So, as I start my 10th blog tour and near my 1 year anniversary of being an Indie, it's time for another exciting installment of things I've learned: If you've got something happening in your author world you don't like, change the team. I've had a monstrous problem with my books being pirated. Every author says "It's just the way it is. Deal with it." However, here is a trick I did with my ARCs that might help you. I never sent out the final version of my books for Read/Review. I can spot an ARC as opposed to the Kindle version I uploaded, and I never permitted more than 10 ARCS to be sent out. Still, with doing all those fun Indie things~blog tour, release blitz, reviews~ I started getting heavily pirated as of the release of One Last Kiss. It got to the point by my 9th release, The Girl of Tokens & Tears, the book was up on the pirate sites before Amazon had it live and I had more copies stolen than I sold.
Scratch head. Very frustrating. Ah, but I code my ARCs. So, I put together a new team, instituted a no ARC policy, and low and behold, I released The Girl of Diamonds & Rust, and I've gone an entire week without being pirated. All I can say is, you don't have to live with being pirated. It may still happen, but I'm trying fight to back. My book revenue is for my grandson, Baby Hugs, and this month he needs something called a sump pump for his little house with his mom & dad. Don't know what it is, don't care. Hugs needs and I try to sell books to help out the little guy.
So, learn to be smart who you trust with your ARCs. The person in Indie land acting as your professional PR person may not be conducting their business professionally. ASK, ASK, ASK. And if you have a problem, change it up. The person I trusted didn't send my ARCs to Kindle devices. She just emailed the mobi file, which made it too freaking easy to pirate me. One month and I still haven't gotten me off all the pirate sites.
So I'm having a miserably small blog tour because I switched everything up on the fly to prevent piracy. However, I'm not going through a release week where I've had more stolen copies of my book than sold copies, and that's a pretty fine thing. So If you're a blogging and would like to help, I'd truly appreciate it so drop me an email.
As ever, I wish you Peace.
Scratch head. Very frustrating. Ah, but I code my ARCs. So, I put together a new team, instituted a no ARC policy, and low and behold, I released The Girl of Diamonds & Rust, and I've gone an entire week without being pirated. All I can say is, you don't have to live with being pirated. It may still happen, but I'm trying fight to back. My book revenue is for my grandson, Baby Hugs, and this month he needs something called a sump pump for his little house with his mom & dad. Don't know what it is, don't care. Hugs needs and I try to sell books to help out the little guy.
So, learn to be smart who you trust with your ARCs. The person in Indie land acting as your professional PR person may not be conducting their business professionally. ASK, ASK, ASK. And if you have a problem, change it up. The person I trusted didn't send my ARCs to Kindle devices. She just emailed the mobi file, which made it too freaking easy to pirate me. One month and I still haven't gotten me off all the pirate sites.
So I'm having a miserably small blog tour because I switched everything up on the fly to prevent piracy. However, I'm not going through a release week where I've had more stolen copies of my book than sold copies, and that's a pretty fine thing. So If you're a blogging and would like to help, I'd truly appreciate it so drop me an email.
As ever, I wish you Peace.
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