ARC Warning! Warning! This is Only a Warning!

So most people who beta read Degradation noticed I added a disclaimer at the beginning. These seem to be all the rage, and why not?

Funny thing is, I don't necessarily put it there so people won't "pirate". At this point in the game, I'm a nobody. Who wants to pirate something that no one has ever heard of? Is it even pirating?

Also, what exactly does pirating entail? A million years ago, I used to record movie off of TV on to VHS tapes (what are those!? some of you are asking, god), and then sometimes I would take them to a friends house for a slumber party, or they would bring their own tapes to my house. Sometimes, we would make mix-tapes with music and give those to friends or whoever. Is THAT pirating? Did we all pirate our way through the 80's and 90's?

Vair confusing. So I thought a lot about it. If I send an ARC/Beta copy of my book to a person, do I want them just handing it out willy-nilly? NO. If they loved my book so much that they just HAVE to share it with their bestie, do I think that's awesome? YES. Some fine lines there!

We indie authors work hard. We don't have a whole publishing team behind us. A lot of the time, we don't have anyone, to start with - we are doing this purely out of love. So when I decided I was going to write a disclaimer asking people not to give my shit away, I decided to explain exactly what I go through, so they could understand why I would prefer it if they didn't just bandy my story about.

Let me take you through a day in my life as an “indie author”. I get up at 6:30am, feed my dogs and let them out. Then I get ready and go to my real-job at 8am. I work all day – we get paid for our lunch breaks, and thus are required to stay at work and help if needed (aka, some days there are virtually no lunch breaks). I get off at 4pm, and Tuesday-Saturday, I go home, I make popcorn, I plug my laptop into its cooler, and I sit down and start typing. I try to stop around 6pm to feed the dogs and nibble on something for myself. If it's been a hard day at real-work, sometimes I'll quit the computer around 11pm. Usually, though, I go till 1am – that is my cut off time, unless I'm “in the zone”. Stopping at 1am means I usually don't go to sleep-sleep till closer to 2am. Sunday and Monday are my days off, so right now while I'm in the middle of setting up a release, I am getting up, getting on my computer, and then not getting off of it until it's time for bed.

Do the math. 8 hours at my real-job. Another 8-ish on my writing-job. And one of these jobs does not pay, as of yet. I do it out of love and compulsion, and to appease the voices in my head. When I am working on a book, I have virtually no social life, I ignore my family, everything becomes about the book. I write, I edit, I beta-read, I run my social websites, I follow multiple blogs, and I am my “marketing department”, so yes, indie authors work hard.

I do not expect to rake in the dough for my efforts, but I also don't want anyone ripping off my hard work. And what's really a worry for me, right now in my beginning stages, people who take/download/accept pirated copies are less likely to leave reviews – which is a killer. I am a very generous person and would love for anyone to read my book. If someone wants to read it badly enough to pirate it, I would ask that they e-mail me personally, and maybe something could be arranged. If the person reading this right now loves my story and has a friend that just MUST read it – contact me. We'll talk it over. I have several ways I can be reached: here, Facebook, stylofantome@gmail.com. Sharing is caring, but only when done appropriately and with the author's full knowledge and cooperation.

So with all that said – know that with every ARC I send out, I change one teeny, tiny thing in each copy. So if something does get pirated, or leaked, or distributed, I can trace it back to the person that did it. Seriously. A two sentence e-mail is all it takes, and we can start a dialogue. Please don't steal.
And if you do anyway, for the love of god, please leave a review. You owe me that much, at least.

Honestly, "pirating" and "unlawful distribution" don't scare me at this juncture - as I said, I'm a nobody. But what does scare me - what has scared me since I was very young - is losing control of my own work.

We all see those messages, when you sign up for Facebook or Grooveshark or Macys.com, whatever, a little "Do You Accept These Terms and Conditions?" box. We never actually read them, do we? I couldn't care less if Macy's sells my e-mail address, or what kind of shoes I like to buy, to some outside company.

But when I signed up for Draft-to-Digital and Amazon Direct Publishing, I read every single word in those contracts. My work belongs to ME, and no one else. Even if no one ever reads my work, or they do, but they all hate it, it's still MINE. My blood, sweat, and tears. I would hate it if I accidently signed those rights away.

But I would hate it even more if someone STOLE it. I have a silly, irrational, fear that there could be a possibility that someone could read my work, and like it ..., enough to plagiarize it. THAT would piss me off. THAT would make pull out the big guns. I don't have a publishing house behind me to help me sue someone, but I could come to someone's house and beat them over the head with a copy of my book, if I found out they were using it for their own gain.

That shit's not cute.

And THAT'S why I find the ARC/Beta warning necessary.

Because I'm paranoid, and apparently vain. And maybe, just maybe, a little crazy. But hey, you've been warned!

#sorrynotsorry