A few days ago, I finished my 75th work of fiction—a women’s fiction novel of nearly 90,000 words crafted of my own blood, sweat, and tears. This was an emotional, and in some ways, a personal story. One that had been trying to get out of me for a long time.
Of those 75 works of fiction I’ve published, 22 are contemporary romances, 13 are western/cowboy romances, 3 are time travel, 5 are paranormal romance, 6 are romantic suspense/thrillers, 4 are women’s fiction, 21 are erotic romance novellas, and I’ll toss in 1 writing/craft book of nonfiction.
I’ve been writing for nearly 40 years, and there are many more pieces of fiction and nonfiction that I have written to date, from journal articles, to newspaper pieces, to academic books and chapters, to training manuals, to educational curriculum, to cookbooks.
All of those works are my Intellectual Property. All of them.
Writing is how I make a living. It is my income. And lately, one thing is really beginning to tick me off—people stealing my work and thinking nothing of it. That includes:
1) Pirate sites,
2) People who download books from pirate sites,
3) Corporations who steal my books from pirate sites for their own use.
First, if you are a reader who is on a limited income, please stop downloading from pirate sites. Instead, try your local library. You can check out for free, print, audiobook, and ebooks there. If you don’t know how, they will help you. Get a library card. Download the Libby app. Read for free from your library, and EVERY AUTHOR WILL THANK YOU.
You want to read some of my books for free? Just check out my website, or join my newsletter list, because I am extremely liberal with giving out free books there.
Second, if you are a Corporate Entity who is scouring pirate sites to train your AI large language models, or what-have-you—and you’ve stolen 47 of my book titles for your own use—one question: When the f*ck did I give you permission?
You want to use my Intellectual Property? Offer me a licensing deal.
And to the Powers-That-Be, you know, you people in our government who say they want to be on top of these AI issues…but what the hell have you done lately? Get your act together. Get some guardrails up. Write some legislation. Fix it.
Corral the beast before it gets out of hand.