I’m going to post a link, and I really hope that everyone clicks on it and reads Maggie Stiefvater’s excellent post about how Internet book piracy has a real and serious impact on the books that authors are able to write.

This is true — I get between two and three emails a week from Google notifications letting me know that one of my book titles has popped up online. When I look at these emails, they are never letting me know that someone posted a review on their blog, or mentioned one of the books in some other fashion. No, it’s always letting me know the same thing — a free .pdf of my book is available for download on one of the pirating websites. Usually, I pass this along to my publisher, and hopefully they will make them take it down, but there’s no stopping it.

As someone who wasn’t able to finish writing a book series because the publisher saw low sales numbers, piracy is a really big deal to me, and I hope that everyone reads Maggie’s post and really thinks about it.

Thank you — and especially thank you to everyone who bought my books in stores, or bought e-copies of my books, or borrowed my book from a library. You guys made Book 4 happen.

http://maggie-stiefvater.tumblr.com/post/166952028861/ive-decided-to-tell-you-guys-a-story-about