Happy Mother's Day

Happy mother's day to all the Moms on my list.





fascinating and somewhat dark history of Mother’s Day

And the 'card' I sent mom. Because it's so me (though it would be better if I were a dude).

Watch on YouTube

Also HAPPY BIRTHDAY to treelight & caffeinified. Hope it's a good one.

Writerly Ways

Since I have two editing assignments staring at me, I'm keeping this fairly short again.

And I am going to send you to Terrible Minds because he says it better than I can (and has more experience with this topic). Piracy.

That is the downside to the ebook revolution, people feel free to steal what they want. Certainly we've all been tempted. Most of youtube is pirated music. I've downloaded a fan track or two and looked at manga online but only if a) I AM buying it and couldn't wait for the English translation (looking at you Fullmetal Alchemist or b) it wasn't ever going to BE translated.

I've never felt good about it. I certainly didn't feel it was right. More importantly I didn't feel entitled to it because I wanted it and couldn't afford it.

TerribleMinds covers that topic pretty well but it bugs me. The idea that because I can't afford it, I should be able to pirate it. Hell, I would love to eat crab and scallops every week but I can't afford it. Does that give me the right to shoplift that out of the Kroger's freezer section? Of course not. I want to go back to Wales. Shall I steal the plane ticket off the current Welsh Fellow so I can go again? Ridiculous, right?

And yet downloading a book for free off a pirate site is really the same thing. TerribleMinds talks about lost revenue (and quotes some of his detractors as they seem to think this is a victimless crime). It is not. It's as if people think that books cost so much because of the paper and ink that went into them and whine about the cost of ebooks. You're not paying for the paper. You're paying for the author's time and effort. This is their living.

Someone on my author's list found a site that claimed her book had been downloaded 9000 times, illegally being it was a pirate site. Is that accurate? Who knows but let's pretend that it is. The ebook retails for 6.99. That is nearly 63,000 dollars stolen from the author/publisher. She'd have earned about 40-50% back from the publisher. How would you like it if someone took 30K out of your bank?

Piracy really isn't okay. It kills indie publishers. It's put manga and anime companies out of business. It hurts musicians and film makers.

If you really need it for cheap/free, there are libraries for much of these things and they do ebooks too. It's something to think about. I won't rob Kroger's of their crab legs and maybe all of us can stop hurting the creative people.

Yearly Count -

Splinters of Silver and Cold Iron - editing, reworking chapter 1, halfway finished.

Soldiers - Edited up to ch 13.