Today is a bit of a step away from my usual personal posts due to something disappointing that happened to me last week in regards to unscrupulous ebook sellers.
Needless to say, I was not a happy bunny.
Time Wasters
Don’t you just hate when your email inbox piles up? I do. I had nearly 100 emails to sort through last week. A lot of them are google search result pings that tell me if there are new search results in the names of my books.
Most of the time, the results I get back are completely irrelevant, which makes those emails a waste of time. Sometimes, they point out a rather nice note that a reader or another author has written about me, which is lovely to discover.
And then there are the results I wish I didn’t get.
People who put my ebooks up for free (probably filling them with viruses first) on unreputable websites. It may seem silly to you that I’m grouching about a couple of pounds/dollars here and there, but the fact is that I’ve spent a long time writing these novels.
The Finances Of It
A good friend of mine, G L Drummond, once advised me to look at it as every word in every book being worth five cents of my time. So far, my books have cost me $23, 727.40 in total to write – I keep my totals in American dollars as a lot of the independent book distribution sites I deal with are American, so it makes it easier when doing accounting.
$23, 727.40, though…
And do you know exactly how much I’ve made back in almost six years of publishing my books?
$302.84
$302.84 in almost six years…
Clearly, I’m not doing this for the money. But I don’t see why people should be allowed to take what little I get away from me.
And yet, I spent an evening that should have meant getting words written on Those Who Wait, collecting and reporting the websites that were illegally distributing my work free of charge. And with every piece I had to report, I also had to prove that my books were my books.
There are some people out there who haven’t got a decent bone in their bodies.
Kick You When You’re Down
As regular blog readers will know, we’ve been having a financially hard time lately. My day job is not very highly paid and we’ve had unexpected bill after unexpected bill, coupled with an unfortunate financial obligation to a former employer.
So, to have so many of my books popping up on sites is just completely unfair – especially when my margins are incredibly low so that my readers really can afford a book here and there.
And believe me, I know what it’s like to so desperately want a book but to be unable to afford it. I’m a reader, too!
So if you want to get my books free then wait until I put them on sale or until Smashwords has its annual Summer sale – I always participate! That way you can help me out by bumping my book up their lists and getting a bargain, too.
Choose The Right Path
Don’t download from sites that don’t have my consent. Not only is it illegal, but it risks hackers from getting into your computer via things they’ve slipped into previously clean copies of my books.
I’ve even made it easy for you by sourcing separate links to reputable sellers on each book page on this website. Find them there. Use the links.
Save yourself some trouble. And help an author out.
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Great post! It’s wrong that people try to profit on our work when it’s hard for us to even make money in the first place. Hopefully you can get it all sorted out.
This is a sad reality.
The sad fact is that whenever one of these sites is taken down, it pops up somewhere else. *sigh* Future generations are deprived when authors quit writing because they can’t pay their bills.
I wrote an open letter to book pirates. Did it do any good? Who knows.
https://kathysteinemann.com/Musings/piracy/
Good luck with your writing and your ongoing battle, Rebecca. I’m sharing this on Twitter.