Today the writer community banded together to take down a Facebook page with the purpose of "sharing" ebooks.  The reason this community felt they had a right to share ebooks was because books are too expensive.

My books cost from $2.99 to $3.99.  Yet some people still feel this is too much, and choose to illegally download books.

Let's talk about the cost of a book.

On average my books take six months each for me to write.  That is six months of long hours away from my son, holed ups in a dark room ignoring my friends, and pouring my soul into each page.  Every book is like opening a wound and baring pieces of myself, and to these people this is too expensive.

I spend hundreds of dollars of my own money to pay to have the cover designed.  Editing, promotion, proofreading, all of this costs a lot of money.  When I self publish a book I receive 75% of each sale.  So six months of work, personal vulnerability, and around $1000 out of pocket or more to make sure each book is a perfect reflection of my vision, and $3.99 is too expensive?

These readers look at the price tag of a book and think $3.99 is too high.  They say books are too expensive.  Thanks to their actions I now have to agree with them.

Six months times five books, thousands of dollars in expenses, and the emotional rollercoaster that comes with publishing each book only to have some self righteous pirate steal directly from my brain.

They're right, the cost of books might be too high, but they're wrong at who is shouldering that cost.