Over the last nineteen years, I have had a front-row seat to the trials and tribulations authors face regarding ebook piracy and lost sales. My wife, who is a NY Times & USA TODAY bestselling author and who has been releasing books since 2004, puts in long hours, often at the detriment of her own health and our family time. She does this because she’s dedicated to her craft, and writing is her passion, but it’s also her career.

It’s incredibly hard to watch her titles, only hours after they are released, be offered on hundreds if not thousands of piracy websites for free. It’s disheartening to see her work so hard only to have a stranger come along and violate her copyrights, not to mention cannibalizing her sales.

What many don’t understand is that piracy is not a victimless crime. When a series doesn’t sell well, it often means the author is forced to walk away from it. Some stop writing altogether. That means that not only does the author suffer, but their editors and their cover artists also lose potential income too. And readers who are invested in a series lose out because they no longer get new releases in the worlds they’ve come to know and love.

I’ve watched my wife hire services who claim they’ll help get her work taken down from various sites only to have them not deliver, vanish overnight, or charge ridiculous fees for extras not included in their initial price quote. It upset me to the point I began hunting for pirated copies of her work myself and made it my mission to try to stop as much as I could. It’s impossible to stop it all, but making a dent helps.

In the time I’ve been helping her combat piracy, her writing friends have hinted at wishing I’d offer my assistance to them and their titles as well. Here I am, ready to help defend your titles against illegal distribution.

Thanks,

Shane