Episodes
Tuesday Apr 21, 2020
Episode 33 - Artistic Integrity and Suffering For Your Art
Tuesday Apr 21, 2020
Tuesday Apr 21, 2020
Hey kids! Are you ready to sell out to make cash fast?!
In today's episode of We Make Books, we discuss what artistic integrity is, how to tell if you've blown yours to smithereens, and why it's 100% okay and good to make a living from your art.
We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.
We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, and concerns.
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We hope you enjoy We Make Books!
Twitter: @WMBCast | @KindofKaelyn | @BittyBittyZap
Episode 33: Artistic Integrity and Suffering For Your Art
transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)
[0:00]
K: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a show about writing, publishing, and everything in between! I’m Kaelyn Considine and I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.
R: And I’m Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore.
K: And, Rekka, as a writer—
R: Which I am! Totally.
K: Which you are, yeah, of course you are. You probably have a lot of opinions about what people tell you—
R: Everything.
K: Well, yeah, a lot of things in general. But, specifically, about other people’s opinions and them giving you suggestions and guidance and thoughts about what you should do, not only with your writing, but your life and how to support your continued writing, in your life.
R, unenthused: Yeah. Yeah, they do that. So, you’re gonna intermix with a lot of people’s opinions over the course of your writing career. Especially as you let other people read your work.
K: So today we’re talking about artistic integrity.
R: Right. When people tell you to change stuff, where do you plant your feet?
K: Not only people telling you to change stuff, however, also what you’re doing with your life in the meantime to support your art.
R: Mhm.
K: We were thinking about this episode and thinking about this idea of what does it truly mean to be a writer?
R: Mhm.
K: And we start far clear of that definition—Or, we really steer clear of that conversation because I, personally, am of the opinion that if you are trying to write something professionally, that makes you a writer.
R: Correct. I also agree with you.
K: Yes, so now that we’ve got that established.
R: If you’re listening to this podcast and then, when it’s done, you go and you try to work on your writing, you are a writer.
K: You are a writer. Congratulations.
R: If you just listen to this podcast and you think about writing and you never go write. Uh, we might have to debate that one.
K: You’re a… future writer.
R: Yes, hopefully. Hopefully an aspiring writer.
K: Yes, there you go.
R: To be a writer without a modifier, is to write.
K: There ya go. But there’s also a lot of conversation around, like, well if you’re doing this then you’re not serious about your writing career. If you’re, you know, not focused 100% on only writing, then how could you be serious about your writing career?
R: Which is funny, you know, because it just occurred to me—we don’t cover this in the episode—but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at a family gathering, speaking of opinions, where they find out I’m a writer and they say, “Oh you should write _____.” Children’s book. A Gone Girl. You know, whatever’s hot at the moment. Their opinion is you’ve gotta write the most commercial thing that I’ve actually heard of right now.
K: Yeah, yeah. So there’s—You’re gonna run up against a lot of this stuff in your career, as you interact with people. So we, in this episode, talk first about this notion of if you’re not suffering, you’re not writing. Which is silly.
R, sarcastically: If you’re not abusing prescription drugs or if you’re not abusing alcohol, then are you even trying to be creative?
K: Yeah, exactly. Then what are you doing? But then, also, we discuss having to make changes and modifications to your story at the recommendations of other industry professionals. So it’s all within the same subject, but we’re covering two different angles from this. The before and the after, if you will.
R: With an intro of: Why do we have to suffer, again?
K: Yeah! Thanks everyone, again, for tuning in and we hope you enjoy the episode!
[intro music plays]
R, deadpan: Kaelyn, I’m suffering.
K: You’re suffering?
R: Yes. Because I’m supposed to.
K, ironically: And do you know what? That makes your work more valid!
R: I am, yes, validated and authentic because of my pain and anguish.
K: … Except you’re not because—
R: No. ‘Cause that’s bullshit.
K: ‘Cause that’s not really a thing.
R: I mean, yes, it’s possible that someone who puts out good work is also suffering, but I would like to posit that I wish everyone felt better and that we could all see, because we all feel great, that suffering is not required for good art.
K: So today we’re talking about artistic integrity.
R: Or we’re going to try to.
K: We’re going to try to. And what we kept coming back to is this idea that we seem to have a fixation on if you’re happy, you’re not making good art.
R: If you haven’t cut off an ear, then you aren’t suffering enough.
K: Well, I mean, look at tuberculosis. That was considered an artistic disease. People deliberately infected themselves with it because it was a slow, wasting, elegant disease. Of your body slowly breaking down and your heart not working anymore.
R: Yeah. Lovely. Sign me up.
K: Yeah, no. I mean that was… And, of course, it made you look like a vampire which was very in, in Victorian fashions, for whatever reason.
R: It’s still kind of in sometimes, in some circles. Yeah, I mean, just give me some consumption and allow me to cough blood into my lace handkerchief on a settee and that’s how it works, right?
K: Pretty much, yeah. You know the: [coughs softly] Oh goodness. I’d better tuck that away. I feel like every movie set in that era now—
R: Someone has consumption, yeah.
Both: Discreetly coughing blood into a handkerchief.
K: And then, you know—
R: Hiding it from their loved ones. That’s the ticket. That’s how you get to the Big Times.
K: Look at Mary Shelley! She wrote Frankenstein while she and her husband and some of their friends were off seaside trying to cure his tuberculosis.
R: Among other things.
K: Among other things. So, anyway, you don’t need tuberculosis to produce good art.
R: Please, in fact, do not try.
K: We’re gonna start with this idea that levels of success in your life are dictating whether or not you’re a “real writer.” And there’s this very strong feeling toward: I am a writer, these are the things I will write, I will not do anything else but write this thing. And, if I need to, I will suffer for my art. I don’t care if I’m living in my parents’ garage living off ramen noodles. My art is my art, nothing is going to change that. I will suffer for it. Conversely, you’ve got some people who are trying to write what they wanna write and then also doing other things to supplement their income in the meantime.
R: Right.
K: And, Rekka, would you say that that is looked down upon in some circles?
R: There are definitely circles that feel that people who write for IP which is, you know, a Star Wars book or a Minecraft book or a World of Warcraft book. Folks who write other people’s IP because it pays the bills are ‘selling out’.
[07:19]
K: Well, I wouldn’t even take it that far. You know, obviously, there is that component of the sell-out, but what about if you’re just picking up freelance jobs writing marketing copy?
R: Right, so. Some people would probably say, everything you write that isn’t your greatest work of that time, is a waste of time, or is distracting you from being a better writer. Or something like that. Instead of taking the opportunity to say, pour your heart into everything you do and use the jobs that are not going to reward you artistically to practice something. Just writing all the time is always a good exercise if you wanna be a writer.
K: Also, you know what’s nice? Money.
R: Money is also pretty good.
K: Money’s good to have.
R: If you can pay for groceries, you can fuel your mind and body and then you might be a better writer.
K: And, again, we did back into this notion of: doing something for the money lessens your artistic integrity.
R: Right.
K: There’s nothing wrong with doing things for money. Money is not a dirty thing.
R: I mean, it’s physically pretty dirty.
K: Well, yeah, no and there’s cocaine residue on a lot of it. But money, the concept of money itself—and having it—on its own, it doesn’t corrupt you. Being able to support yourself and live in a lifestyle that you consider comfortable, there’s nothing wrong with that.
R: No, that should be what everyone aspires to and is able to reach, just by hard work. But that’s not the world we’re in. You know.
K: Yeah, well, that’s a different issue.
R: It’s a different episode. The Despair episode.
K: But that’s exactly what we’re talking about here. There’s this mental block of: if I’m doing things other than creating my art, and I’m doing it strictly for the sake of the money, am I selling out? No, of course you’re not. A lot of people have jobs that they don’t necessarily love that you’re doing for the money. I mean, do you think I just wake up every day and go, “Boy. I really can’t wait to get on the phone and talk to people about network video equipment.” No!
R: I mean, I assumed you do, but…
K: Well, actually I do like talking to people, but… I’m doing this because they pay me to do this! And there is definitely this stigma in, I think, especially artistic circles that if you are working in some sort of creative or artistic endeavour, you must be doing it strictly for the love of doing it.
R: Right.
K: Rekka, you’re a graphic designer.
R: Mhmm.
K: Do you love everything you do?
R: Absolutely not.
K: Every project you work on?
R: No, no. Not really at all. I mean, it’s not that I don’t love the work. I enjoy doing the process. I take pride in my work, but each individual project is not guaranteed to be something that inspires me and fills me with joy.
K: Yeah, and so, why is writing any different? Because you can still take on a writing project that does not necessarily inspire you and fill you with joy, but it’s gonna pay you.
R: I mean, you know what doesn’t inspire me and fill me with joy? Is the first draft? Can I just not do that part?
K: That’s an excellent point.
R: I mean, if I was going to be completely true to my artistic self, I would only revise and edit. And outline. I do like outlining.
K, laughing: You do love outlines. But that’s the thing, is that your art is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Now, if you need money, and you have other means of working within your artistic means to make that money, that does not make what you’re doing any less valid.
R, outraged: And you know what’s just absurd is that an artist is only supposed to—their work is only supposed to be very, very valuable after they’re dead. Like, what kind of bullshit is that? That the artist is the only one who doesn’t get to profit from their work?
K: Well, that’s because at that point they’re not gonna make any more of it.
R: Right.
K: Some, and I’ll take it an extra step in how it’s even more sick, is because your entire catalogue is now complete. So everyone can evaluate what you will ever make in your life against itself.
R: It sounds like you’re defending not paying the artist what their work is actually worth.
K: Absolutely not.
R: Yeah.
K: Just saying, this is why stuff becomes more valuable after people die.
R: No, but I’m saying—becomes more valuable after people die because you know they’re not gonna make any more. People wish they’d acted sooner. Wish they’d discovered them sooner, whatever. But why can’t that artist make a living wage of their art and still be an artist?
K: Well, I think there are—writers are a little bit unique in this. Because writers, I’d say, are one of the groups of artists that do make their money in their lifetime. I’m sure there’s probably studies and things out there about this, there’s probably always a spike of books being bought after a writer dies.
R: Mhm.
K: That’s to be expected. The same way that there’s people who watch movies that an actor was in, after that actor dies. Part of it’s a nostalgia factor, part of it’s a “Oh! I’d always wanted to check that person out!” and now they’re dead. I think artists, however, and—this is a little bit all over the place—If you think of the modern artists that we can name right now, off the top of your head. Who can you name right now, off the top of your head?
R: Banksy.
K: Yeah. That’s exactly what I was gonna say. I think most people will say Banksy.
R: Mhm. Because of headlines.
K: Because of headlines and because Banksy’s got shtick. The reason, I think, behind a lot of this—and this is something that does not apply to writers—is that artists that create paintings, sculptures, what have you, it’s not easily accessible to the community at large. The art community is pretty exclusive. I would go so far as to say snobbish, in some regards.
R: Yeah. But, again, it’s in their best interest to be snobbish.
K: Absolutely it is, yep.
R: There’s like a false rarity.
K: Yeah, and that’s the idea with art is that, in theory, they’re creating one painting and there’s only gonna be one of those ever. Writers, on the other hand, benefit from this great thing where, first of all, their work is incredibly accessible.
R: Right.
K: Especially in this day and age. And, also, once you make a book, you can give the same piece of art to a bunch of people. And they can all read it together and interpret it how they want to interpret it.
R: From across the country, across the world. They do not have to be in one gallery looking at it for the two hours that the gallery is open.
K: Yes. So, that also then puts some pressure on the writers, I think. Who are trying to navigate and discover and figure out their own art. I resent the idea that working on projects that are not your magnum opus for money makes you less of a writer, less of an artist.
R: Right.
K: Because why would it?
R: Because if you’re a chef you better not ever eat a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese.
K, laughing: I don’t think anyone should eat a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, ever. But that’s, you know.
R: Hey, it’s delicious. I don’t eat it, but that’s not because I don’t like the taste.
K: Ah, see, I was never a fan.
R: Oh, okay.
K: My mom used to try to—I remember even when I was a kid, my mom would be like, “Oh, we’re having—” and my sisters and brother would be so excited. I would be like, “Can I just have a sandwich, please? I don’t think this is good.”
R: It’s funny. My mom never bought it, so when I’d go to a friend’s house and they were making it, I would always be like, “Oh, my god this is amazing!”
K: So exciting!
R: Yeah.
K: No, I was never a fan.
R: So one of the things I need to point out is that “the dream” of being an author is becoming a full time writer.
K: Yes.
R: One of the things that’s very difficult to do is be a full time anything, if you’re not being paid for it.
K, sighing: Yes.
R: Somehow we haven’t worked out how to make that easy.
K: Yeah. The thing is that no one is going to pay you enough money to live off of for the rest of your life, to sit and work on writing something.
R: Yeah.
K: At some point you’ve gotta produce something that can be sold.
R: Yes. And the more you can produce that can be sold, the better, for your income stream predictability.
K: Now, that said, the thing that you’re producing that can be sold, like my earlier example, might be market copy.
R: Yeah.
K: Maybe, you know, you do need to spend a lot of time still working on what is truly deep in your artist heart that you want to put out in the world. But, by doing that, you’re supporting yourself. And the people that are paying you to do it are, in a roundabout way, supporting your writing.
R: Yeah! It’s pretty funny how that works, right? They are supporting your writing career, even if all they want from you is some marketing text of 300 words or less. If you get paid for that, that supports your writing career. When you can pay for the basic necessities of your life, your stress goes down and it makes it a heck of a lot easier to work on your writing.
I know we said the Suffering Artist is an unfair thing, and that’s why. You can’t create if you are spending eighteen hours of every day tearing your hair out and six hours of every day not sleeping and creating fever-driven work. That’s not healthy and it’s not sustainable and it’s not kind that we’ve set up this expectation that you should suffer. So having your basic income needs met, through whatever means.
I would happily “become a full time writer” and work six hours every couple of days as a barista or something like that.
K: Mhm.
R: I mean, to me, that’s actually kind of fun because I love coffee, I love talking to people, and I, you know, worked a similar job in high school. So, to me, that sounds like fun. That’s probably some people’s absolute nightmare and that’s why we have so many people in the world who can handle different jobs. Some people are better at it than others.
K: There are people with my job that I think would rather walk into the ocean than do my job. I don’t think my job is that hard or difficult, in terms of my day to day. For some people it would be a living nightmare.
R: So for people who can write all day, you probably still can’t write creatively all day. Coming up with your novel. If you spent ten hours at the keyboard every day on your novel, you would burn out. Because your brain just needs to switch tracks sometimes. If you can work from home as a full time writer, I don’t think you’re going to spend all that time working on your novel. It’s not like, “Oh! Now, with a day job, I write two hours a day. But now I’m going to be able to write ten hours a day and it’s going to make me so much more productive!” It may not actually increase your creative writing output by anything.
But what you can do to supplant that is to continue to write copy, you can write non-fiction op-eds, you can write things that you can submit to Tor.com, kind of things.
K: You can write book reviews!
R: Book reviews, exactly! Articles on the industry. Get supported that way.
K: Go back and listen to our episode from a few weeks ago about publishing reviews and publishing literature. Publishers Weekly has hundreds of people whose job is just to freelance write book reviews for them.
R: Yup.
K: If you want to remain in your realm of employ—
R: Your wheelhouse.
K: Yeah! That’s a great way to do it.
R: And that was Episode 29: Industry Reviews.
K: This notion that doing anything but working on what it is you want to publish is selling out, I think, is a very damaging mentality to have. I think it, long-term, could end up hurting your career.
R: Mhm.
K: And it’s certainly not gonna make you any friends.
[20:19]
R: Yes, and these might lead to new discoveries. The things you learn—if you have to research and write copy for something that you might never have researched—you might end up putting into a book someday. Everything you do is either writing exercise or just brain exercise, so I don’t think we should discount anything. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, everything feeds your experiences and it comes into your writing later.
K: I look back at weird jobs I had in college and I can’t believe the stuff that I picked up and took away from that. That was just to make some extra money while I was a student. Did that mean that I wasn’t very serious about my studies and I was copping out on all this? No, absolutely not! It meant that I was a college student and had no money and occasionally liked to drink beer and therefore needed money to get beer.
R: Right.
K: I don’t think anyone would ever accuse me of not being serious about becoming a historian because I tutored and worked in the library. And I don’t think that it’s fair, or even rational, to say the same thing about writers.
R: Yeah! And your example is perfect because you tutored and worked in the library and these are things, actually, not all that far away from what you were majoring in.
K: Yeah!
R: I mean, it’s kind of like writing business copy or corporate copy or commercial copy instead of working on your novel.
K: So now, that said, there is sort of a flipside to this conversation about artistic integrity and that is once you’ve finished something, now.
R: Mhm.
K: So you have suffered, you have struggled, you have rolled the boulder up the hill and now someone is interested in publishing this. Maybe you just even hired an editor to take a look at it.
R: Mhm.
K: And they’ve got some suggestions.
R: Right. So this could be, like Kaelyn was saying, an editor, it could be an agent. It could be a beta reader.
K: Let’s say you’ve got a completed manuscript, it’s in good enough shape that you’re gonna let other people see it. I’m gonna use the example, here, of an agent or an editor. Let’s say we’re dealing with someone at a professional level, at this point. They say, “Listen. I really like this book. The zombie dinosaurs at the end are a really great twist. Never saw that coming. I really like how the aliens show up at the beginning and they’re the ones who, it turns out, were manipulating the zombie dinosaurs the whole time. Got one little problem here though, at one point you introduce some hobbits. The hobbits just really don’t go with the story. I think you need to take out the hobbits and really shift this to complete sci-fi, rather than making it a little bit of a sci-fi fantasy.”
But! If the hobbits are something really important to your story, in your mind, how do you approach this? And if you change that, what does that say about your artistic integrity?
R: Right. So this is a absurd example of some of the possibilities—
K, contrarily: No, it’s not. I’m gonna go write this book after we’re finished.
R: Well, good! I hope you leave the hobbits in.
[K laughs]
R: But Kaelyn and I were talking about this before we started recording. I gave a more concrete, or more likely, example that she avoided. But I think what she’s doing is making a generalization and we can go into the specifics of where do you make these decisions.
You have to be able to draw the line and know where your line is on the various things that you might be asked.
K: Now, I’m going to stop Rekka real quick and say, when you draw your line, that means that you’ve gotta be willing and ready to walk away from something.
R: Mhm. That might be an agent who was going to offer you a deal, but they just think you are too stubborn.
K: That line has to be a real line for you. So, before you are willing to draw it in the sand and stick the stake in the ground, think really long and hard about how worth it that thing is to you.
R: The nice thing is, in most cases, you’re gonna be able to have a conversation with the person making the suggestion to see what it is about the hobbits they don’t like.
K: Like the big feet. They must be so gross, they don’t wear shoes.
R: Yeah! Is it just that this editor apparently has a thing against feet and it’s just going to trip them up, specifically, or is it honestly the fantasy aspect of it. Is there a logical reason? Is there something that actually contradicts something else you’re doing in your book? If every other character in your book is a human, and everything is dealing with the humans and the aliens, and then these dinosaur zombies, maybe the hobbits do feel like they came from another book. And if there’s no logical explanation, someone might be able to debate you into seeing in that way.
And saying, “Pull the hobbits out, put ‘em in another book! I don’t have a problem with that. But not this book.”
K: Rekka was right, I made kind of an absurdist, general example because it’s just trying to give you a big picture idea. Things you are more likely to encounter, though, are going to be related to the marketability of your book. In that example, I had said, we want to take the fantasy element of this out and move it more towards a strictly sci-fi audience that we think will pick up on this really well. But then more controversial things could come up. What if, instead, the conversation is: this queer character is going to alienate a lot of the target audience.
R: There’s an excellent question to respond with that: Do we care about that audience?
K: Yes! So this is where I’m saying your line is. Because the thing is that if you’re talking to, for instance, an agent, or an editor at a publishing house for that matter, at the end of the day everyone is trying to make money off of this book.
R: Mhm.
K: Thankfully, a lot of the publishing market and the people involved have shifted where, not only is this stuff—
R: Less controversial than it used to be, yeah.
K: Not only is writing things that ten, fifteen years ago would have been a nail in the coffin for a book, it’s celebrated and encouraged now. People are looking for it. But someone might say to you, “Listen. This is a hard military sci-fi book. The people, this social commentary you have in it, that’s not going to appeal to this audience. They just wanna read about spaceships fighting each other near Jupiter. If you wanna sell a lot of this, take that stuff out.”
R: Right, so if someone’s looking at your book and they see it as military science fiction, with an unfortunate helping of social commentary, when what you were doing was—Your vision was to have the social commentary as a throughline with the framing of this military science fiction genre, you two may never see eye to eye on this.
K: And that may make them not wanna publish your book.
R: And that may make you not want to publish with them! I mean, it goes both ways. If someone comes to you and they want to fundamentally change what you’re doing with the book, or in the case of the queer characters, if they want to strip out diversity or identity that you strongly believe in supporting, maybe walking away is the best option. People seem to fall into the trap of this may be the only offer I ever get.
K: But, here’s the thing: it might be.
R: It might be!
K: And that is a very—And this is why I’m saying you need to figure out where your line is because, I won’t sugarcoat it, that could be a very hard decision for you to make.
R: But, how do you make that decision? Try to picture yourself in five years, having gone with what the changes they suggested were. How are you going to feel about that?
K: By the way, you may be totally fine with those changes. Maybe the agent says, “Listen, I want you to take the social commentary out of this first book. Just get a hard military sci-fi book going, build an audience, and then once you’ve hooked them, let’s absolutely go back and write that book.” Not everything is going to be a clear cut-and-dry, this or nothing. As Rekka said, you know, there’s probably gonna be a conversation here. There’s gonna be a talk about this, but it is something that you’re gonna have to decide. Is it more important to you to write the book that you had set out to write, or is it more important to you to get a book published?
R: Right. Keep in mind that in these situations, where this is your first chance, your first debut book we assume. This does set the tone for the rest of your career. Under this pen name. There’s always a chance to debut again with a different pen name in a different genre, or just to start over. But if you do that because you regret the choices you made—Keep that in mind as you make the choices.
If the choice isn’t a big deal to you. If, as Kaelyn said, it doesn’t bother you to make the requested changes then that doesn’t even come into play. Clearly, it’s not a thing you’re going to regret. But don’t do it because you feel like you need their approval.
K: Now, also though, changing those things based on suggestions also does not make you a sell-out. There is nothing wrong with an agent saying, “Listen, if you can make these small changes,” and you’re on board with them and happy with them, and the agent is saying, “Make these because it will reach a broader audience,” or “It will reach this more focused and fanatical audience and you can sell more books,” that also does not make you a sell-out. There is nothing wrong with making some small adjustments to try to get your book to appeal to a broader audience. Because, again, there is nothing wrong with wanting to try to make money off your writing.
R: Right.
K: And to capitalize the ways that you’re doing that.
R: As long as you’re not compromising your morals.
K: Yes! Yeah, of course.
R : If you, as Kaelyn said, if you can make these changes and be happy with them. If you make those changes and you hate them forever, that’s not the right change for you to make.
K: Can you sleep at night, having made these changes?
R: Right, can you sleep at night five years from now?
K: Or is there a pit in your stomach every time you think about it?
R: Yeah. If this is the sort of thing where it’s that moment you think back on and, no matter how far away from it you get, you’re embarrassed every time or you squirm in discomfort, then keep that in mind.
K: One thing I’m gonna bring up from the publishing side of things. As a writer, do not think: “Well, I’ll agree with this now, but when it comes time to actually put this on paper and start getting it published, I’ll just leave it in there and fight with them about it then.” Don’t do that for a couple reasons.
One, you’re gonna piss people off. And that’s just not something you wanna do. If you had a conversation with the understanding that you would do things in good faith, hold up to that. Because, conversely, there is probably language in your agreement that—
R: That you are going to change those things.
K: —that you are going to do this. It is not uncommon for agents and publishing houses to put specific things in contracts that say: blahblahblah, with the understanding that you will do the following. You will take the hobbits out of the book. You will not mention anyone’s feet. The zombie dinosaurs will remain zombies.
It is not uncommon to find those kinds of clauses and stipulations and agreements. And the reason that publishing houses do this is because they’re used to dealing with authors and their protectiveness over certain elements of their story. So if you agree to something and say, “Yes, I’m going to make those changes,” guess what? You’ve committed to making those changes.
R: Yeah.
K: Even if it’s not in writing, you are going to burn a lot of bridges if you don’t.
R: If they brought it up with you before they offered you a contract, it’s that important to them.
[33:00]
K: Yes, yes exactly.
R: And—here’s the thing—we’ve been talking about all of this as though there’s a contract right in front of you that, like, you could sign this if you make these changes. You may also get revise and resubmit requests from agents or you may get rejections with some suggestions from agents, if you’re lucky. I mean, you might get form letters, too, but if an agent says, “I’m passing on this, here’s why ___.” Don’t necessarily take that as the next one will take it, if I make this change.
K: That’s a very good point, yeah.
R: Especially if it’s something that you feel weird about making the change on. Like, if you think making one agent’s request is going to get you the next agent, you are sadly mistaken. Everyone is an individual. We have not joined the Borg hive mind yet. So, therefore, what one agent says does not apply to all agents. Unless they tell you your grammar is bad. Then you can verify that.
K: Yeah, that’s probably pretty across the board.
R: But, yeah, so if they’re rejecting with some suggestions, that doesn’t mean you’re a shoo-in if you make those changes, for the next person. At best, you wanna evaluate, if you disagree with them, why you disagree, what that person’s perspective on it might have been, and then you can consider: maybe I want to go in and revise that section or revise that element before I submit again. But if you react in compliance with every criticism you get, you’re going to have a very exhausting writing life.
K: Yeah, yeah exactly. So artistic integrity, I think, is murky waters for a lot of people because you want to sell your book, you want people to enjoy it. You want to appeal to a broad audience. One of the biggest issues, I think, a lot of books come up against is relatability. At the end of the day, no matter what, relatability is central to appealing to an audience. However, you don’t have to water that down to the point where you end up with a bland character who is a placeholder for anyone to insert themselves into.
R: Right.
K: That’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re not talking about making this essentially a Choose Your Own Adventure starring—
R: You.
K: —the person reading the book. So it is a hard thing for a lot of people to navigate. But, at the end of the day, you have to go with the choices and decisions that are gonna make you happy and are going to make you satisfied with what you’ve put out into the world.
R: Right. And, honestly, there’s a feeling in your gut that you know when you’re not happy with an idea. And there’s a feeling in your gut when you just feel silly that you didn’t see that change, you know? And they’re different. They come from different parts of you. So learn to identify how you take criticism. Maybe go out and find a critique group and just learn to take the hits and understand your reactions to them. That’s a good exercise.
I mean, I would hope that someone’s read your work before an agent or an editor and a publisher, so if you haven’t gotten people’s eyes on it and gotten their reactions to it, it might be just a good place to start. To help process your own feelings about what people say. And it’s gonna be different from what the agent or editor says. That’s why we’re saying, “Would you make these changes for an agent or editor?” Because they’re the people who hold the keys to the next step in your career.
K: And, again, I would just round out this conversation by reinforcing: it is not a bad idea to sit down and write down, for that matter, what the most important things are to you.
R: Yeah.
K: Is it most important to get your story, exactly how you have it, out into the world, or do you just first want to get a story out into the world, and get it in front of as many people as possible? Neither of them are bad. You just have to decide what’s important to you.
R: Right. Neither is the wrong answer. But what’s your answer?
K: Exactly, yeah. And it might be somewhere in between! There’s no—I shouldn’t be presenting these as binary options. But decide what’s important and work from there.
R: So, basically, you need to identify your goals and then ask yourself, whenever you’re faced with a decision: which direction, or does this get me to my goal?
K: Yep, yep. So that’s artistic integrity, our thoughts on it.
R: Artistic Integrity: something that has riled people up for centuries. We covered it in thirty-eight minutes.
K: I mean, what can I say.
R: The simplest things get people very angry. So, as usual, you can yell at us @wmbcast on Twitter or Instagram—
K: Yeah, tell us if we’re violating our artistic integrity just by having this podcast in the first place.
R: And you can reach out to us with questions, also, or ideas for future episodes. You can find us at wmbcast.com for our backlist of episodes. This is Episode 33 now, so there’s lots to catch up on if you are just entering the stream now.
You can also find us at patreon.com/wmbcast where you can support us for as much as you like, in order to give us a little financial nod of approval. And if that’s too much to ask, which we totally understand, if you could leave us a rating and review—and review!?—on Apple podcasts, to help our audience grow and help us reach more people so we can give them our opinions on artistic integrity.
K: Ratings and reviews, they feed the algorithm.
R: They do, they do.
K: We are all beholden to the algorithm.
R: And its appetites! All right, thanks everyone! We’ll talk to you next time.
[outro music plays]
Tuesday Apr 07, 2020
Episode 32 - Ulterior and Often Nefarious Motives - Book Piracy
Tuesday Apr 07, 2020
Tuesday Apr 07, 2020
Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between!
This week we’re talking about pirates and sadly, not those of the Caribbean variety. The internet is littered with websites that sell (or claim to give away) pirated copies of books and addressing this situation can be a long and daunting process. In this episode we talk about what kind of websites your book could end up on, what it is that the people that run them are after, and how to get your book taken down should pirates get ahold of it … this unfortunately involved a lot less of the ‘bribe them with rum’ tactic that we had hoped.
We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.
We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and if you’ve been spending your days in quarantine baking, tell us what you’ve made and stay safe everyone!
We hope you enjoy We Make Books!
Twitter: @WMBCast | @KindofKaelyn | @BittyBittyZap
Rekka (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of we make books a show about writing, publishing and everything in between. I'm Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.
New Speaker (00:10):
And I'm Kaelyn. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.
New Speaker (00:13):
So I know I've made a big Kaelyn.
Kaelyn (00:17):
Yeah, I mean I've done that for awhile, but, uh, is there any specific reason -
Rekka (00:21):
The day that I got the Google search term alert that my book had shown up on a pirate site, that's how I knew I'd made it.
Kaelyn (00:28):
It is a, it is a little bit of a marker in your career, isn't it?
Rekka (00:32):
Bingo square. I mean, like, it's not like I'm not gonna do anything about it, but, uh, you know, before I turn around and forward that email to my publisher and say, Hey, just so you know, please go take care of this. Um, I did bask in the having arrived-ness of that moment.
Kaelyn (00:48):
Yeah. It's, um, it's, you know, what did they say? SNL, Sesame street. Those are the big markers in your career.
Rekka (00:54):
I haven't made that one yet. I haven't done any of those pirated website, so I'm not, today we're talking about pirates, but not the awesome kind, not the kind in my books, the kind to take my books.
Kaelyn (01:08):
The kinds who take books and um, you know, put them on the website for all to, to read without paying for them, which as I think we've, you know, if you've listened to any of our previous episodes, we obviously come down very strongly against.
Rekka (01:21):
We don't like it .
Kaelyn (01:29):
Yeah. Kind of against that for various reasons. This was, a listener sent us this question, you know, asking about, um, pirates pirate websites, what you can do to prevent that from happening and what to do if it does happen. So, um, no, I think that's a pretty, there's a as much of a comprehensive walkthrough
Rekka (01:38):
Yeah. I mean, yeah, the problem itself is pretty simple. It's the solution that's kind of a bear. Yeah, exactly.
Kaelyn (01:50):
So anyway, uh, take a listen and um, as always, we hope you enjoy it
Speaker 3 (02:08):
[inaudible]
Kaelyn (02:11):
Well, I think we're getting this remote recoder thing, kind of uh, we're doing okay, right?
Rekka (02:14):
Hey, we're not coughing and we have no difficulty breathing, so it's a good song. We're a step ahead of a lot of other people at this point.
Kaelyn (02:24):
So, Hey everyone, uh, welcome back. We are, um, again recording remotely.
Rekka (02:32):
We are trying to uh, batch up some episodes. It's not that hopefully in the future you will say it, but the play gold meet lasted two weeks.
Kaelyn (02:41):
First of all, if it's a plague, it doesn't last two weeks.
New Speaker (02:44):
No, no, no. I'm sure it's fine. I'm in two weeks from now, we'll all be laughing about this.
New Speaker (02:49):
Um, by definition I think plagues must last longer than to be -
New Speaker (02:54):
Fine. You know, it never argue with an editor. They've got receipts in and the sources and stuff.
Kaelyn (03:01):
Well also when I was in grad school, I was a TA for a professor who specialized in history of medicine. So I had to TA a class, God, I think like three or four times. That was the history of plague and epidemic,
Rekka (03:16):
fFine, whatever. Or you're a semi expert on the subject.
Kaelyn (03:19):
Oh God, no, not at all.
Rekka (03:21):
We'll get out there and heal some people. If you're so smart.
Kaelyn (03:22):
We'll do. Okay.
Rekka (03:26):
Um, but anyway, yes. So we were, this is another one from the batch that we recorded, um, before my second surgery. So hopefully the world is a much better place as you're listening to this.
Kaelyn (03:36):
Well, the other side of this now. Yeah, but you know what doesn't make the world a good place?
Rekka (03:42):
Piracy.
Kaelyn (03:43):
Pirates.
Rekka (03:44):
See, I really subscribed to the romantic notion of pirates. I really want them to be good hearted people at their core that just work on the outside of regulation and law yet see that occasionally have like really exciting chase scenes with the law enforcement, but everyone ends up okay,
Kaelyn (04:07):
Well here's the thing about pirates Rekka and they're not really great people. Now don't get me wrong, in the early days of piracy, there was a lot to respected, possibly even admire. There was a, they were one of the first groups to have socialized medicine.
Rekka (04:22):
Right. Who were bringing it all the way back around.
Kaelyn (04:27):
And the concept of, um, worker's comp. If you were, uh, injured aboard a pirate ship and let's say you lost a hand, you were afforded a higher percentage of recovered booty.
Rekka (04:38):
Booty.
Kaelyn (04:41):
Now, that said pirates. Definitely were very into the pillaging, raping and maiming and above all stealing.
Rekka (04:49):
Yeah.
Kaelyn (04:50):
And in our modern day, that is what pirates continue to do now. So why are we talking about pirates? Well, this one actually comes from a listener who, uh, sent us a message and asked if we had any tips or tricks to dealing with people stealing your book. Pirates, putting it online without paying for it.
Rekka (05:12):
So obviously we're specifically talking about eBooks.
Kaelyn (05:15):
We are specifically talking about eBooks. If it would be really weird if they went out and bought physical copies of your book and then sold them online at that point, that just makes them a bookstore.
Rekka (05:24):
Right? So that makes them what a second hand bookstore. But no, you're right. So it's hard. The reason that, um, ebook piracy is so much stronger than print book piracy is because yes, those print books are, um, individual items that can only be resold or given away once. Um, yes, if they buy your book and then give it away physically, they are a library. If they buy your book and sell it, they are a bookstore and we like those people. We like both of those categories -
Kaelyn (05:53):
Those are great people.
Rekka (05:54):
Yes. But yeah, it's um, ebook, they get one file and they can give it away an unlimited number of times and that's a problem. Kaelyn, why is it a problem?
Kaelyn (06:05):
It's a problem because then you're not making money off the book. Now I'm going to head on -
Rekka (06:09):
Who's not making money off the book?
Kaelyn (06:10):
Everyone who was involved in the book that should be getting money from it is now not making money off the book. Right. Um, I'm going to head off this discussion right here by saying that there are a lot of people who will say that people who are going to go online and find pirated book versions of your book would not have bought it in the first place.
Rekka (06:29):
And this isn't actually 100% true.
Kaelyn (06:32):
It's not completely wrong. But yes, there is definitely a certain crowd of people that scour these websites, which by the way, we will not be naming any of them in this episode. The scour these websites, and that is how they consume books. They only get pirated copies online. And in those cases, yes, those people probably would not have bought the book no matter what. Um, that said there is a large segment as well that could go by the book and just wants to get it online for whatever reason.
Rekka (07:04):
Or just let, let me see if it's free first and then I'll buy it. Yeah, I'm using it as part of their budgeting system for their entertainment. Um, there is an anecdote, I don't recall who it was, but someone, an author, I think self-published uploaded their own book to a pirate site and inside it had the first two or three chapters and then at the end and explanation of why pirating costs that author their livelihood and a link to their website to go buy the book. Yeah. And apparently the response on the pirate site was, wow, that sucks. This book is really good. Now I have to go buy it and finish it. And a lot of them did. But chances are you aren't controlling this situation and someone else has uploaded a listing that matches your book's title and your author name.
Kaelyn (07:58):
So let's, as Rekka is kind of pointing to, let's talk about how and why your book may end up online. How's pretty easy? Somebody gets a hold of the digital file, assuming that they are able to get a hold of the digital file, puts it online for people to download. Who are these people and why are they doing this? Well, the answer is a pirates people who are trying to make money off of, um, giving your book away. Now, I'm saying giving your book away. But a lot of times that is not actually what's happening. And that is for one of two reasons. If you find that your book is showing up on a pirate website, there's a very good chance they don't actually have your book.
New Speaker (08:39):
Right. They are, they pulled some information off Amazon. Maybe they got a couple of the preview chapters off of there. They dump it in. And what they're actually trying to do is drive traffic to their website. Um, it could be primarily ad based, you know, some create websites that are just trying to get people to go there so that they can charge for ads. Right. Um, sometimes what they're trying to do is get you to sign up for a subscription for these supposedly free pirated books. Um, some of these are paid subscriptions. In some cases they just want your email address and information because that's also a very valuable market.
Rekka (09:15):
Yeah. They can sell that and they're not selling it to people who, um, who are going to do responsible things with that information.
Kaelyn (09:22):
Yeah. Conversely, if we go to even the further nefarious side of this, uh, they could say, okay, great, you signed up for free, here's the file, download it and that is a virus.
Rekka (09:34):
Yup.
Kaelyn (09:35):
Um, or that is some kind of, uh, key tracker or encryption breaker that is now going to take all of the information that it could possibly get from you.
Rekka (09:45):
I mean, I think it's a pretty reasonable piece of advice that if you're going to a website that is doing things that are unlawful, maybe don't trust downloads from that website. I mean, that's just me. Yeah.
Kaelyn (09:57):
That, um, that seems pretty sensible. Look at it this way. There is nobody out there who is going, you know what I really want to do? I want to give books away for free. I'm going to set up a website that is totally legit, completely above board where I'm going to steal people's books and put them on here so other people can read them. So the first that I'm going to set up a legit, totally above board website that steals books.
Rekka (10:14):
First of all, those two things don't happen in the same vacuum.
Kaelyn (10:23):
Yes, yes. And also some of you are going, wait a second, this sounds familiar. Yes, you're correct. That is called a library.
Rekka (10:32):
Yes. If you cannot afford to buy the book, go to the library instead. Here's a really, really, really, really cool fact. Libraries pay for the books that they buy. Yes, they do not return books, which is excellent for the author and the publisher also. Um, they have them in digital print and audio have available. So you can get the book in whatever format you want for free and you are actually supporting the author. Like if you, if you say, look, I really love this author. I read everything by them. I, you know, I hope they do well. I just can't afford books. Library. Please go to the library. Authors love it when they find out their books are in libraries and the library, if a book is popular, we'll buy multiple copies. Yup. It's amazing. It's almost like this is the way it was designed to work. Almost like the, I suppose the idea the whole time. Yeah. Oh yeah. So that is, that is the a hundred percent best alternative. If you meet a free book, absolutely. We support that. Go get it from the library please.
Kaelyn (11:32):
Yes. So all of them, uh, you know, just common sense. Should it imply here that any thing you're going to, to get something illegal could have some sketchy elements to it. And don't get me wrong, this is illegal. You are not, this is not something, you know, we're don't talking about books here that, um, you know, are part of the, uh, the common domain at this point.
Rekka (11:54):
But Kaelyn, information wants to be free.
Kaelyn (11:58):
This isn't information.
Rekka (11:59):
Right. This is IP. This is someone's property.
Kaelyn (12:02):
Yes. This is intellectual property. And you could say, I mean, now granted, you know, we both work in genre fiction. I'm talking, you know, we're not just talking about novels and uh, and fiction books. Um, you could say, well, somebody wrote this great book about how to, you know, build your own computer and I want to do that. Well, here's the thing. Somebody wrote that book and they did it for a reason. They put a lot of time and effort into it and the, there's no, you're not entitled to that person's knowledge and ability.
Rekka (12:33):
I mean, folks already complained that, you know, ebook prices cost so much and print book prices costs so much, but the fact is that it's still lower than the rate that they would give that book away if it was only being given away once. Like if an author wants to make a livable wage, they need all of the sales of the book at that price because the author doesn't even get a, you know, chunk of that. They get a sliver.
Kaelyn (13:00):
Well, and I'll take that a step further if you want to. You know, if you think the cost of a how-to book is too high, go take a class, see how much that costs. Hire somebody to come do it for you and see how much that costs.
Rekka (13:13):
Or buy a pre-made.
Kaelyn (13:15):
Yeah. These are people's skills and knowledge and intellect and time and time. They've worked hard to build and cultivate these things. This is a product the same way a farmer selling apples is selling a product, right? Um, so a lot of those lines up there is a very good chance that if you ever publish something, it is going to end up on a pirated website. And we at Parvus, I've had this happen a couple of times. The first time it happened we were almost a little happy. We were like, wow, we've made it on the map. Somebody actually stolen one of our books. Um, and then we were like, Oh crap, we better deal with that. So your book has shown up on a part at website. What do you do now? I am going to qualify this entire spiel of what is to come here. By saying that depending on aware the website is hosted in the world, I mean not just like, you know, what shady part of the internet.
Rekka (14:14):
Okay.
Kaelyn (14:15):
There may be very little you can do.
Rekka (14:19):
Right. Um, however, we are fortunate that a lot of, uh, cloud based servers and such are, are being used for hosting now and many of these are owned by corporations that will honor a take down request.
Kaelyn (14:32):
Yes. Now I'm going to use China as an example here because, uh, I then a cursory examination of this will show you that a lot of this comes up in China because, um, trade agreements and IP agreements and there's a lot of problems with China in general. Um, uh, reproducing. Yes. Things, let's call it that.
Rekka (14:56):
And I've run into this in the manufacturing world too.
Kaelyn (14:58):
Yes. Well that's what I was saying. Even in the manufacturing world, there is a lot of problems with dealing with things being stolen and remade in China and having no course to address this because China is not party to a lot of the international agreements that would give you recourse to address this.
Rekka (15:19):
Yup.
Kaelyn (15:20):
Um, okay, so that said, you find, you know, your book has shown up on an elicit website. The first thing that you can do is contact the website directly and just tell them, Hey, you've got this thing on here, this is mine. You've stolen it. Um, you know, if you're through a publisher, the publisher, you know, we've had to do this at our best, um, and demand, do they take it down? Okay. So then you're wrong. Well, how on earth do I, how do I do that? If a, you know, a lot of these, these kinds of websites aren't going to have the click here to contact us.
Kaelyn (15:58):
But, uh, so there's a great website out there called whois.com. Um, and what this is what this website is. It is just information about websites online and you can put in a website address and it's going to give you all of the information that it can about this particular website. Uh, the hosted platform, the domain, the registrar, everything. So the first thing you can do is go in and find the email address associated with the master account for the website and email them directly. Now who is, does do a thing where you can pay them to have that information, uh, privately blocked. And the reason for this is, you know, let's say like you've got a website and you don't want people to just be able to go find your email address in plastered everywhere. So it's gonna say something like privacy@gmail.com or privacy with some numbers at gmail.com. You can still email that what the address and it just redirects to the actual email address. The idea is just that you can't see it,
Rekka (17:06):
Right. So if you were trying to, um, you know, as an individual mask, as much of your private information as you can, when you register your domain name, it's cheaper to pay for a domain name privacy than it is to like register a PO box and have an address that isn't your home address and you know, that sort of thing. So yeah, this is a totally legit use of, um, privacy
Kaelyn (17:31):
I'd go so far as to recommend it setting up a, um, you know, an author website or something. It's probably not a bad thing to have. Um, okay. So, you know, people are probably at home scoffing going like, yeah, like they're gonna listen to that. Um, here's the thing. If what you're doing at that point is you're not really threatening them with legal action or you're not threatening them with the fact that they're giving away your book, you're threatening them with their website, you're threatening a business, a line of income at that point. Um, because, and the success rates here, you know, of course vary wildly, but one of the things you're doing is threatening their line of business. And how much of a response are you going to get for this? No way to know it. And again, a big part of this could depend on where this person is physically located in the world.
Rekka (18:30):
Yup. And if they're smart enough to make sure their host is also physically located there, um, you know, sometimes you're going to find these eBooks on legitimate bookstores. Like, um, people have found that their Kindle unlimited books show up in Apple books because someone has copied it and listed it for sale because they know that being a Kindle unlimited book, that authors not watching that book on Apple and then usually they find out because Kindle unlimited got mad at them and Amazon sent them a nasty note about it. So, um, when it's a legitimate ebook store, you're going to have a much easier time. But, but it's the pirating sites we're concerned about.
Kaelyn (19:08):
Yeah. Most of these are not legitimate sites. Um, so, all right, let's say you have not gotten a response back. You've threatened, you know, like whatever you need to throw in an order, you feel to get their attention. If they don't respond, the next step up now is to contact their hosting service. Now, as record said, a lot of places are cloud based. Now there's a lot of people who use hosting through Amazon or Google or any number of hosting platforms. Um, getting in touch with the hosting platform is going to have varying degrees of success. Um, part of it is that if they are using one of the larger hosting services, it's gonna probably take a while for someone to get around to looking at this. Um, conversely, if they have their own hosting set up, if this is a server that they've got set up, you know, in the back room at their house, and this is a 100% real thing that can happen. I mean, this is not hard to do at all. It's not expensive to go online, buy the necessary equipment and get it set up. It does not require a lot of overhead. It does not require a ton of power and you can keep a lot on those servers, especially when you're doing some, when you're talking about something like books, which are primarily text-based files.
Rekka (20:29):
Yep. A couple of megabytes each at the most
Kaelyn (20:30):
Maybe, if that.
Rekka (20:31):
Yeah. With pictures.
Kaelyn (20:33):
Yeah. With some pictures assuming that they have pictures because some of these, you know,
Rekka (20:37):
They'd probably strip a mountain, just deposit the text.
Kaelyn (20:39):
Yeah. This is where, you know, something else you would notice on a pirate sites is a lot of this is just a dump of plain, barely formatted into a document for you to download.
Rekka (20:50):
Yup.
Kaelyn (20:51):
Um, so if they are hosted through a major service or a cloud based service, you have some chance of getting some attention and some action there. Um, again, it could take a while and even then, depending on what it is, the hosted service may be somewhat limited in what it can do. So if that fails, the next question is, okay, what can I do after that? This is when you go to the registrar and you, um, Oh, registrar is a service that allows you to officially register your domain name. And these are, these services are actually regulated. Um, they're regulated by the internet corporation have assigned names and numbers and that is a long fancy way of saying that these are the people that give out IP addresses.
Kaelyn (21:47):
Um, these are the ones that when you know, for instance, when we went to get our website set up for, uh, this podcast, uh, WB cast.com we went through GoDaddy. GoDaddy is the registrar here. Um, they are regulated by an overseen by ICANN. This uh, internet corporation have assigned names and numbers, um, who oversees a lot of different registrars and make sure that they're keeping things above board and collecting all the right paperwork from the people who register and all that stuff and collecting the taxes. Exactly. The taxes and the fees are the real law. That's the good part there. Uh, now like you probably have heard about like, Oh, a is this domain name taken? You know how much you pay for these? The registrars are the ones that, um, like in the case of GoDaddy, they're notorious for buying, uh, domains and it's sitting on them and reselling them and uh, you know, that that's a legitimate thing you can do.
Rekka (22:50):
That's their business model. Yep.
Kaelyn (22:52):
Yeah. The next step up is to contact this registrar, um, and complained to them directly. In some cases you can call them and say, Hey, look at, you know, this, and if you're wondering again, how do I get this information and the hosted information for that matter, again, on who's who is.com, we'll have all of this in that search result. What you'd need to do at this point is to threaten or to actually file what's called a D M C a request the digital millennium copyright act. And what this is supposed to be doing is exactly what it sounds like. Something is violating my copyright of my book. This at this point is supposed to be a last resort and you need to that in any correspondence or conversations with the registrar at this point that you have tried everything else and you've exhausted all of your options.
Kaelyn (23:56):
You're now to the point that you have to go to the registrar to complain about this. Um, if you're to the point where you have to do this, you can find templates online suggesting you know, how to format this, what information to give them. And um, you know, how to direct this and who to direct it to. Um, Scribd has a good template for this. So there is one final, last step. It's not the same as actually getting this stuff scrubbed, but that has to go directly to the search engines to go to Google and to get them to do list. The search results. Do you list the search results? It's not making it. So the book is taken down, but it is making it so it is either harder or impossible to find. Right? So those are the stepwise parts here. Um,
Rekka (24:51):
And we'll link in the show notes. There's a really good article on the digital reader that covers a lot of this. And so we'll put those links in the show notes. We got a bunch of links for this episode. I'm just talking about the effect of piracy, the costs of piracy, that sort of thing. And um, and the, these are step-by-step you can follow along, um, in the digital reader's article, which is, which is really good. So, um, you know, you don't have to keep rewinding and writing down what she said, but, um, we always have transcripts too, but um, yeah, so it's, it's long, it's involved, but um, is it worth your time?
Kaelyn (25:29):
Well, you decide. Um, again, I will, I really want to emphasize that this is not an easy process. Even if the person is, let's say you're in America and this, uh, website is also hosted in America. It's still not an easy process to deal with all of this.
Rekka (25:48):
You got a D cross all your T's and dot all your I's to even get your email acknowledged.
Kaelyn (25:53):
Yeah. Now there, there used to be a service called Blasty. Do you remember Blasty, Rekka?
Rekka (25:59):
I've never heard of it.
Kaelyn (26:00):
Blasty was, um, it was, uh, I guess technically like a software bundle that you'd pay for and you'd put all the relevant information in and then it would basically do all of those steps for you.
Rekka (26:13):
Mmmhmm.
Kaelyn (26:14):
Uh, blasty does not exist anymore, unfortunately. Uh, they in last year had some very strange stuff happen with them. I still don't entirely understand. There was all of a sudden accusations of corruption and, uh, illicit payments being made and various things and then they just kind of disappeared. Their website is even gone. Um, which is a shame because it was kind of a good way to handle this if you were willing to pay for the service. Um -
Rekka (26:41):
Well there are services that will still handle sending your DMC notices.
Kaelyn (26:46):
Yes.
Rekka (26:46):
Um, they're going to be expensive, but it's because it's so tedious and because you have to stay on top of these things to make sure it actually gets handled. So, you know, if you're getting to the point where you really feel that the book sales that the piracy is costing, you are worth paying for a service to handle this. Um, which is not going to be until people know who you are to be looking for you anyway. Because what happens is these pirate sites, they pirate your books because they know that people are searching for your name and your title.
Kaelyn (27:16):
Yes. But in some cases, um, it's a, it's a volume game with them. Uh, they're gonna throw as many books as they can get their hands on onto one of these sites. Um, the, again, just if you're ever considering looking at or going to one of these websites, first of all, don't, but second, think about the people sitting on the other side of this. They are not doing this out of the goodness of their heart. Yes. Um,
Rekka (27:47):
they're not doing it because due to unforeseen circumstances, they could not complete their library degree.
Kaelyn (27:52):
Yeah. They're actually, what did that be? Something.
Rekka (27:57):
These are all rogue library scientists that just couldn't finish. And -
Kaelyn (28:01):
I was unfairly kicked out of life, my librarian program for giving away too many books.
Rekka (28:07):
I gave away too many books if they didn't like it.
Kaelyn (28:09):
So now I'm on the other side of the law. I will never stop, be stopped from giving away books. Um, there was a story. Um, but the people who are doing this are not doing it because they are rogue librarians out there giving away books and stories and information because they love to, they have ulterior and often to furious motives at best. They either want you to want to get your email and information or they want you to click on pages so they can make money from the website. That is the best case scenario
Rekka (28:47):
Yeah, that that's the least harmful case. Yes, it gets worse from there.
Kaelyn (28:51):
It gets worse. And I mean, viruses, identity theft, they are absolutely selling your information. Don't delude yourself into thinking they're not. So stay away from these websites for a lot of reasons. One -
Rekka (29:07):
Because you're a good person and you want to support authors and publishers
Kaelyn (29:11):
Yeah, because they suck and the people that run them suck. And you should not be stealing people's work and putting it out there for the world without them being properly compensated for it. If you want books and you cannot afford them request them from your library also, there's this great thing you can do with a Kindle and eBooks. You can share them.
Rekka (29:31):
Yup. Some of them to front some of them.
Kaelyn (29:33):
Yes. But like sometimes you can, you can loan them to friends. Um, there are other ways of getting these that are not jeopardizing not only the writer's livelihood, but also their ability to produce and create in the future.
Rekka (29:50):
Yep. And I will say for, you know, there are areas where it might be like distant from a good library or something. All you need is a membership to a library. And usually the only thing you need for membership to library is to be a resident of the same state. So if you can sign up for a library in your state, even if you can't walk in because it's not that close, once you have that membership, you can take it to I think, Libby or overdrive. And um, that's how you get the eBooks. And I mean, your library might have their own service, but basically it's usually Libby or Overdrive and then you can search under, you know, quote unquote under your library for the books you want. But it's coming from a large pool of books that are out there. And sometimes they're all checked out because that's how libraries work. But you can just get in line for that book and you can read it and when it comes available. Yep.
Kaelyn (30:39):
So that's, uh, that's kind of the, the story with pirates. Um, unfortunately they are not all ambling around doing bad Keith Richards impressions wearing a lot of very heavy eyeliner. I hey, don't get me wrong. I enjoy it. I enjoy it.
Rekka (30:59):
Um, yeah, I prefer the black sails. Uh, pirates these days, even though pirates of the Caribbean did inspire my novel trilogy. I will say that, uh, the black sails series, if you haven't watched that, go watch that. If you want, if you want to get involved with pirates, go watch that. Um, leave the pirate sites alone. Um, yeah, I will say, you know, you have some hope if you find your book on a legitimate site or a site with a legitimate host. Um, there has been some advice in the, and Kaelyn, you know, alluded to this at the very beginning of the episode, um, in the self publishing community that says, um, Hey, these were never your, uh, your readers anyway. Don't worry about it. Just be happy that your book is out there getting exposure. Um, I disagree with that. Um, I think self publishing authors are probably going to start disagreeing with that too now that it's getting more competitive and um, it's not quite the, you know, boom days that it used to be. So, um, I think it's worth your time to try and get them removed. Um, it's also legally a good thing to be doing to defend your copyrights. Yeah. Because if you don't defend your copyrights, then you know, the law sees, starts to see things differently than you might imagine they would.
Kaelyn (32:19):
There is, um, you know, the, and this is very subjective what I'm about to say. Uh, there is the case to be made that let's say down the line, you do actually end up in court over something, be it related to this or not. And the question comes up, well, you saw that people were this stuff before, didn't you? Well, why, why is it bothering you now? Why didn't it bother you then? Right now that said, this is a very time consuming and often mentally draining process. Um, so the, it is completely understandable to throw your hands up in the air and say, I just don't want to deal with this right now.
Rekka (33:01):
So you might be wondering, Oh my God, is my book already out on pirate sites and Oh my God, do I have to spend every morning crawling pirate sites in order to see if my book has popped up? Because what will happen is if you have a like peer-to-peer piracy site, they might take it down one day and then five minutes later or the next day or a week later, it's back up. So how do you know, um, some of them are behind a paywall, like we mentioned some of these pirate sites or subscriptions. So the only way to know what's in their data bank is unless they make the DataBank public, but you can't download unless you logged in. Um, the only way to know it would be to pay and it's, you're not going to do that. You don't want to support that. Um, but what I do, and I know Parvus does for their authors is set up a Google search term alert. So just put your author name in and your titles of your books and then you get an email.
Kaelyn (33:51):
We keep the Google search term alerts for numerous reasons. Basically, you know, we -
Rekka (33:56):
And sometimes that's how you find up the find out that a review is posted. You know,
Kaelyn (34:01):
you know, if Rekka's name suddenly starts popping up in conjunction with, um, you know, things like police arrested,
Rekka (34:08):
Hey, now she's not a lot of faith in me. I just learned this is a, um, this is a moment, hang on, I gotta I gotta recover from this.
Kaelyn (34:19):
It's okay. They have a Google news alert set up for me too. I'm really the one that they're waiting for -
Rekka (34:22):
Yeah, you're the one that's going to get in trouble first.
Kaelyn (34:25):
It's associated with a terms like "bizarre incident" and "neighbors say"
Rekka (34:30):
And explicable.
Kaelyn (34:33):
Yeah, no, of all of the people associated with Parvus, I am far and away the one most likely to end up on the news.
Rekka (34:39):
Yeah.
Kaelyn (34:43):
The New York post.
Rekka (34:45):
But anyway, yeah, but so what I'm saying is, is set a Google search similar and forget it, you know, move on. And what's going to happen is you are going to get notifications of things like reviews and it's just as a quick aside, if it's a negative review, that doesn't mean you have to respond to it just because it came to your inbox through a Google search alert. You're just going to leave that -
Kaelyn (35:06):
Go back and listen to the reviews episode.
Rekka (35:08):
Don't do it. Just don't do that. But yeah, so that's a possibility with um, with those search term alerts. But they are good for helping you learn when someone has listed your book. Um, because pretty much that's the only way I learned since I'm not going to be found on a pirate site, even though I love pirates, but just not that kind. You were on a pirate site, huh? Thought some was on a pirate site. Yeah. Yeah. But I found out through the Google search term cause I wasn't good. No, I meant I personally, my personal habit not to spend any time downloading from pirate sites. Yes.
Kaelyn (35:41):
I was going to say flotsam was absolutely on a pirate site. That was one of our first real, uh, I was the one. You were the first one we found and then we found Vick's and, we, and we were like, I wonder what else is on here? Oh shit. Everything. And that's, you know, that's the thing is that so many books end up on these things. There are people whose jobs are only two. They just, this is their lives. They just scour websites, scrape the internet, try to come up with this stuff. I've put it on a website
Rekka (36:14):
Do you think when they were young and someone asks them what they want to be when they grow up, they thought I'm going to be part of the book protectorate.
Kaelyn (36:21):
Pirate.
Rekka (36:23):
Pirate?
Kaelyn (36:23):
No. What? They said -
Rekka (36:25):
They probably said pirate and now instead that they're they're calling and defense. No, I'm saying the person whose job it is, this is their career. Their paid position is to go in and send, take down notices.
Kaelyn (36:37):
I like, I like that. I always should get them a badge. Official book protector.
Rekka (36:42):
Yes. Member of the protector. It, yes. I like it. Yes. Um, okay. So uh, I think that
Rekka (36:50):
Hopefully that answers the question. I mean what do you do to prevent it? You don't, yeah, there's really nothing you can do because the Stephen King books are there. Like you can't be big enough to be too big for this. You can't be small enough to be too small for this.
Kaelyn (37:04):
No such thing as the size of an audience or the size of a publisher that is going to prevent this from happening. Right. So, um, uh, I think we mentioned it earlier, uh, Jason Kimball had, uh, sent us that question, so, you know, thanks Jason. We always like questions and answering them on this show. Um, if you have any questions that you'd like to send us,
Rekka (37:27):
You can send them to us @WMBcast on Twitter or Instagram through the DMS there. You can send a emailed questions to info@wmbcast and you can find us also on patreon.com/wmbcast and all of our back episodes are at wmbcast.com and we'd love to hear from you, even if you don't have a specific question or you just want to react to the episode or start up a chat with us, you can do that on Twitter. Probably is the best bot. And, um, if you do not want to engage with us, but you want to shout about us to the world, you can always share our, um, our episodes with a friend who might find them useful. And you could especially please leave a review or rating, especially a review on Apple podcasts. We love reviews, so that would be super helpful and help other people find us and love our show as much as you do. So thanks again for listening and we really appreciate you and we hope your books never show up on pirate sites.