On file-sharing sites and illegal e-book downloads

Many of my fellow authors get pretty hot under the collar about file-sharing websites that infringe on our copyrights by facilitating illegal downloads of e-books and files made by scanning physical copies of books. While I deplore the practice of sharing such files--it is, after all, a clear violation of both United States and international law--I am not of the opinion that every such file download, or even a large percentage of them, represents lost revenue for publishers and authors.

People will take just about anything that's free. If I gave you a link right here and now so you could download an e-copy of my latest book at no cost, dozens of you would click without even scanning the rest of this post. Well, sorry, there's no free (legal) download. But if reading my book is important to you, click here and download it from eHarlequin for a mere $4.46.

Did you click? Probably not. Right now some of you are muttering that you can't afford $4.46 just to read a romance novel. Yet you might end up going to the movies this weekend and spending more than that on your bucket of popcorn alone.

That doesn't hurt my feelings. We all make our own choices, and I accept that buying my book isn't a priority for most of you. But again, if I were offering free copies, many of you would hurry to get one before the offer expired.

That being the case, it's unreasonable to assume that all or even most of the people who download illegal copies of e-books would purchase those books (in print or electronic editions) if they weren't available via file-sharing sites. So I don't worry about losing money that way. In fact, I wonder if that activity might actually increase my sales. It's possible, isn't it, that some of the people who download illegal copies of my books are being exposed to my writing for the first time and might like it enough to actually buy a book some day?

Don't think I'm condoning the illegal activity. I'm just saying there's no way of knowing how much--if any--revenue the average author and her publisher are losing when those files are shared. And I'm saying that any truly lost revenue just might be offset by the "free advertizing" the books and authors receive from the lawbreakers.

Argue as much as you like in the Comments, but this is how I see it. (And those of you who are wondering if I paid for all of the songs on my iPod, the answer is yes. I even put $60 worth of iTunes gift cards in my kids' Christmas stockings.)

Now here's something sort of funny: This week a new file-sharing site has caused a fresh round of teeth-gnashing among my author friends, with several of them reporting finding titles of their as-yet-unreleased books listed on the site. That seemed rather strange, so I did a little checking.

Download-Provider.com claims to have over 1,400,000 files (movies, games, software, etc.), which anyone can download after paying $4.95 to join the site. A quick search showed all four of my books available for download, and that smelled fishy because the first two were never released as e-books. Sure, the print copies could have been scanned and uploaded to the site, but I wasn't buying that. So I entered "Brenda Coulter My Next Book" and what do you know? They had that "title" available for download. I then entered "You people are jerks" and "Download Provider is a scam" and the search results showed files by both of those names available for download.

Of course I didn't join the site, so I don't know what would happen if a member clicked on a link to one of those bogus files. It's possible that a member's search wouldn't turn up results for everything, the way a visitor's search does. But I figure anyone stupid and greedy enough to pay a site like that $4.95 in order to illegally download copyrighted material deserves to get burned.

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UPDATED 4:35 PM

Turns out the website I mentioned (http://download-provider.com) is a total scam. They'll charge your credit card again and again and sign you up for porn sites, as explained by these frustrated people at Complaints Board ("Helpful information for consumers regarding allegedly unethical companies, bad business practices.")

It's not easy to feel sorry for the people who thought they were paying $4.95 for all the illegal downloads their little hearts desired and instead found themselves cheated, but somehow I still do.

NRJW celebrates its 4th bloggiversary

Here's how I began my very first blog post, four years ago today:

It's the day after Christmas, and I am goofing off.

I'm not entirely certain where I'm headed with this blog. I'm not going to make any promises, but since I practically live on the internet [...] maybe we can have a little fun here. Maybe I'll end up posting regularly and maybe once in a while I'll even manage to write something witty or profoundly insightful. You never know.

There was a little more, and then I concluded with this:

Of course it's not strictly true, that part about there being no rules. There are rules, as we all know. And it's important that we learn them. In order that our enjoyment may be heightened when we choose to break them.

I was discussing something along those lines just yesterday with my 22-year-old son [...] and I commented that since I am 48-1/2 years old and a published romance novelist, it is my right to be as eccentric as I want.

"Nay," my son the genius contradicted, "it's your responsibility."

Absolutely. So this is me, celebrating my eccentricity with a brand-new weblog. Welcome to my world.

Later that day, I posted my second and third blog entries, which included these two photographs. Click on them to enlarge them; the tree has "diamonds" in it and the iced rose hips are quite beautiful.




Thanks for reading NRJW, folks. And a special thanks to everyone who has taken the time to leave comments here. Your insights and your silliness are a huge part of what has made blogging so much fun.

Luke 2 (King James Version)

1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)

3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

15 And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.

16 And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.

17 And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.

18 And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

19 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.

20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

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Wishing you all a warm and wonderful Christmas season.

Christmas Eve thoughts

I believe it really happened, just as the Bible says. The Holy Spirit moved, and a virgin conceived a child. So tonight and tomorrow while I'm sitting by the fire opening presents and hugging my kids and laughing with my husband and eating these cookies and listening to The Nutcracker and Messiah over and over (because it's only once a year), I will bear in mind that the reason for all of this feasting, all of this gift-giving, all of this gathering together of loved ones is that a virgin called Mary actually conceived a child by the power of God.

And what a child He was! Fully God, yet also fully human. He grew up and taught and suffered and died...and then he conquered death. He lives now, and He is with me always. And when my earthly life is over, I will be with Him--forever.

I believe it really happened, just as the Bible says. I hope you believe it, too.

Christmasing

Sorry, but I can't blog today. I'm busy Christmasing.

I hope you all are Christmasing, too--and having a wonderful time.

The tree's up. Now I have only to make the cookies and finish the shopping and... Oh, dear! Is it the 18th already?

I couldn't get far enough away from our extra-tall and full Christmas tree to get the whole thing in my camera's viewfinder, but I suppose that's for the best. We decorate with a hodgepodge of handmade and keepsake ornaments, so our tree usually ends up looking like a designer's nightmare.

...especially when we have, as we do this year, a "bendy," which is what my Number Two Son calls a tree that brushes the ceiling and makes it necessary for the handmade cardboard-and-tinfoil star on top to be pushed forward instead of standing straight up. We often end up with bendies because we go out to the country to choose and cut our own tree, and under the wide winter sky we tend to forget that our living room is not that big and our ceiling not that tall. My hunk o' burnin' love shortened this year's tree, measured it, and then shortened it again--but it's still a bendy. (Wouldn't you think an architect would be a little better at measuring things?)

This year we've switched to LED lights that are supposed to last for 20,000 hours, which means we can leave this tree up and lit for approximately 833 more days if we want. Or we can just reuse the lights for years and call them family heirlooms. I can see myself at 96, handing a pile of battered boxes to one of my descendants and saying in my sandpapery voice, "Now, you take good care of these, sweetheart. These were your great grandfather's Christmas lights."

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My regular column is up today at Romancing the Blog. It's about one of my pet peeves in romance novels.

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Why my writing rule is "No rules"

Literary agent Chip MacGregor on submissions:

I'd like to see more writing with a strong voice. I probably see too many things that aren't bad -- they're just not outstanding. They don't have a particular personality that stands out and demands to be read. There's a lot of flatness in writing (conferences have a tendency to foster that, by telling prospective authors there is a "right" way to do things), and I'm always interested in the clear, quirky, outstanding voice coming out on the page.

I couldn't agree more that workshops at writers' conferences foster "flatness" in writing by teaching that there is one correct way to write.

I have published only four books, but many people would say I'm qualified to call myself "multi-published" and write articles or teach conference workshops on how to plot, how to write interesting dialogue, how to create believable characters, and so on. But I say I am not qualified to teach those things. I might be able to offer a useful tip here and there, but I'm no authority on what it takes to write a great inspirational romance novel and get it published. Perhaps because I write in a very "organic" way, I couldn't begin to teach anyone how to do what I do. Even if I could, wouldn't you rather write like yourself than like me?

Conferences like RWA and ACFW allow far too many inexperienced, mediocre authors to dispense advice to gullible unpublished writers. Online writers' forums and e-mail loops exacerbate the problem when newbies who have latched onto certain "writing rules" share them with their even-newbier pals and everyone gets caught up in unimportant details. Here are just four of the silly things some writers have come to believe are keys to getting published:

Don't use any dialogue tag but "said", which is invisible to the reader. Other dialogue tags intrude.

Never use adverbs with your dialogue tags.

After you've written the first five chapters, throw Chapter One out and begin your story with Chapter Two. You can't possibly write a good first chapter--you will always put too much backstory in it.

Never use italics. That's weak writing.

There are many more, of course. And as Chip suggests, the more of these rules we all take to heart, the less distinct our individual writing voices will become. That's doubly unfortunate, because you can follow every rule and still not get published.

The real secret to getting published is: Write a ripping good story. Even if you're a little lavish with your adverbs, and if you get silly (as I do) about italicizing words, and if you occasionally write "he opined" or "he sputtered" instead of "he said," and if you break just about every other Writing Rule you so eagerly recorded in your conference notebook while sitting through all those workshops, chances are good that a publishing professional won't care because those are small things, fixable things, and they'll be well worth correcting in order to publish your amazing story.

So if anyone wants some free advice from yet another "multi-published" romance writer, here you go:

No rules.
Just write.

Be yourself. Tell your story. And have fun!

Special offer for Harlequin/Silhouette/Steeple Hill readers

Harlequin has implemented a new program for readers who are interested in contributing to the company's market research by sharing their opinions on books. Members of Harlequin's reader panel will be contacted by e-mail once or twice a month and asked to read and give opinions on books (participants will receive FREE copies), share likes and dislikes regarding cover designs, tell Harlequin what they think about new book ideas, and so on.

If you'd like to participate, you must first complete a survey about your reading habits, including which lines of Harlequin/Silhouette/Steeple Hill books you read and where you obtain those books. (Don't worry--Harlequin promises not to use any of your personal information to lob sales pitches at you.)

Want to join the reader panel? Go to Tell Harlequin.

Harlequin's calendar girls

"Oh, how nice," I said just a few minutes ago as I opened my mail and saw that Harlequin had sent me (and the rest of its authors) a 2009 calendar to celebrate "60 years of pure reading pleasure."

I appreciated the company milestones and upcoming events noted on the calendar; it's going to be quite a useful addition to the cluttered bulletin board in my office. But I imagine I'll end up folding the top half of the calendar back each month so I won't have to look at the sleazy vintage bookcovers they're celebrating.

Take January's illustration, for example. You can see it there at the top left of this photo, which I took from the back of the calendar. (Click on the pic to enlarge it--if you dare.) The book is Anna (Anneke de Lange, 1952), the cover of which informs us that "She lived like a wicked little animal."

On April's calendar page we see Love Me and Die! (Day Keene, 1952): "Out of the darkness came the slow, sure hand of Death..." And on May's, The Manatee (Nancy Bruff, 1949): "The strange loves of a seaman." (That one really gave me pause.) And take a look at July's gruesome cover, Case of the Six Bullets (R. M. Laurenson, 1950), which pictures the bodies of a man and a woman lying across a railroad track. The woman's death stare is downright chilling.

September's page features Nine to Five (Harvey Smith, 1952): "The private affairs of a not-too-private secretary." And December's illustration is The Faro Kid (Leslie Ernenwein, 1950): "A fast, Salty, Realistic Yarn...Pulsing with Action." I'm not entirely certain what The Faro Kid is doing to the woman on that cover. Is he trying to kiss her while simultaneously removing a gun from her hand?

I'm very proud to write books for Harlequin under Steeple Hill's "Love Inspired" imprint, but I've never endorsed all of the books Harlequin publishes and I never will. Further, I reserve the right to make fun of any bookcovers and titles that amuse me. I hope "the company" understands.

Thanks for the calendar, Harlequin. And congratulations on 60 years of publishing romance fiction.

Winter in the garden

Since we were out of town for a while, the last of the season's garden chores didn't get done until Saturday, when my hunk o' burnin' love shredded the leaves he'd raked into a huge pile just before we left.

The late-winter cycle of thaw-freeze, thaw-freeze can cause the contracting and expanding soil to heave fall-planted (and as yet, not firmly rooted) perennials and bulbs right out of the ground, where they'll die of exposure. A good layer of insulation can prevent that, so my husband piled several inches of shredded oak leaves over the newly-planted areas of the front and back gardens. In the spring, he'll rake up the leaves and add them to our compost pile.

The woodpile behind the garage proves that the fireplace at Chez Coulter burns nothing but the best woods: dense oak and sturdy black walnut from our own back yard. This past summer a mature black walnut was uprooted by a storm; last month we had several huge old limbs removed from an oak tree.

The trunks of these black walnuts aren't pretty, but they're kind of interesting, I think. And our extra-nutty back yard is a favorite of the neighborhood squirrels.

I love the way this maiden grass curls and fluffs and turns pale in the winter. Best of all, it makes a delightful shushing sound when the wind blows through it.

The first snow of the season began falling while my husband was dealing with the leaves and I was taking these photos. We now have almost two inches on the ground, and I like to think that all of my flowers and plants are now sleeping peacefully underneath their snowy blanket.

The blogger is in (again)

The illness and death of a loved one has kept me away from the blog for a while. That's all I'm going to say about it; there are large chunks of my life that I don't care to display here on the blog. But I'd like to send out a big warm thank-you to everyone who has wondered about me and waited for me to post again.

The other day as my hunk o' burnin' love and I drove from Texas to our home in the midwest, I reached for my iPod and dragged my computer onto my lap and tried to think of something to blog about when I got home. I ended up with a list of observations that some of you (well, my sister, anyway) might find mildly entertaining. Most of them are about music or food, which is what I tend to focus on during long car trips. See for yourself:

I was never a big Bruce Springsteen fan, but "Born to Run" is still the greatest rock song ever written. Don't argue with me on this.

It has been at least twenty years since I have seen Crepes Suzette on a restaurant menu. Even in French restaurants, and that's just wrong. I'm thinking about buying a bottle of Grand Marnier when I get home so I can make my own Crepes Suzette. They're easy, which is why I'm so puzzled that nobody eats them anymore.

Potato chips are a poor choice for snacking on during long car trips. Not because of the empty calories or the crumbs, but because they're time-wasters. Potato chips must be washed down with soft drinks, and consumption of soft drinks makes people stop at gas stations far more often than they actually need to buy gas. And of course, gas stations exacerbate this problem by selling potato chips and soft drinks...

I didn't notice before we left home that somebody had taken all of the CDs out of this car except one containing some very old Rolling Stones music. My hunk o' burnin' love has never liked the Stones, but he needed some music to keep him alert, so he plugged in the only available CD. Just outside of Little Rock when he thought I was napping, I saw him bobbing his head to "Fancy Man Blues." I suspect he enjoyed "Wild Horses," also. So I think he should stop pretending that he was doing me a huge favor when he let the CD play all the way through two times before he ejected it.

Every Cracker Barrel restaurant looks exactly the same and they all carry exactly the same items--stocked in exactly the same locations--in their gift shops. If anyone wants to buy quilted makeup bags like the ones I picked up, they're on the last shelf before you get to the back wall of the store, to the right of a rack of sweatshirts. I'd like to add that Cracker Barrel's ham (both kinds) is way too salty and their scrambled eggs slightly overcooked, but their sourdough bread makes excellent toast.

On a cold, drizzly day, it's lovely to ease your car seat back and snuggle under a down lap blanket and let the slap-slap of windshield wipers lull you to sleep. Unless you're occupying the driver's seat, of course.

We have tickets to see Garrison Keillor a couple of days after we get home. We have seen him three or four times in the past twenty years and he has always worn exactly the same outfit: dark suit, red tie, red socks. I wonder how many pairs of red socks Garrison Keillor owns.

Howie Day's best song (and I know this because I have all three of his CDs and have listened to each of them twice on this trip) is "Come Lay Down." But his most impressive piece of work (in terms of showcasing his amazingly expressive voice and its fabulous range) is "Morning After", from his first album, "Australia," which he self-produced in 2000 when he was just 19 years old. Amazing.

Hey. If you think these observations are inane, you should have seen the ones I deleted.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and be sure that pond ice is nice and thick before you go skating on it.