Don't Be a Pirate!!

[image error] So of course I'm not oblivious to pirating--but I didn't realize how it could affect a person, the person on the other side. I will happily download a film off the internet, or a TV show--but after today, I have a cold stone sitting in the pit of my stomach, freezing and thawing at the thought of being the person whose art was being pirated--it is theft no matter how you phrase it, it's stealing.

A friend of mine, A. Jacob Sweeny had her novel, Pulse of Heroes, pirated--and if it wasn't for Google Alerts, she wouldn't even know about it and think of how long it would have been before she did, how many people could have pirated her novel.

Each writer's journey is unique, but hers is especially heart-warming. She, like so many others, has worked long hours researching, plotting, planning, outlining, writing, editing--so much so, that she wore her wrists out, and went through excruciating pain after needing an operation on them, but passion drove her, her passion for writing, for being creative, and for someone to pirate that is like sticking a middle finger up at her or laughing in her face about her career,



I don't understand why, for such a little sum, and to make an author so grateful for buying their work, would a person pirate a novel, especially when so much sweat and tears have gone in to writing it, not to mention the hours, late nights, often caffiene addictions put into it on the writer's behalf. I hope this never happens to anyone. I don't want to know what it feels like, and I don't want anyone else to feel it either.

However, like ying and yang, black and white, good and bad, there are two sides to everything, you just have to search for that silver lining. I am no way going to say that stealing is right, because it's not, it's wrong.

So you might ask: "What is the silver lining to this?" 

Your novel, if someone has taken their time to put your novel up on a website, it means that you're worth something. It means that they're saying something great and wish for more people to read it, and of course people like the free things in life. Or maybe someone heard something about your novel and have downloaded it.

I'm not going to preach anymore about how bad pirating is, because I download films and music all of the time from the internet, and I bet you do as well, that is if you're not either of my friends who are completely against it, and I doubt they read my blog anyway :P however, indie and mainstream or two different things.

Please support the indie guys! Buy from the indie guys; read their books, listen their music, watch their films--spread the word, and let us live on.

Peace out--

Joseph