Piracy

Well, I think three weeks is actually the longest it's taken for my books to go up on pirate sites -- they used to go up on the day of release, which was fun -- but I knew I'd need to make this post sooner or later.

If you're going to pirate books anyway, this isn't for you. You already don't care, which is absolutely your prerogative, but I still hope you understand how damaging it is.

If you wouldn't do a day's work if you employer proceeded to turn around and go "Yeeeeah, we're just not gonna pay you for your labor or time," at the end of your shift, then please consider not doing it to artists either. We're not some magical, mythical entitled race of beings -- we're human beings, with bills, and families, and need to survive just like you. If you value your own time and hard work (and everyone should) then maybe take a second to think about why you don't value a writer's the same way.

Let's be real, at the end of the day, a book about two guys shagging isn't exactly a necessity for anyone. It's not food, or shelter, or an education. It's not, as is often conflated in the "information should be free!" argument, enabling you to live a life of peace, democracy, free from corruption and with all your human rights intact. Entertainment of this kind is more akin to a treat, a luxury. And most of us, when we legitimately can't afford treats and luxuries, we either save up and savor them, go without, or in the case of books, lend from a library (which is NOT an equivalence to piracy; that's one of the most pernicious myths of all, right up there along with "If they pirate your new book, they'll go out and buy the others!" Like, no, Jan, they'll just ask their pirating buddies for the rest of your back-catalog, which is precisely what they did with me). We don't just take because it's not in the budget this month.

On the other hand, If you're someone who would genuinely buy a book if it was available in your country, or can't access it for some other reason, then I'd much prefer it if you guys contacted me before you grab my books from pirate sites. It's not only that adding to piracy site statistics is bad for me (by bumping up pirate site results in Google searches over legit retail outlets), they suck for you, too. They're often sketchy, either demanding credit card information for books they don't actually have (i.e. phishing scams), or they're infested with malware and spyware.

Everything I self-publish is going as wide as it can on Amazon. If that still doesn't cover your location etc. then like I said, drop me a line -- catkanewrites@gmail.com