Angeline Kace, YA Paranormal Romance Author: October 2011

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Piracy: The Most Widely Accepted Act of Violation These Days

Going into publishing, I knew that piracy would be an issue I would one day have to face. I’m not naïve enough to think it’s something that would never touch me. My goal was to get my book out, make the readers aware of my book, and I knew that some of these readers would be the kind that pirate books. I knew all this. So I didn’t publish my book through Smashwords because I wanted to buy myself some time to not have to deal with this pirating issue. And I did. People have been requesting Descended by Blood on pirating sites since before it was even published. I thank GOD that all the reviewers and readers I sent out the eARC files too have been trustworthy. Thank you! I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

Unfortunately, my pirate-free days are over. I found out on Sunday that Descended by Blood was now available to pirators. The person offering the file had mentioned that they cracked the DRM (security on the file). I can’t even describe to you how terrible this feels, but I’ll attempt to in just a bit. Within a few hours, over 20 copies had been pirated. I emailed the site, which resulted in no results. Now, one advantage that I have is that my hubs is a computer genius. So I private messaged the person who offered the file and told them I was prepared to take legal action if they didn’t remove the file immediately. Within minutes, the user removed the file.

Score!! The relief I felt was unmatched!

Then, I checked back today and found the file was uploaded again yesterday. This time by one of the site’s moderators. Wait. It gets worse. This person was racked with guilt that they could not find the original poster to give them credit for the file. Apparently, these people have a conscious when it comes to crediting other hackers/pirators, but when someone holds the actual rights to something, “Violate away!”

I have found that there are 2 camps of authors. Those that support you and feel sick that it happened to you and fight to stop their own book pirating, and then those that either ignore it because they feel powerless about it, or those that think it’s okay because you’re reaching an audience of readers you wouldn’t have. Pirators usually don’t buy books. They wait until the file is available to pirate, then they’ll read it.

Well, this is where I stand on the issue:

I will NEVER be okay with pirating. As long as I can, I will FIGHT it! And this is why. It’s not so much the money that bugs me. Yes, when I see those download stats going up, beyond 60 downloads now, I add up the lost royalties and it ticks me off beyond measure. To the point that if I saw those people in real life, I’d key their effing cars!!! So, yes, the thought of lost royalties does bother me, but that is not my main issue at all. It's the violation I feel when my book is being pirated. It's the sick feeling deep within my gut, the pounding in my chest, and the body shaking I get from feeling violated and I can't make the offenders pay. It's the feeling of having no voice. When you put an extension of yourself out there, it’s a violation for someone to take away the control you once had over that extension of yourself. That's what bothers me.

And it'll continue to spread and get worse the longer we just accept it and let these people get away with it. Technology has provided pirators with tools to make this violating act more readily available. Well, I believe that technology has also provided us victims with tools to stop it. I will continue to search out these tools and prosecute those who pirate my work. It may be an uphill battle, but I will not turn my cheek and take it up the behind just so these people can get their jollies off at my expense.

And that's where I stand on this issue.

UPDATE: The moderator deleted the file, but also ended up deleting the thread it was on. This thread had a TON of books up for illegal download, all of which were published in August. So, I feel good that not only did my book get taken down, but a bunch of other ones too. And the person apologized, which really is appreciated.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Tour Scavenger Hunt Giveaway ::INTERNATIONAL::

The Descended by Blood Blog Tour has ended! What a blast! Thank you to ALL the bloggers who participated, the readers that followed along, the friends that RTed the tweets, Jessica for helping me set it up, and everyone else who helped to make this tour INCREDIBLY AMAZING!! The love and excitement for Descended by Blood has truly touched my heart.

Now, for those that followed the tour, you know that I sprinkled some teasers of the cover for Enemy Within along on some of the stops and that I offer a giveaway for it as well.

Well, here it is! I've listed all the tour stops below. All you have to do is list the correct blogs to be entered for the prize! What's the prize? You pick!!