Reblogged for your consideration, eyes open. Though I don’t personally agree with her conclusions, I’m sympathetic to her pain.
This week I learned my recent release, The Trials of Hercules, has been pirated. Initially I thought only a couple illegal download sites had it and that the wound could be staunched, but I’ve since learned that old Herc is bleeding out through his femoral artery because the book is on at least 20 pirating websites.
It’s No Big Deal, Right?
For those of you who don’t think pirating is a big deal, let’s put it in perspective. I’ve worked for over a year on writing, editing, formatting, and promoting this book. An average year’s wages in the U.S. are somewhere around $40,000. Now, $40,000 can buy you a pretty decent car, so let’s say you take a year of your work and buy a car then, the very day you get your car home, it gets stolen.
How pissed off are you? Add to that anger the attitude…
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C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m 
Hi, Chazz –
I feel for her pain, but the law of attraction kept ringing in my head as I read this post. I guess what I’d like to know is how you’d have responded to finding yourself in a similar situation. Thanks for the post!
Marcie (aka Laura Orsini)
Hi! Sure, I’ll answer. A bunch of my books have been pirated. Neil Gaiman’s experience (and others) showed that pirates actually helped his work. That hasn’t been my experience. I sell pretty much the same number of books every day, steady, but not as much as I need financially.
I don’t like piracy because it’s something others choose for you. However, my rule is I don’t worry about what I can’t control. There is simply no way to stop piracy (yet). It’s more attractive for traditionally published books because their ebook prices are far higher than tiny independents like me.
I feel bad that she feels so bad about it she’s giving up serious aspirations to make a career from writing. There’s nothing wrong with making what you love into a hobby, though. A lot of people attain that and are happy. I’m never happy. I feel compelled to write whether books sell big or not. It’s a sickness with no cure but to put out the next book. I won’t quit because I lack other options. I can understand the impulse to give up, though. I’ve felt that same impulse when a book I wrote (which I thought brilliant!) didn’t take off. Neither did the next…or the next…and still I’m stupidly at my keyboard trying to entertain the unwilling. (It helps to be bad at math.)
So I won’t worry about pirates. I think it’s likely a lot of those sites selling my book and not compensating me will give their customer’s computers STDs, but all I can do is shrug and keep writing. What else am I going to do? Take up animal husbandry, pet sweater knitting or rocket surgery? Nah, writing books is my thing.
I focus on my ultimate target: readers who respect art. Nothing against free seekers because free is often a way to introduce myself to strangers, but 10,000 true fans is the real goal. Fans won’t take a free book. They want to throw some couch change my way for each book because they know that with some financial security I’ll be able to deliver more thrills to them rather than knocking about with two part-time jobs and worries about paying my bills. I don’t have one novel in me. I have hundreds. However, contrary to the writer slaving in a garret myth, financial security fosters creativity and sleepless nights worrying about money stifles it.
I should have made this a blog post, huh?