Mostly I can’t be bothered with piracy.
My books are all over the place and I can hear you saying that I SHOULD be bothered. After all, these people are stealing from me and my family.
So, me making a sweeping statement about not caring seems a little at odds with my passionate wish for life to be fair.
But you have to understand one thing.
I have 70 or so books out there. Books like Texas, Throwaway, Sanctuary, they’re all available at various points in time on torrent/download site. They have figures for amount of downloads next to them, which you only have to see on the screen shot below, that make you think, holy ****** shit… they have downloaded that many? I have had books appear on pirate sites within an hour of release… a freaking HOUR…
When people tell me I issue take-down notices. Most of them remove my books pretty damn sharpish. Some sites appear to have NO links for take-down and I spend as much time as I can trying to find a link but for ***** sake… it takes so long. Every hour that takes me away from writing, worrying about people getting my books for free, dissing me by freely sharing what I worked hard to create… that is a lost hour. Not to mention that I get so cross and upset.
You only have to look at the screen print below. Say I make £1 per copy of Jesse’s Christmas (ish) that is £617 that I have lost. I know these people wouldn’t have bought, I know all the theories backing up piracy… But… if I let that keep me up at night then I wouldn’t write.
So, I don’t think about it. In fact I genuinely try to avoid it, I don’t go searching, I just deal with pirates if someone tells me. So… when I get a new book out and someone buys it then refunds it immediately. or when I have a pirated version of a book appear when only 20 have been bought, an hour after release… what do I do?
I could rail, and rant, and spend time working on it, but I am one person. I have to prioritize and after five years of this I have found my way of dealing with it. I DO care, I DON’T want to be pirated, it makes me ANGRY and UPSET and VIOLATED… so I do what I do best in my life. I compartmentalize it and shut the lid of the box I put it in so I can carry on with the more positive things in my life.
I want to write, and I don’t want people to steal my work… That’s all. It’s not much to ask is it?
ShirleyAnn says
No it's to much to ask especially now because of the social media everyone knows how hard authors have to work to write their books also promote them etc. I'm sure they wouldn't like it if they went to work and were told at least one day a week you will be working for no pay!
Kendra Patterson says
I'm not an author but I think I agree with your assessment. I used to worry about everything & I was always sressed to the point of health issues. Then one day I just said F*** It. I'll worry about what I can change & leave the rest alone. I'm a lot happier & healthier. If it works for you, go ahead! Good luck. Sorry they're stealing from you.
Hollis Shiloh says
I feel the same way! Thank you for putting it into words.
Aleksandr Voinov says
Check out MUSO.com – they're pretty good about finding pirated copies and it's reasonably easy and quick and cheap.
ardent.ereader says
Well said! I am always amazed that people wont blink at paying a crazy price for their daily latte coffee yet they complain about the price of a book and are willing to buy pirated books.