Anatomy of a Murder (and Resurrection)

...is a damn good movie. But I'm talking about one of my books.

I killed We are the Monsters last week. It was a hard choice to make because it had already received one nice 5-star rating at Amazon.

I planned on changing the cover (and I do like the new cover much better than the old), but I wouldn't have needed to kill the book without the digital rights management (DRM) debacle.

See, I accidentally selected "enable DRM" when I first published the book. (Don't know what DRM is? Read this.) I don't believe DRM is good for authors. The debate rages on, of course, but in my opinion, it hurts.

If I want people to read my stories (which I've decided is goal #1), why would I put roadblocks in their way? Some writers get all kerfluffled about pirates giving away their books. I say go for it--as long as you don't start selling those pirated books under a different name. Just give me credit, and we're good. Go ahead. Steal my books. Give them away. Grow my audience.

The only way to free We are the Monsters from the DRM monster was to kill it and publish it again from scratch. So I did. It has a brand new, completely linked table of contents, new cover art, and freedom from DRM. None of my other books have DRM, either. It just doesn't make much sense.

And you can download it at Smashwords for free (for the time being). The Amazon Kindle edition is only 99 cents.

How do you feel about DRM? Piracy?

(And if you've read We are the Monsters, I'd love to hear what you think--good or bad. Amazon reviews are a writer's friend.)