Writers Are People Too!

I've just discovered my first ebook ever published has been pirated over the internet today. Needless to say I was in total shock and am outraged. As I sift through the long search process for these shady websites offering downloads of my entire book in pdf format, I found I am not alone. Books of various authors and indie writers alike were also listed. They are as much a victim as I am.

Take a look at this pdf advert floating around the internet. This guy actually puts his "name" as the author of my book aptly renamed "THE MAGE EMPEROR EBOOK". My problem with him only starts from there. Next, he instructs people in three whole paragraphs that his distribution under the guise of educational purposes legalizes the pirate downloading of the entire ebook. When a visitor clicks the blue highlighted link under his name at the top, it will direct them to a masking website portal here:

Don't be fooled. This portal will send the visitor to a mirage website asking them to sign up for a free account, but requires credit card information in order to enroll in the membership to their file-sharing hosting.

For those people out there who feel snatching a book off the virtual shelf of the free internet is perfectly harmless, please rethink your actions. There are struggling indie writers like me who list books at affordable pricing. Would you like to be in my shoes? To be a person laboring time and putting out of pocket expenses to present your work in public hoping for some compensation in return. Literary works are not just a product, they are materialized creativity of writers that is rightfully copyrighted for a reason. And in reality, not every published writer make a profit decent enough to sustain a living. We are not the celebrities with all the hype singing praise in all the media. We are ordinary people like you who toil away our days with family and friends and work. What we can scrounge up in our spare time, we harness our creativity to write. That's all. Simple.