What's your hot takes about books, etc.?

The Chatters
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I’m not here to argue or change anyone’s mind; the topic of the thread was “hot takes” and it doesn’t get more of a hot take when 99% of the population disagrees with it, hence why I shared it. I expanded upon my opinion only because I was asked—not because I was trying to change anyone’s mind (or looking to have my opinion on the matter changed).

All I will say is that again, I don’t know anyone who pirated self-pubbed or indie books. Not to say that THAT doesn’t happen, but a vast majority of the piracy I and my environment engaged in (engageD—past tense—because I can actually afford books and food and housing now, thanks to in part free material while growing up) are for educational material (journal access, textbooks that even people in the WEST are hard-pressed to afford, etc.) and big-name fiction writers who people in MY side of the world would have heard of to be looking for in the first place.

Edited to Add, just because I feel like there’s a weird perception on what people imagine when they hear “e-book piracy”… we weren’t scrolling through Amazon KDP looking for random books that sound so interesting we’re gonna illegally download them (and not just because it didn’t exist back then, lol).
It’s more like … we would have an assignment for class, and while researching for it discover we don’t have access to so-and-so medical journal and books, so you hop on like lib-gen to look for them.
Or you’d hear of this cool new Harry Potter film coming out, heard there’s a book and decide you want to read it in English because damn those actors sound so cool and you want to be able to talk like that one day, but that one book costs 50% of your parents’ wages, so you look for it through mIRC instead.

So I’m afraid my opinion on the grey-scale of piracy will not change, just because I personally have no use for it now, doesn’t mean I wish to shut the door to better material for education and literature for the millions of poor on the other side of the world who have no other means of access to it, or shame them for it either.

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143

This sounds to me like another Amazon KDP issue/policy that they need to change (just like the return policy). The internet cannot be contained, and piracy whether that be books, games, music, etc… will always continue to happen no matter how hard we try to squash it down. So it makes no sense for them to be taking down the actual legal book as “punishment”. That is an illogical solution and policy from Amazon.

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This is internet arguing in action. Ignore the points of the other person and just repeat the argument ad infinitum. Piracy is a symptom of a larger problem with service, not just entitled thievery. Almost everyone I know who watches anime pirates it for similar reasons.

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Right, but it’s also interesting that the points against piracy so far have actually been points against Amazon’s policies and implementation; not piracy in its tangible and multifaceted practice itself.
But to be fair, it doesn’t help to discuss a topic like this in a writing forum … we might as well drop into a gun’s rights website and start talking about the benefits of gun control next XD I mean, of course people are going to take it personally and therefore less likely to be able/willing to see it from outside a personal sphere. Plus it’s hard for people to be able to empathise fully with other groups of people unless we experience their life-long difficulties ourselves.

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When I release my first book, I am doing signed copies and a special edition that comes with an eBook copy of the original edition. The special edition will have more edits, and not be available digitally, so if someone wants the special edition, they can buy it for more funsies and exclusive non-downloadable content.

:flushed:

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147

The whole “e-books vs. physical books” thing. When people who love and enjoy reading e-book are looked down on by those who love an enjoy reading physical books.

As for people who enjoy audiobooks or comics/manga/etc, they are an after thought to those elitist.

It is so sickening hearing people say things like “reading e-books isn’t the same as reading the real thing. You can’t get excited reading an e-book the way you read a real book. Also, books smell amazing!” I’m gonna stop you right there, but the whole “smelling of books” is bizarre and stupid to me.

I want to get it but at the same time, it is like “dude, it’s fucking paper! Stop smoking that weird shit!” I can’t understand.

And to those people who think that “you’re not a real reader until you’ve consume plenty of PHYSICAL books like a normal person” you’re an idiot.

People aren’t entitled to tell others how to read and enjoy reading. Just because you have a fucking library at home full to the brim with hardcovers and paperbacks and consider yourself the epitome of “educated” person or some true reader, doesn’t make you any better than anyone, jackass!

Stop! Seriously stop and grow up! Let people read and enjoy fiction or even non-fiction the way they want to. It isn’t so damn hard to just let it happen…right? Are you going to lose damn sleep over it? No, you’re not!

Suck it up! Rant over!

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148

I agree that we have to find ways to make piracy harder. I honestly just don’t see what the problems with access are. If someone can afford internet access, they have enough money for books, since there are so many opportunities for legitimately free books online, and piracy is about stealing ebooks, not DTBs. Maybe you could explain the access problem to me…? I’m not trying to be a wise guy here; I really don’t understand the problem. ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯

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Looks like I won’t be buying your book! (♯^.^ღ)

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:smirk:

Unless you become a Beta reader, you will.

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Oh yeah, it also has a disclaimer on it that it’s experimental, but not literary fiction :flushed:

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I really don’t know the hard details because I’m not in a position to be stuck.

Part of it is a spare cup of frozen coffee at McDonalds is going to be about $3. There are parts of this world where the median income for a year is $4, last I checked about a decade back?

Anyway. Americans poor, while still being a sad thing, are often within walking distance of a free library and can go educate themselves without a lot of hinderance. This is why libraries have a known homeless dependency. It’s that way even in my hometown, I knew who our local one was, and he read constantly.

There are parts of the world where free libraries don’t exist or are difficult to access, and they can make a few bucks by stealing your book to feed themselves for a short while.

In all honesty, a lot of poor have values that wouldn’t allow them to do that, so it’s not like you need to pity the person on the other end–its usually someone with more than unmet needs. It’s just the idea that the person on the other end is going to get more value out of ripping you off than you’re getting out of having the book up in the first place which drives the odds of theft higher. Until it’s no longer cost-effective for thieves to thieve, it’s going to escalate.

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Okay, thanks for the explanation! ( ˆ◡ˆ)۶ ٩(˘◡˘ )

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YES. Like, I’ve only ever seen one non-romance story come to life from Wattpad and it wasn’t all that. There is so many they need to put a lot of effort in.

And that’s understandable. :rofl:

I’ve only ever returned one book in my life, which was Catching Fire (or Mockingbird, it’s been a hot minute so I don’t remember which one from the series) when I was a teen and that was because my parents got it but needed to return it for money because we were too broke. I had read it in school (because it was through an English class) so it wasn’t a big deal to me—I just wanted to buy it to keep it—but I eventually bought it again when I could. :wink:

Same. I’ve kept all of the books I didn’t like and probably will continue to do so because it adds to my collection lol. And if someone I know wants it, they can have it. I’ve actually been meaning to buy the whole Twilight and Immortal Instrument series just for the aesthetic. :rofl:

It’s understandable, but it’s not acceptable. :point_down:

^ Your TBR continues to grow because of the vast amount of books out there. If you can’t find other means to gain access to a book, you need to just wait.

Some authors will say, “I don’t really care,” but I’ve only ever heard that from people who don’t publish in hopes of making it their full-time job one day, who don’t consider it an actual career, who don’t consider it a business.

Definitely agree.

Like, I don’t recommend it but if you like doing it and you can become successful the way you desire to, then you do you. :sweat_smile:

I love the smell of books. :sweat_smile: I have a list of weird smells I like, such as wrapping paper, beach balls, air conditioners, the smell of a carpet freshly vacuumed, bleach, that new car smell, etc.

But I definitely agree that people need to get off their high horse on the topic. Like, I’m a physical book reader and someone who enjoys audiobooks, and while I’m not big into e-books, etc. I don’t think I’m special with reading a copy in my hands.

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All of your points break down in countries with little to no access to libraries or book retailers for the general public. Accept it.

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Of course. And us indie authors recognize that. We’re not stupid. We’re holding amazon accountable and we’re fighting for our own careers, while also reminding pirates that it’s not okay to pirate books you can’t afford. You can be against and fight against both issues at once. You don’t have to choose one or the other.

Theres an entire issue going around with a petition to make amazon change their policy and not punish authors. But until that changes, we have to still speak against piracy to defend our entire careers. When you’re the one in the crossfire, you have no choice but to actively pick a side.

What points have I ignored? Genuinely curious. Because I asked AMayu “why do you think this” for real reasons. And in that same question, I asked if they’d heard about the amazon issue, and they asked me about that so I answered. I repeated my argument because they asked. And Clara had also given me reasons, too, and I then read those reasons and took into account, by then replying with “I’d rather not have the reader than lose my book altogether”. Which is an argument that said I definitely read the points and did not ignore them. I can read the points and still stick to my argument. Just because I read the points, doesn’t mean I have to suddenly change sides. I genuinely wanted to know why someone supported piracy and I got my answer. I still don’t support it, however.

And that’s fair. Thats why I wanted to know your points, and you made them clear. Which I can understand. Not agree with, but understand better your view. But also thank you for recognizing that authors shouldn’t be punished for piracy. It’s out of our control, of course, and I know it happens. But if I don’t speak against it, it’s my career that takes a bomb. Unfortunate reality I live in. If I had other ebook options, or if Amazon changed their policy, I might not be so pressing about the issue. But alas, this is the way it is at the moment. Hopefully things change.

To everyone in general: I used to pirate music at a young teen. So I’m not all pure and holy here. Part of me didn’t understand it was pirating and another part of me didn’t care or understand the harm it did. Would I do that now? No. But just because I’m against it doesn’t mean I’ve never done it. We all learn from our past.

And I’ll say this. If someone pirates my book solely for themselves (NOT posting it to the internet, they simple just download it for their viewing only), then oh well. Because how would I ever actually know they pirated it? That would suck, yes, but it doesn’t harm my career like pirates and pirating sites posting my book elsewhere for others to also pirate. It’s when its publicly pirating that authors find out, get hurt, and so forth.

Yes there is gray area for pirating. And yes, I got upset. But I think the discussion had here wasn’t all that useless either way. :woman_shrugging:t3: The point of this thread is to hear hot takes and then expand further of why we think that way.

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But I thought you were in New Jersey? I might be remembering wrong. So why do you pirate books? How do people in NJ not have access to libraries?

https://forum.wackywriters.com/t/le-narb-s-tbr/

Okay, so maybe they don’t have libraries in NJ. I’m in Florida where they’re currently banning all the books, rendering libraries superfluous. But someone in that thread mentioned Z-library, which everyone on earth has access to afaik. So why don’t they just get books there instead of stealing them from the poorest writers?

My real curiosity, though, is that somewhere you said you ordered a book from Amazon and they never shipped it. If you were able to order a book from them, you must have an account and a credit/debit card registered with them. You would therefore be able to contact them through the Your Orders page, where they tell you when your shipment will arrive. Did you ever contact them about that?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/your-account/order-history/

Lastly, and then I promise I will shut up about this, if pirates had any conscience about what they do at all they’d say to themselves, What am I doing? I’m stealing from this poor, starving writer!

Because, yanno, some of us are. Starving, that is.

But I absolutely MUST have this book! Omg I know! I’ll pay for it with service to the author! I’ll leave a gushing review of this book on Amazon and Goodreads! I’ll link to the legitimate product page in my Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter! I’ll do what little I can to pay the author back and hope they sell a lot of books to other readers who can afford it!

I could almost forgive them for stealing my hard work if they did that. But yanno, they never do any of that. (-᷅_-᷄๑)

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I meant that globally there appears to be a book distribution problem. Libraries aren’t acessible to all people in the world. And no, the textbook that I needed wasn’t able to be found on any pirate sites. I guess I’ll have to contact Amazon later but I have little hope of the issue being resolved quickly.

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… Z library is piracy. The site’s been seized afaik. It’s exactly access to research papers from sites/torrents like theirs that lays the foundations for my views on piracy.

I also wouldn’t be too sure that people who download e-books never “give back” to the authors. Back then, I reviewed every single book I read on goodreads, and I was top 7 reviewer of my country during my active years (eta: not to brag, but my country also isn’t a small thing. We’re top 5 in population, and our presence on goodreads is also far from small). I also knew others who ran book review blogs, and that’s not to mention the ones who spread their favourite books through word of mouth, etc.

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As someone who is in a position to afford only a few (like 5-10 in a year) of the books I really want to read, and has been around people who afford even less, I know first hand how hard it is to get access to books in a lot of places.
I live in a country has a lower overall PPP and a huge gap between the rich and poor - to the point that a lot of people cannot afford food, and whatever little education they have access to because of government schemes is limited and often badly taught.
So if these people want access to a better life, often books are their way out - but they cannot afford them, and free libaries in my country are almost non existent or filled with outdated stuff and situated very far from most people. (it’s almost 1 per district)

I do understand that authors are being hurt, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were additional safeguards, but I wish that we looked at both sides as symptoms of a bigger problem, and found solutions to those instead.

So while I understand why authors would want piracy to stop, I also see its benefits and can’t really go against that, because even though I’m in a pretty previledged position, a lot of people around me aren’t. And this benefits them directly.

So my understanding was that this was also a pirate website?
Either way, Z-lib is now banned in my country. Have not been able to open the site (or any of the alternatives) for months now.

That’s the thing - a lot of times, these are readers who do not know enough about the world to understand those consequences!

Edit: Adding that most of these people would only be reading popular, famous books. Some are there who read from smaller authors, but that’s a minority.

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@Novel_Worm @AMayu

Okay, my bad. I’d never heard of Z-library until I read that thread, so I had no idea it too was a piracy site. Argh! There’s no getting away from pirates. (>▂<)

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