Today started off quite normal. I drank my delicious coffee, checked my email, checked my social networks, and then decided to go in search of free/pirated download Google links to my book to send take down notices to, before I started writing. Usually, I don't find any links, but today, oh I hit the jackpot.I found a mobile sharing website that allows people to upload files and 'share' them. Some of these files are freeware and others are uploaded illegally. Well, I came across one of these links and it said that my ebook had been downloaded more than 600 times! My first reaction was, "I'VE BEEN ROBBED!"
But what can I do? I thought to myself. Nothing, but send a takedown notice. Really? That's it? So, I sat and I thought and I thought...all day. Then I saw that this blogger--who shall remain nameless--had posted their email on the mobile file sharing website. The light bulb in my head turned into a flood light and I was momentarily blinded. Turns out the blogger was on my friends list on Goodreads and Facebook. I had sent this person swag. I had trusted this person, and they stabbed me in the eyes and in the spine of my book!
I guess the blogger liked my book so much that they wanted to share it with the entire community on that website. How thoughtful and splendid! I mean, it was only over 600 people that were really interested in my book, right? Technically, this blogger is acting as a distributor, like a bookstore. Then I remembered, hey my book is copyrighted! So what did I do? The only thing I could think of doing when a bookseller wants to buy my book, I sent the blogger a very neat and nice looking invoice for 600 digital copies. And that's a discount because technically it was over 600 copies, and I did not bill the blogger for those extra copies.
In the email subject line, I wrote, "Thanks for your purchase!"
And now, I await the reply.
READ I Bill E-Book Pirates: Part 2 HERE.
