Everyone’s Gone Crazy!

I’ve ranted many times this week on Facebook about pirates stealing my books and offering them to the world as a free download. I’ve gotten into some heated debates with people over the practice. One compared authors who charge for their work to despots who rape and kill innocent women and children. *mouth opens and closes* Serioulsy? Seriously! I have no words for the ridiculousness of that statement! There’s no comparison. Charging for a book isn’t even in the same ballpark as defiling and murdering someone, so I chose to ignore the ridiculousness of that idiocy. And if this is a serious valid argument on the pirates' side…I say, “walk the plank!” for stupidity alone!

I do find it bizarre that no one would work for free, not even the pirates, however, that’s what they’re saying authors should do. Because we owe it to society to share our intellectual creativeness with them. Well, here’s my reply to that… SCREW YOU! I owe no one outside my family anything! No one would expect an artist to paint/draw for free, so why just authors? We pay $10 to walk into a movie theater for two hours of entertainment. But ask readers—not all, but the pirates specifically—to pay $5 for a book and you’d think we’re asking them to starve their children. I don’t get the logic. I seriously do not. Yes, some ebooks are overpriced, mine are not, so stop stealing them! A book can provide hours of entertainment, a movie only a few. A few pirates have mentioned that they didn’t know if they would like the book. Yeah…well, you don’t know if you’ll like the movie either and you still pay TWICE as much for A ticket to see one of those (and that doesn’t include the money you’re going to fork out for the insane concession prices).

Enough with arguing my points against theirs, it’s been a week of talking in circles and I’m tired of it. I joined an Anti-pirates group full of authors this week. (I won’t give the name to protect the guilty). And last night they’re talking about fighting back with activities that are illegal. I messaged the admin telling him/her that I was out. His/her reply was an abrupt, “see ya”. I’m a paralegal and supporting a group that thinks it’s okay to fight back with illegal tactics is no better than the pirates in my opinion. And it doesn’t help our cause, but makes us all look bad. Not only that, but when they get caught, every person in that group will be considered an accessory to the crime.

Insanity!!

Amidst the pirates, the whatever of Noble Romance—she billed herself as owner, but now claims she was only an employee, but even her FB and Twitter page signify herself as owner—jumped ship, pointing fingers at the “owners” and management. A letter came from an employee a day or so later, pointing fingers at the ship jumper (name not used to protect the guilty). I don’t care who was at fault. I know the ship jumper was the one who made promises and never returned my emails, and then had the audacity to bitch at me for continuing to email her until she replied. She had a million things going on and didn’t have time to reply to me. Let me state for the record that I have never had this problem with Decadent Publishing. Please accept this as my official, “THANK YOU soooooooo much for your professionalism!!!”

None of us Noble authors know what’s going on, if there will still be a publishing house in a month or a year, not even if the owner plans to keep things running. Will he close shop and make us legally fight for our rights back? Will he just hand our rights back to us? Or will he try to keep a sinking ship afloat? It’s all speculation at the moment.

If that wasn’t enough, the ship jumper is apparently angry over authors being angry that she jumped ship. Seriously? Seriously! What did she expect? When you abruptly leave everyone in the lurch, royalties haven’t been paid, and you point blank state you have no idea what’s going to happen to our books, or Noble, people are going to be angry. Rightfully so. When you have this many authors who depend upon their royalties from their books, they will be furious and for her not to expect them to be angry is stupidity. Grow up and deal with it! I won’t even go into the name-calling she’s committed against Noble authors publicly. Not me specifically. I didn’t want my Hellhounds to get up in arms and ready to kick more ass in defense of my shady name. ;-)

But, yeah, classy the way this is all turning out, huh?

Jesus…people are crazy. All this drama has sucked the joy out of writing this week, but I will prevail. I am writing today, dammit! I just had to get that off my chest first.

Happy Saturday, Hellhounds.

Huggles,

Gracen