Modern Pirates and Thieves

 In the world of books, there is one ever present scourge, book pirates. No, not people running around with a parrot on one shoulder, yelling "Argh" or "Ahoy Matey" every time they come ashore from their wooden ships, but people who think it is okay and acceptable to steal a book from an author and give it away for free. All too often you see them justifying this theft by saying 'people on a fixed income can't afford to buy books and they should be available to everyone.'  Well, yeah, books should be available to everyone, and in fact are. They are located at this place called a PUBLIC LIBRARY, a concept that has managed somehow to permeate the entire world.

Theft is wrong, people. You know it, I know it. It doesn't matter if it's a stick of gum or the Hope Diamond. Theft is wrong. And while some think that stealing a book and giving copies of it away is okay, let me ask you this: do you have a job you clock in for? Do you work for free? Then why do you think authors should? In many cases, authors aren't even making $2000 a year off royalties, most of the time even less, and largely because we have to fight people who seem to think the weeks we spend writing should have zero reward for us. Heck, even my own family has members who have straight up told me that I should give them FREE PAPERBACK COPIES of my books because they are family. 

People, I have to pay for edits, I have to pay for the covers, I have to pay for the physical copies you hold in your hand. I had to pay for the computer I used to write them on, the software I used to compose the 45k or more words I strung together, for the electricity used to run the computer and yes, the access to the internet to research the book so that I could create a believable world for you to enjoy. On average, it costs about $1200-1500 to write and publish ONE book. And yet there are those among us who think that I am made of money and can afford to do all this for FREE. Got news for you, I can't afford to do that. I have health conditions that eat up all the money I get every month in disability. So, yeah, I do need to be paid for each and every copy of my books that go out, be they ebooks or physical ones. I don't ask the people at the restaurants I frequent to work for free, I don't ask the cashiers at the grocery or general stores to work for free, and I for damn sure don't ask my medical team to work for free. So why do people think it's okay to ask authors to work for free?

On Publishing and Getting the Word Out

 Publishing is a strange world. You really have 3 sections: tradition, self, and vanity. 

Traditional publishing is where you have one of the old school publishers, like Random, and a contract that says you will write books X length and due by X date and you get paid Y amount for the books. Traditionally published books are considered 'upper class' for lack of a better term, and are the standard that everyone supposedly strives to attain. But here's the thing, you don't get as much in royalties, you have less control, and honestly, you usually end up with simple editing errors that are not tolerated in other methods of publishing. Traditionally published authors are actually held to a lower standard of quality, because the authors are given grace about edits etc, because the publisher is supposed to handle that, not the author.

Self publishing is a fickle thing. The author is responsible for EVERYTHING, content, copyrights, covers, edits, printing, advertising, sales, taxes, the whole shebang. Because of this, self-published authors are actually held to a higher standard than traditionally published authors. I have seen books put out by DelRey for one of my favorite authors, that has over 10 errors in it (missing words, wrong word used, misspelled words) that if I, as a self-published author, were to leave those errors in the book, I would be crucified by critics for the errors and scathingly told that is why self publishing shouldn't happen, that it brings down the industry. Um, ok Mr. Double-Standard.

Vanity Press is loathed by everyone. They are the publishers that are out to make a buck, and don't care about what they are putting out there. These are the publishers that charge you up front (spoiler alert: real publishers don't do this) to publish your books (usually well over $1000). It's left up to you to make arrangements for advertising and try to recoup your money from sales. While there really isn't anything technically wrong with going this route, I don't know many indie authors who can afford the vanity press route.

Interestingly enough, while you have a team working with you in a Traditional situation, in all 3, you as the author are responsible for getting the word out about your books. It's just the manner in which your books get to the public that differs.