Monkey Madness Monday: Book Piracy and other annoyances

I got a Google Alert about Never Eighteen on Saturday. And it brought me to this. Yes, it is yet
another pirated copy of NE out for anyone to download for free. For those of you just coming across my blog for the first time, this may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is. Why you ask? Well, here's the letter I was going to send to the young woman, screen name: Screamqueen42

I guess since you uploaded this book, it means you liked it, which is flattering, but you should realize, that writers like me, and some of the others you've uploaded here, hardly make any money from their books. In fact, after our small advances, many of us don't see another dime. If you like our books, it would be better for us if you'd tell your friends about them so they'd buy them instead of sharing them illegally on sites like this.  We're not million dollar rock stars, most of us are people who have to keep day jobs to keep our families running, many of us single parents like me.

Just something to keep in mind.

However, I can't send her a message, and where I was trying to add this comment, the CAPTCHA is not working, so unless Screamqueen42 reads my blog, she'll never see this.

I went to the site's, Kickass Torrents, piracy page, and basically it looks like they're a bunch of douches protecting their illegal content rather than the artists being pilfered. The process for getting your work taken off their site is akin to needing an ancient hieroglyphic, a virgin sacrifice, the head of Sasquatch, and the blood of a vampire.  So, I left that up to my publicist with HMH.

Aside from that, some day job crap, forgetting to take my meds, a day out in a way too crowded venue in the hot sun, with a kid who didn't plan well, then ended up breaking up with her boyfriend, and realizing beer and I are not friends, helped to balance out a perfectly lovely weekend of fun.

But seriously folks. Most of writers, we don't make money. I know I don't. I'll just put it out there, I've not seen a dime of royalties from Never Eighteen and probably never will, especially if people keep downloading it for free. Every time someone downloads and illegal free copy of my book, I die a little inside.

And I'm not saying it's okay to pirate from million dollar rock stars either. They've earned their money as well. We all have and pirating is illegal. Period. But for me...I have two teenagers to support, a mortgage to pay.  Think about it. Piracy sucks.