Empathic Ink

We all know eBooks will be pirated from now until they become obsolete, taken over by some other up-and-coming new technological breakthrough. As much as authors and publishers try to fight it, contacting the pirating sights, sending DMCA take-down notices, it's still just a small drop in the vast bucket book pirates. (I've written an entire blog post with DMCA info & tips--you can find it HERE .) What usually doesn't happen, though, is to have book pirates connect with you, the author. Well, that's exactly what happened this week. For the most part, I know most readers, including myself, use the proper book purchasing etiquette; buy book from appropriate authorized site, read book, leave book sitting on virtual eBook shelf. On the other hand, you have those who (may or may not) buy the book, (may or may not) read it, then resell it or add it to their illegal pirating site... or social media site. I had some notifications on one of my social media sites saying s...

(Well, this was my reaction, anyway.) Your manuscript was accepted and is being published...woop woop! Now what? Once I had a publisher, I thought the hard part was over, but I was wrong. Just because your book is being published doesn't mean people will automatically read it. Yes, your friends and family will read it just to see if you're any good or what you have to say... or if they're in it. But how do you get a stranger to read it? Or better yet, how do you get a stranger to buy your book and not read it on a website that's published every single blood, sweat, and tear-soaked chapter illegally? Well, I'd like to give you step-by-step tips on how to do just that, but sadly, I have no clue. Famously seasoned authors don't, either. Why? Because we can't control what others read or how/where they read it.  However , we can control the number of sites that enable people to illegally download or read our books for free... at least some of t...