Ahoy, Mateys! I be here with news of great import.

By Rick Blechta

I’ve got more on the whole non-permission book piracy thing.

First off, I heard back from Linwood Barclay. I won’t share the exact email response he sent to my query — it’s rather tart and too-the-point — but I can say he found what I told him “outrageous” and he was going to contact them immediately.

Apparently he was more successful than I’ve been (in many ways!) because his novels that were on the site are now completely gone. Good for you, Linwood! You’re my new hero.

I’m going to find a friendly lawyer — since I play in a big band, the Advocats, that has several — to get a letter crafted that Internet Archive will be inclined to obey.

However, my main point today is to share the following link: https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/book-piracy-rumors/ 

I’ll wait while you read it. It’s not very long.

Now the Hidden Gems site is for helping authors get reviews of electronic ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) of their works. They charge for this service. If you wish to poke around the site, you will quickly see how it works. It seems that the focus in on individual authors to sign up for some easy self-promotion. It seems a bit pricey considering all the service provides is reviews, and obviously, you’d only want to use the good ones. Also anyone can review these ARCs, so they don’t carry the weight of a review by a professional (i.e.: paid) reviewer.

However, the main point of this post is I feel the linked article’s take on piracy is pretty sobering. I suppose the fight needs to be taken to these bastards, but it looks as if the task is a daunting one: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/06/i-can-get-any-novel-i-want-in-30-seconds-can-book-piracy-be-stopped

What do you think?