The internet exploded with the news that a major piracy website went down–one that had thousands of books illegally available for download. I’m not naming the website because, unlike everyone who’s talking about it and reporting it, the website isn’t down anymore, and it’s back to being the book piracy hub. So much for that.

What this fiasco did do was get writers and readers talking about book piracy (and they’re still talking, especially on Threads). Authors are against piracy. Readers who support it argue that their right to read supersedes paying for books, that they are too poor to afford it, etc.

I’m not going to talk about countries that have governments that suppress books or make reading nearly impossible–you know, systemic, infrastructural issues. The readers in those situations don’t actually pirate all that much, and there’s more nuance to what’s going on with those readers and piracy.

I’m also not going to talk about academic textbooks and scientific research. That’s a different issue entirely, too.

I’m talking to the people who can afford books and choose to steal things like the latest romantasy or thriller novel.

Most pirates come from the United States: “a 2017 Nielsen survey found that people who admitted to having read a pirated book in the previous six months tend to be middle class, educated, female as well as male, between the ages of 30 and 44 — and with an income of $60,000 to 90,000 a year.” These are people who can clearly afford a book but choose to steal it instead, despite the existence of…I don’t know…libraries.

The entitlement people have towards art, and how they devalue it, is disheartening. And yes, this includes writing. Pirates either don’t realize this hurts creators, or they just don’t care. They think pirating thousands of books brings exposure to the author. This isn’t true. They think it doesn’t amount to a loss in sales because they wouldn’t buy the book anyway. This isn’t true. They think authors make so much money that they won’t be financially hurt by piracy. This isn’t true. They think they’re sticking it to THE MAN (publishing). Maybe, but publishers have billions of dollars and authors make thousands or hundreds. Some even less. So…you’re sticking it to the creators, too.

On a now-deactivatedTumblr, Maggie Stiefvater shared a story about how she needed to prove to her publisher that piracy was hurting her series. It had diminished in sales and was in danger of being discontinued. The latest book sold well as physical copies, but hardly any eBooks. Maggie and her brother made a file of the new book, but it repeated Chapters 1-4 over and over and over again. Then they uploaded the fake book to every piracy website they could think of. People on the internet started complaining about it, asking for legit copies…meanwhile the eBook made tons of sales when this was going on. The post is still up–you should definitely read the whole thing.

Piracy hurts creators. If you can’t already tell, I’m 100% against it.

I’m just a nobody, so I haven’t found my work on pirate websites yet. There is a genuine fear that one of the 67 ARC readers for The Name and the Key will upload a copy to a piracy site, and if so, I know it’ll be really hard to have it taken down, if it even happens at all. I pray that it doesn’t happen.

But my ask is this: if you are going to pirate my books no matter what, can you please leave a review of the book? That’s the least you can do since you’re cheating me out of income. Just a small, simple thing.