Many a little makes a mickle

Temperature: a rainy 8/46 degrees

Eating: what's left of that Saturday night of sheer delight, see below

Drinking: not for a while, had too much fun and way too many cocktails just the other night with a couple of couples we invited over for dinner

Watching: The Wind Rises and Rio 2 with or without the wee ones real soon

Listening: to the poetic soul of Anthony Joseph

Reading: another disheartening blog post on the price of piracy

 

Writing: wrote a round of takedown requests just the other week thinking fuck you very much, even visited a forum where users thanked one another for sharing Alex, a book they could have bought for $0.99. You can imagine what my share of those ninety-nine cents is. And so you probably imagine I won't miss those cents. But those cents add up. Ten books here, thirty-four there, another one hundred and twenty some place else. Many places. Way too many places.

Support authors. If you like it, buy it, the slogan on that forum read. In that order. As if they were doing us a favor. I felt sick inside. So damn sick and tired and I know what you're thinking, “Don't go there. Why did you go there? Why do this to yourself?” Look at that pic on Denysé's blog. Look at that royalty check. I'm still waiting for mine, hoping for the best, expecting the worst. That's why. You want to make sense of things. Am I really that hopeless? Are my books really that bad? Sales have plummeted, books tank, so you wanna know why and what's wrong because how the hell else will you be able to fix things. But how do you fix this? How do you make it better?

Any suggestions? Anybody? And don't say just ignore 'em. Some authors do. Most can't. They feel that's like giving permission. Like a shopkeeper turning a blind eye to shoplifting as long as someone buys something, but when they steal more than you sell... That's not what you'd call a sustainable business model, is it? And if you are to treat writing as a business you have to take these things into account so it is kinda hard to just ignore it and it's becoming ever harder for many of us to justify our profession, business-wise, you know. Working for free is not a vocation (except for the very wealthy, which for the most part authors aren't), it's volunteering.

Feeling: I want to write as Dita too. But do I want to feel like this every time I do? Mad, sad, bad? Is that why I've navigated toward other shores? Not just because I got mouths to feed and bills to pay and talents I want to put to good use but because of the emotional toll Romantica has taken? So I come out as the strong and stoic type. I'm much more sensitive and vulnerable than you'll ever know. All authors, all artists are. We have to be or else we lose connection with the world and ourselves, with the tangible and the invisible, with everything we feel so keenly and love so dearly and try so desperately to put down in words. Do you understand what I'm saying? Can you sympathize?

Authors don't necessarily need a publisher. They need a good editor and maybe an agent and even a lawyer. Readers? Do authors need readers to write happily ever after? Some are starting to think that they don't. That if there's no money, no future in writing for publication i.e. the reading public, then what the hell are they doing pissing in the wind? Writing makes them happy. The business end of things makes them miserable. Cut the business end of things and go back to being happy. Problem solved.

I kid you not, folks, that is how some of us feel, and I will never ever forgive those making things so damn hard for all of us if some of my favorite authors go back to writing for the desk drawer. Put that in your pirate pipe and smoke it. If you can get your hands on it. Which you won't be able to because it will be hidden away with all the other precious things in their life and if you'd shown some respect when you had the chance maybe we'd still be enjoying the fruits of their labor. I dread the day but it's coming. For some of us, it's just a matter of deciding today's the day. You think working on a dream is hard. It's nothing and I mean nothing compared to giving up.

Support authors. Buy a book. If you like it, buy another. My heartfelt thanks to all readers who do.

To whom it may concern

[Promised myself I wouldn't dip my pen in this ink again, but the things I've been seeing and reading lately...damn.]

No one pays me to write. I write a story, submit the story, and if I get an offer for the story it's published. Or something happens on the way to heaven and it isn't. If and only if the story is published, I get a shot at making a part of my living writing.

My royalty check is equally proportional to how my book does. So it is with many authors. Every cent I don't make writing is a cent I go in search of somewhere else. Not that bad a deal when you like what you do. Not that sweet a deal when you dream of writing for a living, when the less you make writing the less you write and do something else instead.

The myth of the starving artist is a myth about artists starving. Bills to pay, mouths to feed, just like everybody else. I've gone without sustenance while writing. Because I forgot. Lost myself in it and simply forgot. That hunger I know, the satisfaction this craft brings. But no trade comes without frustrations and challenges and there are people out there making this one harder than I ever believed possible.

Piracy is not a big problem in digital publishing, it's huge. So if you're downloading or uploading thinking it's just me, just this once, just one, no harm done... Did you check the counter? With downloads by the dozens, hundreds, even thousands? Many writers do. They see what's going on, cry in the shower and resent you for it. Pick themselves up, fight back wondering if it's a losing battle, have another round in the shower and resent you even more. This is the demoralizing reality of those cooking up your favorite fantasies; something so prevalent everyone's sincerity is coming under suspicion.

I don't want you to write me telling me how much you liked my book and all the while think but where did you get it. I don't want to sweat months writing and revising, writing and revising some more, only to have my book stolen the minute it comes out. No author does. That is not how I want to start out a story; with the thought they will copy the hell out of this. I don't want to stop writing, either. No compulsive wordsmith does, and yet some are forced to cut back. Some never seem to get it off the ground. Mouths to feed, bills to pay, you know the drill.

What's it to you? Well, what if it were your favorite author down for the count? Hold your breath and hope for the best? You really want to take it that far? Really really? What if they switch to some other stuff they're good at? Some other craft you don't give a flying fig about? Are you prepared to hand them over to people who will never love them and appreciate them and understand them the way you do? What if you never find another author who understands you, life, the universe and everything the way they did?

I know many multitalented authors. They could have been a great many things, and what do they choose to do, the fools? They write. For reasons most can't explain and many refuse to dissect. Because that is what they love doing, what they'd rather do above all things. I for one don't want to lose a single one of my favorites so do us both a favor and don't encourage them, okay? Don't give them reasons, excuses or ideas. They're brilliant, yes. They're also highly impulsive and extremely impressionable. Give them the impression there's no future in writing and some will run.

I want to trust you. I want to write. I want to believe it doesn't have to be this way, that illegalities don't have to be accepted as part and parcel of digital publishing. Free reads are free reads, free content is free content. I get that. Books and content with a price tag are not free no matter how you come by them and you know that. You know what you're doing. What you don't seem to realize is how much deeper than an author's pocket the hurt and the harm goes.

Oh but you had no idea? You don't want to die a pitiful putz, do you? Of course not. You want to make sense of those questions, those objections, those buts burning within you. May I suggest you take a look at Shiloh Walker's rather comprehensive Q&A sure to put out the fire?

Long story short: No author, no book. End of story.

Grand theft author*

Of all the excuses made and explanations given for digital piracy, the one I find most baffling is "Any publicity is good publicity."

Bestselling authors and the big houses may sympathize with the wee ones, but perhaps don't feel the pain or the consequences. They don't need the added exposure, if you can even call it that in any positive meaning of the word, or they don't publish eBooks and it's all very interesting on an academic level but doesn't really concern them. I hope the more they invest in the eBook business, the more invested they become in protecting digital copyrights. I could use a big hitter instead of just rolling with the punches here. Yes, down here.

Meanwhile, back in the jungle, writers such as myself, the ones only getting started, are keeping the faith, and typing those takedown requests as fast as we can so we could get back to our WIP. For many of us, how our books sell equals what we end up making, and that's all there is to it, to that equation. What I've often wondered is how many end up quitting because they can't get it off the ground financially. Many dream of writing; many hope to write for a living. It's a valid dream eviscerated by sabotage so widespread some are prepared to understand it, even condone it. That's the way the cookie crumbles. But in the name of promotion?

I have no illusions. Not many of those stealing and spreading and reading stolen eBooks would probably buy those books. Would they steal those same books from a bookstore? And explain it away to the nice officer exactly how? Who benefits from this? There are only losers, the biggest ones being the persons who originally came up with an original idea. Some of them are not only losing their income, they are losing heart and motivation leading to fewer books and stories, and less varied voices. Is this on someone's agenda? Does someone actually want this? Is something right only because it's prevalent, or possible? 

As for you book thieves... Unless you're prepared to share the fruits of your labor with me; give me freebies I can flaunt in your name; products of yours I can throw around in the name of spreading the word; let me try out your services for free...please don't do me any favors.

*An individual who uploads and/or downloads the intellectual property of others, including digital copies of works of fiction. Not the asserted author or owner of rights to those works, only a smug jack who hijacks them.