To the person in Brazil…

Who is accessing this site with the search terms:

• Secret Society Girl Downloads
• Under the Rose (Ivy League) Downloads
• Rites of Spring Break lit download
• Tap and Gown lit download

I am wondering if you realize that you are attempting to steal my books. I followed your search string and see that you did, indeed, find free copies of my book online. These books were uploaded by thieves, and when you download it, you are also a thief. You may not feel like a thief, because you didn’t walk into a store, stuff a copy of my book down your pants, and walk out — but that’s what you are.

Maybe you think you have the right to steal my book because the last two have not yet been published in Brazil. Well, let me tell you something: if this kind of thievery continues, they probably won’t be. Why should a publisher pay me money to publish a book whose potential readership (i.e, those people who have read the first book and want to continue on with the series) have already stolen? They won’t buy it. Why bother?

Maybe you think you have the right to steal my book because I’m an author and you are under the mistaken impression that all authors are rich and won’t miss the money. People tend to think all authors are rich because they read these newspaper articles about how JK Rowling is the richest person in England and Dan Brown owns a private jet. But those kind of authors are really, really rare. Most authors I know have day jobs just to pay the rent. Believe me, when you steal a book from most authors, we feel it very keenly indeed.

When I go to these sites where thieves and pirates have uploaded copies of my books online, I see that they have been accessed thousands of times. Thousands of times! Sometimes the number of people who have stolen one of my books is larger than the number of copies my publisher has told me they’ve sold. Sometimes it’s larger than the number of paper copies my publisher has printed. And that’s the other problem with stealing my book. You may think you’re a huge fan of mine, but what you’re actually doing is ensuring that I don’t write any more books. And the reason for that is, when someone steals your book, it doesn’t count as a a sale, no matter how much the thief says they love your book and writes you fan mail about your book. It doesn’t count. And when a publisher looks at your book and sees that they printed very few copies, that they sold very few copies, they say to themselves, “Well, this isn’t a very popular author. Let’s not publish any more of her books.”

And then you never read another book by me again.

I’m not stupid. I know not every one of these thousands of thieves would buy my book if there were no “free” copy to steal, the same way I might take a free sample of chicken teriyaki at the mall food court without having any intention of buying the chicken teriyaki the restaurant is selling. But the difference is, the food court guys know they are giving away free chicken teriyaki. They’ve decided to do it. I do the same thing right here on my website, where you can not only get a free sample of each book in the form of the first chapter, but you can also read a heap of free stories. Stories that are right there to read for free, with my blessing!

You would never dream of going into the kitchen at the restaurant and filling yourself up a bowl of chicken teriyaki and walking away, would you? Well, that’s what you’re doing when you steal my book. And when you come to my website and TELL me that you’re stealing my book, it’s a slap in the face. Because you came to my website. You saw my picture. You know I’m not some faceless robot churning out books, but a real person, with a mortgage, and a family to feed, and college loans to pay, and a job that I might lose if you keep stealing from me.

I know books are expensive. I know you don’t have a lot of extra money. I know that you just love my books so so so much and you just can’t wait until you can get a legal copy of the new one and won’t I please understand.

I know these things. And I want YOU to understand that it is stealing. I want you to understand that if it keeps up, I’ll never be able to write another book again, either to buy or to steal. Because my publisher doesn’t count thieves as fans, and they think to themselves, “Well, no one reads her books.”

And I want you to understand how hard it is for me to make the stealing stop. I know some writers who spend 10-20 hours a week writing takedown notices to websites. That’s time they could spend writing. And the reason it takes so long is that these pirating websites make it really, really hard for you to get things taken down. Most of them will not accept a standard form letter, and if you try to send them a polite, standard “I’m the copyright holder of this work please remove it from your site” letter, they send you back a nasty email about how they don’t care what you say unless you say it in the exact order they want you to. They send you a nasty email about how you are getting in the way of progress. They put up nasty notices on their sites saying that they will not comply with any request unless you serve them in writing, by snail mail (even though they can steal from you online). They put up nasty notices on their site — which, btw, you can never email a real person, or even have an email address — just fill out a form five or six times before their image verification software chooses to accept it — saying they will not comply with any requests unless you give them your personal address and phone number. Yes, that’s right: they don’t even have names or email addresses, let alone street addresses or phone numbers, and yet you have to include all that stuff of your own — you have to give all that information TO THE THIEVES before they take your stolen work off their site. And then, sometimes, they put your letter with your personal information up on their site for people to mock you and harass you with. Do you have any idea how heartbreaking it is to have to beg thieves on a daily basis to stop stealing from you? To have to write certified letters to the stick-up man in the dark alleyway just to get him to stop shoving that gun in your face and taking your wallet? And have him tell you that YOU’RE in the wrong and you haven’t asked him to stop in triplicate with a notary?

That’s how ridiculous this is.

I could spend all my writing time chasing these people down and begging them to take my work off their sites. I know writers who do that. But that’s another way not to have any more books out — if I don’t write anymore.

So all I can do is say please do not steal my books.

Thank you.