Yay! Not.

Dear pirate…if you’re reading this, I want you to think about a couple of things…

One…do you like my books?  If your answer is yes, then read on…

Two…do you want me to keep writing LOTS of books?  Again…if yes, then read on…

Three…Piracy has me writing less.  I have to devote time to dealing with piracy-not doing it isn’t an option.  Time spent on piracy issues is time spent NOT writing.

Four…Because of piracy, I am much more careful about the books I write for my epublishers and if there’s any question of the book being more in-depth or time-consuming, I don’t write it for my ebook publishers-it goes on the shelf until I have time to focus on it and see if it will work for my New York pubs. (At last count, this queue held upwards of three different potential series, all of which have the potential for 2-3 or more books.)

Five…New York doesn’t put out books from me as often as my ebook publishers.  Currently, I have three more ebooks scheduled out for this year.  Three.  Last year I had double that.  So because of piracy, I have fewer books coming out.

Because of piracy, I’m writing fewer ebooks.

Because of piracy, I shelved one series.  I’m on the fence about a couple of others.  And I no longer write my Hunter books for epubs.  Piracy was the deciding factor in all of these decisions.

So…if you like my work, do you really want to contribute to the problem?

And if you don’t like my writing..that’s fine.  Chances are, though, there are other authors you do like, and those authors are also affected.

Regardless, if you pirate, you’re hurting the authors.  Whether they are epubbed, print pubbed, whatever, pirating hurts authors.  Now…if you don’t care about that, fine.  You don’t care.  I can’t change that.

But if you do care about that fact that piracy hurts authors and can heavily impact their careers, I’d appreciate it you’d take these things into consideration.  It would be very, very much appreciated.

Thank you.