What is so sad is that people are raised without any ability to take responsibility for their bad actions. She’s blaming you for her theft of your work and it’s so typical of the selfish mindset people like her have. I can guarantee she’s not opening her house up to anyone who needs what she has and doesn’t want to pay for it. I can guarantee she believes she is due to be compensated for her work. So what makes you different? Oh that’s right, because she thinks she’s entitled to steal because she’s special somehow.

I don’t count people who steal from me and then have the gall to come to my house and make excuses for it my “readers” I call them thieves.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the option to publish my books anywhere I choose — otherwise, like I said, I’m make sure they were available everywhere, all over the world. I’m thrilled to have readers in Serbia and Bangladesh and Australia and Germany and France and in all the other countries where people are interested in reading my books. My contracts don’t have geographic restrictions in them — but the rights to publish my work are purchased by the publishers, and it’s THEIR choice/right to publish the work in whatever format/country/location. I don’t have the power to make them put the books in ebook format, or make them available anywhere other than where the publisher chooses. Unfortunately, it’s only up to me to DECLINE offers to publish my books. I have no option to force anyone to publish them anywhere.

The legal issue isn’t tricky. It’s clearcut. When I sell the rights to publish my work, I give the publishers the right to publish the books when/how/where they see fit. That’s the way it works. I don’t control it, I don’t necessarily like it, but if I want to be paid for my work, that’s how it goes.

And that’s the bottom line. I want to be paid for my work. I deserve to be paid for my job just like you deserve to be paid for yours.

I already said I’m not going to debate this issue with you. I appreciate that you like my books. I do not appreciate that you can’t buy them legally, and I wish I could make that different, not only so that I can be paid for my work but that YOU have an easier time getting it. That’s the truth.

But as for making my books available to everyone? It’s not up to me. I don’t even have the right to offer my e-books for free to anyone if I wanted to, not beyond the limited number of copies I’m allowed to use for promotion.

You don’t have to like my opinion, and you can certainly choose not to read my books, or you can choose to download them illegally. You could write to the publisher and request the books be made in your area, who knows, with enough support the pub might consider it. I wish they would, frankly.

But wouldn’t it be great, instead of ignoring the part of my reply where I said I was sorry that you couldn’t find my books in your country, you took a minute to understand what I’m saying? When you download illegally, you acquire something I’ve created and you’re not paying for it. Not me, not my publisher. You’re getting it for free, and I’m getting nothing — and if that happens enough times, my publisher can’t afford to pay me to write more.

I won’t apologize for wanting to be paid for my work.

I’m truly sorry that you can’t find my books in your country, and that ebooks aren’t allowed there. That sucks. And I wish I could make that different for you somehow, because believe me, I’d love for every single person in the world to be able to buy my books, because this is how I pay for MY electric bill, something that’s getting harder to do every month, just like it is for you and many many other people.

The fact is — piracy is illegal and it’s wrong, and it takes away my income, making it difficult and/or impossible for me to continue writing (if the books don’t sell well enough, they don’t publish more of them.)

I’m not going to debate this with you. I’m sure you won’t stop getting the books however you can, and I’m sure that as long as people are willing to download them, the people who upload them will keep doing it. But I can’t give you a free pass and say it’s okay, because it’s not.

Piracy hurts authors. And it hurts readers, too, even if it’s not quite as obvious.

However — if you buy something from iTunes you can usually play it on up to five devices — this might include audiobooks. (I mean, you could send it to your friend and she might not be able to play it anyway because it’s not allowed on her computer or whatever!)

And also, if you send it to your friend and delete it permanently from your iTunes library, thus ending up with only one, then it’s also okay.

But thank you for asking. It’s confusing, I know, but I do appreciate that you even thought about it! And like I said, you giving one to your friend is way different than uploading it to a site for lots of folks to download, or sending it to everyone you know. And obviously, sharing a paper book is always fine!

M

Maybe you need to have a direct donation site right on your page: support Megan Hart by contributing to her medical insurance… use PayPal now.

If these fucktards are so computer savvy, they couldn’t have missed all the ebay auctions for Jo Leigh!