr Konrath is currently running an experiment to see if piracy has an effect on his sales, and I’m very curious to see what the results of that experiment are.
When I found out about being pirated, I posted about it on Facebook and got some interesting reactions. Some think that Piracy is the scourge of writers, while others think it’s a way of improving book sales. Some think it’s a way of going viral and getting your name out there, and others, like Mr Konrath, feel it has absolutely no impact on sales what so ever.
I, on the other hand, just think it’s damn rude. For me it’s about the principle. It’s theft! Plain and simple. Some schmuck has gone out of his way to break the drm code on my book, joined a book sharing site and uploaded my book, the book I spent years working on, so that people don’t have to spend a measly $4.99. The fee to join these file sharing sites is more expensive than buying my book. So I have to wonder why? Why go to all that effort for a book that isn’t even expensive, by an unknown Author? I don’t get it. I really don’t.
So, what are your views on piracy? Have you been pirated? Have you downloaded a pirated book? Have you downloaded Shadows from one of these sites? If you have downloaded Shadows illegally, you can make it up to me by posting a nice review on Amazon or any of the other sites that sell it.
If you haven’t downloaded Shadows illegally and would like to help me pay my rent, you can pop in over here. Thanks!
Oh! And if you’re the wanker who is responsible for putting Shadows on that File Sharing site, I hope your fingers turn to fish hooks.