Pirates stole my book

Life is strange  just now, particularly for authors

A GUY IS LOOKING for thieves who robbed him—to say thank you for stealing his stuff.

And a similar guy who was not robbed is cursing his bad luck.

The second guy is me.
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This is a bizarre true story that could only have happened today. Authors around the world are suddenly being flooded with requests for our oldest texts.

It’s so frustrating!

In the past, publishers only wanted our latest works, because they needed something hot and fresh to print, in the hopes that massive numbers of undiscriminating readers (four to five) may buy our books, doubling our sales records, and enabling publishers to be able to afford expensive treats, such as rags for their children’s feet. (Publishing is not easy money.)
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But since ebooks cost almost nothing to produce, publishers today suddenly want everything we’ve ever written, including the shopping lists I wrote as a student:

Buy bread, beer, eggs, beer, pens, beer, beer, and beer. P.S. Don’t forget the beer
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Like other book writers, your humble narrator has recently spent hours searching for old manuscripts. Some were typewritten, others were handwritten, and my first books were carved on stone tablets in the middle Paleolithic era.

Finding them in random boxes under the bed is half the battle. Then one has to scan them page by page or re-type them, two activities authors find extraordinarily difficult, since they involve actual work.
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US sci-fi writer Jon Williams had a brainwave.

Internet thieves are constantly stealing songs, movies, TV episodes and books, and uploading them to cyberspace, right?

“To this end, I embarked upon a cunning plan,” Jon said.

He started surfing Bit-Torrent sites, famous for handling pirated goods. “I figured I’d let the pirates do the work, and steal from them,” he said. This would be “karmically sound”.

It worked.

He found pirated versions of many of his books, and simply stole them back to be reissued as ebooks. But three were missing.

“Apparently a few of my books were so obscure that they flew under the radar of even the pirates,” the horrified writer admitted.

He put out a plea on the internet, and the sort of anonymous naughty people who handle stolen material started searching.

At the time of writing, a stolen text of one of the three missing books has been located by a guy known as TorrentFreak.

Mr Williams has promised to thank the thieves with a special mention in the front of the books.
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Your humble narrator, in search of a book I wrote years ago called Dead Eric, decided to try the same thing.

The good news (by which I suppose I mean bad news), is that Bit-Torrent thieves HAD stolen some of my books.

But only recent stuff—no Dead Eric. I posted a complaint to one of the thieves: “What is the world coming to when a citizen cannot even be comprehensively robbed when he wants to be?!”

A pirate who calls himself Bitphreak626 offered an answer:

“Apologies for not having stolen your book when it first came out. We’ll try to do better in future. PS. Play your part. Please leave your wallet and car keys on the window sill tonight. Thanks!”
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ON OTHER MATTERS….

I am writing this while packing my bags – off to Singapore in the morning to act as chief judge for the Scholastic Book Prize. Will track down Angela to say hello.

Any other readers in the Singapore area, come and say hello. I will be at the Peninsula-Excelsior Hotel in Coleman St from Weds to Sat.

Comments

[Karuna]

Nury, try the pavements book shops of any large city in India. You might find it.

[grandpa]

Off to Singapore to see Angela, and .... if there is any time left, do some work...
Humm??

[Ryo Surbakti]

Uncle, next time you finish a book, make sure you steal it yourself.

[rafanjr]

...piracy is the best form of flattery, but flattery won't keep you alive, it only increases your ego, which you can swallow since its not fattening...

[Richard]

Why is it, with the cost of design, printing, shipping, import/export taxes, shop space etc, it still costs almost the same to buy an e-book as a printed book?

Once again, we're all getting ripped off!

[grandpa]

The Pirates are not the ones we thought.....
They wear neckties , nowadays
They thrive on gullible customers ( the ones who run after newbies), sucking them dry....

There is no mercy....

[Lift Lurker]

Can you ask your pirate friends to find my lost luggage?

[Doug Beyer]

Nury, Dead Eric is one of my favorite books. I hope some thief steals it for both of us. Doug Beyer

[TS]

I would like to see a system where you could legally get an ebook copy of books you already own.
Although the legality is not really clear, the system kind of already exists with music. It's very easy to rip a CD and put the music on your media player.
'Ripping' a book involves a lot of typing or scanning, so I wouldn't mind paying a reduced fee for downloading a legal copy.

The publishers (and authors?) really need to wake up to the idea of an ebook rebate to people who have already shelled out hard dough. These people might turn to pirate copies and pick up a bad habit, when they realise what else is available at the price of just a few hundred pop-up screens of nude people and casinos.

[Lift Lurker]

14th century. Dusk. Coastal village in Denmark.

Men, women, children, dogs run and scream: The pirates are coming! The pirates are coming!

Here come the terrible pirates from England, France, Spain! They come to plunder the local booksellers!

They grab books! And open them up! And force their captured slave monks to copy down every word! Not only verbatim but also word for word!

Then they disappear into the night (actually into early afternoon daylight because ripping is time consuming)

Away they go to plunder somewhere else again and distribute the written words in other places.

Authors hold their quills helplessly full of sadness: "My royalties! Gone!"