Thursday, May 16, 2013
Stealing books
If you have a copy of my book, "Poverty Prepping: How To Stock Up For Tomorrow When You Can't Afford To Eat Today", did you pay for it?
My husband and I ran a google search this evening and were SHOCKED to find sites giving it away as a free download.
I have never authorized the book to be given away free, not even on the Amazon free promotion program like I have with some of my other books, and certainly not on any other website.
One of the "Pirate" sites has given away more than THREE THOUSAND downloads of my book!!!!
THREE THOUSAND!!! 3,000
I spent weeks doing research and writing that book. I edited and published it.
How dare anyone think they have a right to steal my work.
Many people think it is NOTHING to steal music, movies, and BOOKS that other people have worked hard to produce. But guess what? You're taking away from the livelihood of those people, just the same as if you walked into the corner gas station and put a candy bar in your pocket and walked out the door.
It's a faceless crime to most of you. But....
I am one of those faces, along with my family.
Those of you who did not pay for this book, unless I personally gave you a copy, you stole from me.
You have hurt my family.
3,000 copies given away free on one site... I haven't even SOLD that many in the last few months total. I've been robbed.
That doesn't even count the other sites that my husband is going through right now and notifying that they'd better remove the book.
And we haven't even started on my other books that are turning up on these theft sites.
You may think you were innocent because you "didn't know it wasn't supposed to be free".
But you know now.
If you want to make it right, buy the book. If not, please delete it from your computer.
In the future, don't download anything free unless you can verify that you're getting it from a source with permission to do so.
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I'm really sorry this happen to you I didn't download your book. I'm just a follower of your blog and twitter. I really hope your able to get this all straighten out. I will say I do download free book but they are mostly kids books from homeschoolers or christian from their blogs or books that are over 79 years out of copy right. Again I'm really sorry about all this.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of free downloads that ARE legal, and it can be hard to tell if you're downloading one that the website has a right to distribute.
DeleteIt is up to us authors to google our own books and find where they're being illegally distributed and have them removed, since it's a very low priority thing for the government to track down and take care of. I just didn't know this was going on. Now we can 'police' the internet ourselves and watch for them.
If anyone finds any of my books on a free download that is NOT an Amazon free promotion, I would appreciate being notified.
I'm sure many readers unsuspectingly downloaded it thinking, just happy they were getting a good deal with a freebie. And I hope that it helps many of them to be prepared and have some things stored when disaster or anything else strikes. That's the bottom line.
I apologize for not adding to this blog lately. It's been a rough and busy few months, but I think I'll be back to it soon.
...and by the way, thanks for your comments. It helps to hear from people.
DeleteSusan
I paid! And it ticks me off that people give you away, when you obviously need every dollar. Someone said: It has never been easier to become a published writer, and never been harder to earn a living doing it. This seems a good illustration.
DeleteHi, Sorry to hear this has happened to you. I did pay for your book and loved it. I also purchased another one from another member of your family (don't remember who). I did start stocking up and trying to keep things rotated. It helps even if just saving for a rainy day and not a disaster.
ReplyDeleteHi, and thank you for buying my book, and I'm happy to hear that you loved it. It's nice to hear from someone that it helped. I'm glad you have done some stocking up, and if disaster of bad times come, I'm happy that you'll have something to fall back on.
DeleteThank you for your comments. :)
Susan
I bought your book. I enjoyed it. Great job. Thanks for the information." weatherman"
ReplyDeleteThank you. I appreciate that you did, and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
DeleteSusan
Just bought this today. Have you enabled DRM to help prevent people from stealing it? I have and it's worked great for me.
ReplyDeleteI have enabled DRM on most of my books, but that was one of my first, so I'm not sure on that one. I'll have to check. I don't think Amazon lets it be changed after publication though.
DeleteI only buy electronic form's of books from Amazon I don't have yours yet but looking forward to when I can afford it. It is very upsetting to hear how you are being ripped off. That's one reason I only use amazon for downloaded books. I think their reputation is too important to steal from authors. At least I hope so. Well I wish you well on getting the stolen copies deleted from the other sites.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain. I'm an author and the other day I got into the most surreal argument with a guy who said that he saw nothing wrong with pirating copies of e-books because they had no value. His logic was that all I was doing was talking, and who would pay me to talk? He agreed print books had value, but only as much as the paper and binding cost. "Words are free" he kept arguing. "There's no physical labor involved." I had to walk away before I wrung his pompous neck. In his mind, flipping burgers deserved money but me spending 8 months writing a 500 page novel did not.
ReplyDelete