Let’s chat about pirates … not the fun Johnny Depp kind that drink rum, have a parrot, and live in fictional lands. But the arsehole type who steal the livelihood from hard working writers.
Another batch of Google alerts this morning has thrown up more places with pirated copies of my books.
There’s been an upswing recently. Not in the amount of pirate sites, but in the amount of people looking for my books for free!
Wanna know how to get a book for free from an author?
1. Don’t be an arsehole.
2. Connect with the author. Follow them on social media. Contact them via their website (we pretty much all have them … oh, look you’re on one now!)
3. When you connect with them – have a freaking conversation, don’t just ask for a book for free!
– Side note here, If you really expect to people give away 8-12 months of research and writing – then maybe you need to have a long look at your sense of entitlement. Would you work for free for a year?
4. Be nice.
5. When you follow the author on social media – re-post their posts, share their posts, tell people about them!
6. Here’s a tip … a lot of us giveaway books or codes for people to download books from various legit stores. If you follow the author on social media, you’ll more than likely come across a giveaway at some point. You can happily take them up on the freebie knowing they want you to read their book for free because the author is being KIND. Take a minute afterwards, thank them! Leave a review.
How do readers best support an author?
1. Buy from proper stores. I hand out universal links like candy – use them!
2. In my case, $2-5 will get you a book … you can’t buy a coffee for that (and in some places in the world you can’t go out for coffee anyway, but you can buy a digital version of one of my books!)
Why should you support writers?
1. Without us there would be no books, TV shows, films, video games … think about that for a minute.
Piracy hurts authors:
We have families. They need shelter, food, medicine, clothing … if people steal our work, we can’t take care of our families.
Why would you steal from us? We don’t walk into your house and take your shit!
If you steal books (or download them from a pirate site – which also makes you a thief) then I imagine you are quite happy shoplifting and stealing from your mates. In my eyes, you are that person.
Theft is theft.
Piracy is not a victimless crime. I am a person. I have a family. People are stealing what amounts to food off our table.
The REALLY STUPID thing is …. I give away a lot of books. Fucking ask me, give me a reason, I rarely say no. But don’t take the piss, you’re not getting the entire series.
Wake up! My intellectual property is not your right. Just because it’s a novel and in the world. YOU do not have the right to steal it from me or my family. So off you fuck!