Once I became published, my time to write shrunk. Now I have
to market. I was never on Facebook all that much. Now I feel I should be there. To be seen. Not that
it’s working all that much, but if I wasn’t there at all, I wouldn’t be seen at
all. It’s thoughts like that that are also making me think about joining
Twitter (***shudder***). Marketing is a necessary evil if I wish to make it in
the publishing business.
What I do not want
to spend my writing time doing is hunting down piracy. Mainly, because I don’t
see the profit in it (in time or
money).
Sure, I’d love it if all the pirate sites would just
disappear (I’d also love to get 5 star reviews all the time!). But I really
believe that people who download pirated books would not have bought the books
in the first place. Heck, I’d be surprised if 10% of pirated books were
actually read.
Some authors see hundreds of downloads of their books from
these pirate sites and panic. They see it as lost income. I’m sorry, but I
don’t believe that’s true (unless these authors are hiring someone to send out
takedown notices and then in that case, it is lost income). Do authors panic
when people share their purchased paper book with a friend? How about when the
reader sells the book to another reader? They didn’t get any money for that, so
how is that any different? People who like to read, people who are honest, will
buy the book (or get it from the library). People who are fans will want their
own copy. Plus, smart people probably stay away from these pirate sites anyway.
Who doesn’t think a lot of these sites aren’t set up to steal your information?
I certainly don’t trust them.
I also don’t visit these sites because if I do search for my
books and they’re not there, I’ve just flagged an interest. I truly believe
they work that way.
So… what do you think about pirate sites? Am I in the
minority here?
Stacy
