E-Book Piracy

So my first erotic romance was released on April 14th (yay!). Since I've heard a lot about book piracy on list servs, I figured I'd find out a little bit more about it. I was really surprised to find that four days after my book was released, it's already been pirated! I found it available for (free) download at two separate websites and it had been downloaded at least 30 times already.

It's incredibly discouraging to find that something I just spent four months working on is now free to anyone who wants it. While I'm gratified that several people were interested enough in the book to download it, it's disappointing to know that what they've done will make it more difficult for me to produce future books. After all, the more money I make from writing, the more time I can spend writing. I'm far, far away from supporting myself by writing fiction, but it's something I hope to do in future.

Something else to think about--it's not just authors who are being shortchanged by book piracy. It's also editors, cover models and artists, publicists, agents, and publishers. Pirates make it more difficult for all of us to make a living.