Torrentz

Have you heard of Torrentz? It seems to me a website where people upload shit they've pirated - including my book, Never Eighteen.

For those of you who use Torrentz, I'd like to school you on pirating books and such. I am a writer, this much we know. I'm what you'd actually call a mid-list writer, meaning, I'm not well known but someone felt my book was publication worthy.

In fact, I'm not even really on the mid-list anymore. I.E. I make no money off my book. Did I once? Sure. I made an advance. But I've seen no royalty checks. I'm not like a famous actor, actress or rock star that makes millions. Not that that makes it okay to pirate their stuff, it's still illegal. But if you do, it's no skin of their nose.
However, I am a single mom trying to make a wage to survive. I have two teenagers, one in college, the other headed there in a year and a half. When you pirate my book and share it with others - you are robbing me blind.

And Torrentz doesn't care. I don't know how many times I've sic'd my publicist for that book onto them. They still do not remove my copyrighted material. While people can read my book for free? I will probably not make a dime in royalties.

So, those who use Torrentz, I have a simple request. If you are going to read my book illegally for free, at least have the decency to give it a review on Amazon.  Getting reviews helps lower-than-mid-list authors like me get more attention.

I'm not particularly angry about this. I'm just tired of it and disappointed that I'm getting jilted out of pay because you can't pay $1.99 for the Kindle version of my novel. Seriously, 2 bucks.

Anyway. I will now step off my soapbox and head back to writing my next book so you have something to steal in the future.

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.