The ARCs Are Coming!

Today I'm going to be offering Advanced Review Copies of my upcoming release, Bad Boys Need Love Too, to readers. And I'm terrified. Why? Well, of course there's the usual, "What if my book is horrible and no one likes it and they all laugh and WHY did I ever think I could be a writer?!" fear. But now I have another fear. Pirates. No, not the scurvy, swashbuckling kind. I'm too far inland to worry about them.

I'm talking about internet pirates. People who steal others work and put it out there on the interwebz to be enjoyed for free. I hate this. Not because I'm stingy and don't like to share. But because I work my brain hard to come up with my stories and I go through the expense and trouble of having them made into books. So having them stolen and given away for free not only hurts my feelings, it hurts my pocket book too.

As a new writer, there isn't that much to steal from me and put online. But the two books I have are out there. In fact, I woke up this morning to a Google Alert that found The Sergeant on a torrent site. Lovely. Now I have to send take down notices.

So yeah, it worries me that I'm about to give out a few copies. Especially after the huge book sharing scandal that Tymber Dalton broke a couple of weeks ago. Hell, it worries me that the book will be for sale in a few weeks. But if I don't put it out there, no one will read it and I won't get any money from it. Which leaves me no choice. It's a terrible thing all creative people have to deal with. As long as there have been inventors and artists, there have been thieves. It's so much more wide spread and easy to do now a days, but the practice isn't new.

Hell, I was a thief.  When I was promoting The Sergeant this spring, I used all kinds of pretty pictures that I found on line. And they didn't belong to me. Shame! I was stealing from photographers! Once I had my duh! moment and realized what I'd done, I stopped using them. And this time for official BBNLT promos, I'm only using pictures I've purchased or that are free domain.

Some people see the piracy as just another form of promotion. I think that's utter nonsense. I just can't imagine that the amount of piracy that goes on brings anyone enough resulting sales to make up for it. Of course, I don't have any data to back this up, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

In the end, all I can do is create what I want to create and share what I choose to share. I feel strongly that the number of good people out there who come by my work honestly, outweighs the meanies who like to steal. Besides, I don't have any choice but to write. It's in my skin. Literally.

Oh, and PS. It's Teaser Tuesday. Take a look at sneak peek from Bad Boys Need Love Too

Thanks for reading.
Love,
Christa