My network of spies have made me aware of the below site and this string of posts. It's hard to figure out when this all happened, because the time signatures occur before the reviews referenced were even written, or the book even published, for that matter.
I'm not sure if I should be flattered or pissed. I'm both, actually.
http://www.wearewilder.com/reviews-147-3892-tarnish/
The link goes to a site where cheap, lazy internet folks are discussing how to steal my book! At first, I was like, "What?? They want to steal MY book? Gee, that's so sweet."
Then I was thinking, "Wait a minute, you bungholes? After all the time and money and sweat and blood I put into that book, and you can't cough up a few lousy bucks to pay me for it?? I don't even get what you pay, I get a percentage. You're not ripping off a multi-billion dollar publishing house, here, you're ripping off me! You can buy the ebook for the same cost as a Big Mac value meal. And while you're stuck on the pot with diarrhea after your Big Mac, you could be enjoying the book in the comfort of your own bathroom. You cheap bastards!"
It's very frustrating to someone who sees very little return or sign of interest in his work, to find out that people ARE reading it, they just aren't paying for it or allowing you to know that they care. How am I ever going to get out from under my day job to write full-time this way?
Folks, if you enjoy an indie author's book, please BUY IT. Don't pay someone else, like the person who stole it first! Indie books are generally cheaper anyway, and the authors aren't making much off of them as it is. And if you do steal an indie book and then say, "Hey, hurry up with the next one so I can read it," and can't figure out why that author doesn't have time to write the book between day job, side job, and family time...
You get the idea. You want to see more work from aspiring young authors? Pay them for their time. Reward them for their work.
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(And at this point, I have to confess to some hypocrisy: thanks to the magic of Google Image searches, I use a lot of images in my blog posts that aren't mine and I haven't paid anyone for. In my own feeble defense, I do try to reference the artists if I can. And I generally use images everyone recognizes as popculture icons, or ones that some giant company has already made an awful lot of money off of. So I'm usually stealing from the rich rather than the poor. I don't feel it's as much of a crime as what I'm discussing above, but I am guilty of it too.)
That's lousy. I mean, cool they want to read it but that's where the "cool" part ends. It's a few bucks, seriously, why bother stealing it?
ReplyDeleteYeah, they don't mind paying someone else for a subscription to their pirate site, but... Annoying. (Thanks for the support, man.)
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