Author Cindy Jacks--Mom, EX-wife, writer and all around hot mess
Thursday, December 2, 2010
YAY! I've been pirated!
What, Cindy? Have you finally lost your tenuous grip on sanity? No, I haven't. I'm still hanging on by a thread ;) But--in a way--I was happy to find my book on a pirate site. Yes, I'm really annoyed someone chose to undercut me and my publisher. Yes, I think piracy of any kind (except the Captain Jack Sparrow persuasion) is deplorable. And yes, I really hope folks will pay the buck fifty to download it here: http://www.jasminejade.com/ps-8822-138-leap.aspx instead of paying for membership to a pirate site so they can steal as many books as they want. BUT...I'm also kinda flattered. I mean I've been working for years to get my work noticed and hey, this is a sign that I've been noticed, right? When all is said and done, people are people. Most people do the right thing and those who don't aren't worth my sweat. Is giving myself an ulcer over the lost sales going to change the fact that these sites are an unsavory part of modern life? No. Is hollering and screaming going to make me feel better? Well, maybe a little, but mostly no. So, I choose to look at the positive side of the situation--I've been pirated therefore I must be worth ripping off. As I told a good friend on Facebook: It's either laugh or cry. I choose laughter.
Non-practicing alcoholic and domestic violence escapee who lives with her lovely young boyfriend, snarky teenage son, ex-husband (the nice one of course), 2 large neurotic dogs and 2 indifferent kitties. Trying to get my sh*t together for the umpteenth time. Pretty sure it's never gonna happen, but hey, no f@#ks given, right?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
20 comments:
Report this to the "pirate lady" at EC as fast as you can. Take Down notices need to go up. This is money out of your pocket for sure.
Piracy should be punished. But it never is. And it's one of the reason I stopped giving away downloads of books.
I had a book out back in February that was pirated within hours of being released. Like eight hours later it was pirated. I gave up right then and there.
Great advice, Tess! I will definitely report it. I'm glad EC protects its authors by doing something. Even if the pirates continue at least they know EC is watching.
While I applaud your happy attitude for having your book noticed...seriously I'm ticked off for you because it's just wrong to pirate books and there is no need for it in today's world with so many different contests and ways to legally get free books...
Thanks, Maria. In all seriousness, I'm ticked off too, but after the initial anger cooled, I decided to have some fun with it. Helps keep my blood pressure lower, lol.
I just reported the scoundrels to EC's pirate patrol. Again, I can't express how great it is to know that EC is watching my back ;)
Discovering a new release has been pirated always takes me through several psychological stages - surprise, anger, flattery, hopelessness and finally acceptance. I always report to the EC lady, sometimes they come off the site, sometimes they stay there.
I hate seeing pirate readers asking for books to be uploaded - it makes me want to shout 'go and buy it if you want it that badly'.
Nearly all my books have been pirated, including - get this - an Ellora's Cave free read!! Where is the sense in that?
I just keep eating the chocolate, drinking the wine and tapping away at the laptop!
www.lilyharlem.weebly.com
Oooh, chocolate and wine! Sounds like a good idea, Lily :) Sorry your work has been pirated too. Very frustrating!
My work has been pirated at times, too, and like the one lady said, I've pretty much stopped giving free downloads as prizes. There's nothing pleasing about being pirated. Authors spend months writing a book, time away from family and friends, deadlines to meet until we have little life other than writing and planning the next book. It downright ticks me off that someone is too cheap to pay the small amount to purchase our books and would rather steal them. Oh, yeah, my blood pressure gets up, but stealing an E-book is no different than stealing a movie, a car or anything else. It may be petty thievery, but think of the big bucks the pirate co. is making off the sweat of your brow...Tabs
I understand exactly what you're saying, Cindy. Thing is, the books will be taken down then go right back up again.
:o)
I hear ya, Tabs! Writing is such hard work as is any other creative endeavor. We deserve to be paid--as do our publishers--for the considerable effort.
Unfortunately you're right, Sarah. Wish it weren't so :(
I've heard way too many people online act like they're doing an author a favor by pirating her books because they're "getting her name out there". It's like that story an author posted on the EC loop about how a friend sent her book (for free) to a friend, and that friend sent it to everyone in her office - 36 people. And then they acted like they'd done the author a favor, not realizing it was literally stealing, and totally illegal. While I'm glad you're not as upset as I was when I found my book on a pirate site, I just hope no one gets the wrong idea from your post and thinks you don't mind being stolen from! If someone broke into my house and stole my TV, I wouldn't be flattered they thought it was nice enough to steal - I'd be upset.
Good point, Shoshanna. Believe me, the post is definitely tongue in cheek. I figure I'm not going to make myself crazy, but I do take the issue very seriously. They stole my book, but I won't them steal my sanity or my good humor ;)
I really don't know if my novella has ever been pirated--or not. I'm not "up" with these things.
But, I do know that it would make me angry, and as I understand it, there is really no way to stop this stealing.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
As someone who's been consistently pirated for over a year now, I'll tell you this...the worst thing you can do is send takedown notices. It just results in your title being bumped to the top of the forum with requests to "re-up". Furthermore, everytime you have it taken down they just "re-up" it again...usually at three or four sites the next time so you have to work harder to get it down. I saw this happen with my books over and over. I felt like a hamster on a treadmill.
WORST OF ALL, each new upload and post about your books on these sites adds another result to your search engine results. When I was actively pursuing takedown, the first three pages of my Google results were all posts on Astatalk, Underground, various upload sites, etc. Another horrible result of that is that people who DIDN'T know about pirate sites before now learn about them because you have so many results coming up on their searches. Now that I've stopped, there are three or four results but nothing like the fifteen or twenty there used to be.
Just some advuce from a heavily pirated author. The more you fight, the more harm you do yourself. Better to just write and try to succeed in spite of them. There will always be honest people out there purchasing your books, and you have to write for THEM, and think of them when you are going out of your mind from the piracy.
Another good reason to just carry on is that -- okay, deep breath -- piracy will never go away. If the music industry and film industry couldn't stop them, the publishing industry doesn't have a chance. The more authors protest and draw attention to the problem, the more people discover these havens and forums and start making use of them. I try to NEVER talk about piracy in interviews or on my website, because I don't want people to be tempted to look into it and learn more about it. As they say, ignorance is bliss...for us anyway. Just my .02.
that's an interesting point, Annabel!
Very interesting point, indeed. Thanks for dropping by Annabel!
Sorry to hear about this, Cindy. Readers really don't understand how hard we work to write, polish and get our books published and how work it is to just steal it or win a copy and pass it around the office. So wrong.
Annabel made a valid point.
I gave up feeling flattered when I read all the requests for every one of my new books at Astatalk and 4Shared and media Fire and others. If I got even half the missing royalties for the books that have been downloaded illegally, I could pay off my house, buy a decent car, and get my teeth fixed. As it is, I read the requests and feel like crying.
"Does anyone have anything by Fran Lee? I just LOVE her books! TIA!" Well, sweet cakes, Fran Lee LOVES paying her bills, so would you kindly go over and pay the pittance it costs to purchase my book so Fran Lee can buy a pair of cheap shoes? Sheesh!
I admire your positive attitude, Cindy. I'd want to kick the pirate in the head. Except for Captain Jack Sparrow, of course. He can pilage and plunder away!
Post a Comment