I also think part of the problem is that a lot of people just don’t realize that it’s wrong/illegal to post/read the books for free.

Ah, Balder’s Gate. Wheezley bought me a copy of that to play on my computer several years ago. Good times.

I admit that I don’t now everything these is to know about DRM, but I’ve seen tons of romance readers complaining about it online. You would think that the publishers would come up with a better solution. Anyway, I hope you don’t have the same problems with pirates that I’ve been having. Good luck with your release! 😉

Because they are honest. The jerks who are downloading your book for free probably aren’t people who would have bought it, anyway.

Years ago, a former friend tried to get us to download software from the piracy sites. Back then, there was absolutely no penalty. You could totally get away with it. But we never were tempted; we shelled out 49 bucks for Balder’s Gate even though he thought we were insane.

Notice I said he was a former friend.

There’s nothing I can say that will make you feel better about this. Bravo for sending those takedown letters. My own publisher, Carina Press, isn’t bothering with DRM because the pirates know how to get around it, and the customers are only annoyed by it. I’m wondering how much this will be a problem when my turn comes, but I guess I will soon find out.

Exactly! Sales are everything in this business. If your books don’t sell, your publisher won’t ask you to write any more of them.

What really kills me is when I see that the books have been posted online … before I’ve even seen a hard, finished copy of the book yet. That happened with Web of Lies. I saw pirated copies online in early May when the book didn’t even come out until May 25. Grr …

Seriously, though. I hate that you have had to deal with the whole pirating thing. When there are other, legal, ways to read books for free, why on earth do something that could potentially get you in trouble (if they ever decide to crack down on this) and hurts the author. Don’t they understand that if they continue to hurt the author by disrupting sales, then the author won’t put out any more books? So frustrating! I can only imagine how you feel!

Okay, I understand now.

It is really convenient to order e-books, but I think that I’ll always prefer reading paper books. I spend so much time on the computer already. The last thing I want to do when I go home is read on a screen all night long.

Cool. I hope you enjoy the sample. Happy reading! 😉

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t saying that I understand why they would be pirated (technical books), I meant that I understand why the publisher would put them in that format. O’Reilly’s Safari is a good use of that technology.

Reading books on a computer (at least fiction, for me) is ponderous anyway. Lately I’ve been getting them on my BlackBerry Storm (Kindle) because it’s so convenient. It’s cheaper than print and I can read in the dark. The down side is that it’s so convenient. 🙂 I can easily go broke with one-click, $10 at a time.

I do have a sample of yours sitting there and I’ll naturally buy it if I like it. I like urban fantasy and I’ve been seeing good things about your work, so I’ll probably end up getting it.

Thanks for answering the Q.

Nowadays, though, lots of fiction publishers, including mine, have gone to electronic advanced reading copies (e-ARCs) to send to reviewers. An e-ARC is basically a PDF of the book that you can read on your Kindle/iPad/whatever. Get a hold of one of those, and you could post it online, which is what some people do, even though they are for review purposes only.

And it doesn’t matter if it’s a fiction or technical book or whatever. Posting it for free online without permission is piracy, as far as I’m concerned.

What I don’t understand is how/why fiction books end up digital, aside from editions like Kindle which I believe have decent DRM. Are people just scanning them?