And, yes your book does get pirated

Nothing is sacred these day. After years of working hard on your book, putting in the hours, typing alone in your room, giving up hours of free time you could have spent with family and friends but instead you followed your dreams blindly. Then after years of hard work your book is finally published you discover to your horror someone on this vast planet has pirated it.

With millions of books out there, by hundreds of well known established writers and authors you asks yourself why? Why mine?

I can’t tell you why? The question that bothers me is how am I supposed to feel about it? I myself have mixed emotions. Should I look upon it as free marketing? My book is out quite a few of these sites, but going by my sales, it hasn’t made it into a bestseller. If readers are silly enough to download from these unofficial sites then they deserve to get a bad experience, or even a virus on their computer.

The trouble is you could spend a life time chasing down these sites trying to get your book removed, only to discover the next day your book cover has reappeared on four more dodgy sites. Most just use the cover, some have copied the opening chapters from Amazon sample read.

This morning while checking to see if I had any new reviews on Stone Angels, my crime novel, I discovered another pirating site has my book cover on it. Though there’s a slight problem. Instead of my novel being categorised as gothic crime, it’s listed as literary fiction. Yes, I love the idea of my first novel being listed in that category, but I take issue with the fact they haven’t done their homework 🤷‍♀️

• Here’s a list of pirates sites, I’ve found my book on: (dot) is added in brackets as I don’t wish to advertise for them.
• Lindsey Yerra@lindseyYerra Twitter – is a fake account
• Shopee(dot).com.my – says my crime novel is self-published which it isn’t as my publisher is Darkstroke Books.
• Todaynovel(dot)com
• AllBooksWorld
• b-ok(dot).cc
• Www.ghcorner(dot)com
• Www.almashhed(dot) com
• Readfrom(dot)net

And, who is Hagar Shipley, an irascible, independent nonagenarian? And why is she wandering around on a brow of a hill looking for a Stone Angel?

Well, I can tell you, because with a little research I found out in 1964 a Canadian author, Margaret Laurence wrote a novel called Stone Angel. Margaret was one of Canada’s most esteemed and beloved authors. She began her writing career as a teenager writing short stories. In 1986 she was diagnosed with lung cancer and died in 1987.

Well, Margaret I do hope you don’t mind me sharing my cover with your opening paragraph. It’s been a pleasure finding out about you. ❤️