Song of the day- Gravity by Sarah Bareilles
I've posted a few times with regard to this topic, and unfortunately felt the need to bring it to light once more as a good author friend of mine is struggling with this big time.
E-piracy hurts authors. It's as simple as that. When someone takes one of our ebooks, uploads it onto a server somewhere and shares it with the world it takes away from our sales. I'm not a greedy person by any means. However, I do live in California, and if you've been watching the news you'll know my state is going through a tough economic crisis. People are losing their homes, can't feed themselves, don't have jobs...the list goes on.
My guess is that the people who are illegally sharing ebooks are most likely thinking "how will sharing a $4.99 ebook effect her? That's pocket change. Besides, the people I'm sharing with would never have purchased the book anyway."
Pocket change adds up people. I've got a glass jar on my counter that I throw loose change into regularly. That shit adds up. And as for the illegal downloaders not purchasing the book anyway, my response is "how would you know?" Maybe they wouldn't. But, then again, maybe they would have. I'll never know, though, as you've provided them with a free copy.
The very talented author, Jennifer DeLucy has also written a blog post about this troubling topic here.
I fully agree with Jen when she says we need to speak out when we see illegal downloading on the net. Point a finger, leave the person a message or send them an email and let these people know piracy is wrong.
Rant over, lol!!!
Enjoy your Friday, peeps!
3 comments:
This always angers me. E-pirates have no idea how much harm their doing and it's stealing just as much as walking into a Borders and walking out with a book without paying. Arctic Winds was on sale for less than 8 hours before I got a google alert from a pirate site. I'm sorry your friend is going through this. I hope she's able to get the book removed soon. Often there are takedown policies and you can send a letter directly to the site to remove it.
Yep! Stealing is stealing. Doesn't matter where you do it. I'm sorry you're dealing with it as well. E-piracy seems to be running rampant these days. Very disheartening!
Agreed. It's disgusting that people do this sort of thing. Authors are some of the most grossly underpaid artists out there. Stealing books just makes that worse, especially with the current publishing market. Someone needs to kick these people in the face.
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