E-piracy: The illegal uploading of digital copies of copyrighted works to a web site, or the illegal downloading of such material.

Ebook piracy isn’t new on the scene it just has different ways it is occurring. In recent weeks I’ve been talking to many literary professionals regarding the Ebook piracy issue as well as online book clubs giving books away without the author’s permission. These two topics aren’t ones that are great but after really thinking about it, I had to think about the bigger picture and these issues in their entirety.

Initially I was outraged and wanted answers and actions so that this type of thing could be stopped but the reality is that it was bigger than me and other authors/publishers making it a conversation piece.

As a publisher I too like many jumped on that Amazon KDP bandwagon and made some of my titles for free and doing that put me in a position for my books to be on any of those piracy websites at any given time.

Initially this KDP enrollment  made perfect sense because it was believed that you could get new readers and this would lead to new sales. Well it didn’t quite happen like that, well at least not for me. For example if you saw 8000 downloads of your book as the equivalent to 8000 lost  sales you are being REALY delusional. Let me say again they are NOT equal at all. The reality is that it’s more like 8000 people seeing your book in a bookstore flipping through the pages then after that walking out the store without purchasing.<–#RealTalk

Let’s face it a lot of us are not having downloads compared to 50 Shades of Grey or Harry Potter, although unfortunate what’s going on it’s nothing that can be really done to stop what’s already happened BUT moving forward self published authors can make better decisions in regards to the availability of their titles.

This industry is forever changing so your job as a publisher is to stay abreast, so ultimately we all are walking different literary paths and what might be good for myself may not be the case for someone else and at the end of the day that’s ok!

Good Luck Authors!

Kisha Green is a author  who has a passion for writing and sharing her witty personality with many through social media. For more info about Kisha, visit her website www.divabooksinconline.com and you can also follow her on Twitter @KishaGreen

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