A Writer's Journal

Please Don't Steal My Book

Please Don't Steal My Book

Hi, nice to meet you. *extends hand in greeting* 

I'm honoured you took the time to read my novel and that you like it enough to want to pass it off as your own, but please don't steal my book. 

When you steal my book and wipe my name off the cover with some hastily rendered Photoshop and put yours in its place, it diminishes what a massive achievement writing, completing and editing a novel is. If you completed your own novel, I'd be your biggest cheerleader even though I don't know you, because I'd understand the time and work you put into your creation, but please don't steal my book. 

A book, you see, is more just a collection of scenes and characters and words smushed together in a satisfying manner. A book is not just the story that's within it, it's also the story of its creator and all the things that brought that writer to that moment where they placed those words on a page. My story is not yours, please don't steal my book. 

Perhaps you'd like to hear a bit of the story behind the stories. I hope you don't steal this too. But in truth, it would probably sting a little less than what you did take. 

I got serious about my novel writing after a series of heartbreaking miscarriages, as I've said elsewhere "I threw myself into these books as if they were life-preservers and I was drifting out to sea. When I was losing babies, these were the ones I could keep." Please don't steal my baby. 

Stories are a gift. They teach us, lift us up, allow us escape, and sometimes even change the world. Storytellers in all their vast and varied forms are modern-day conjurers. But my only magic is my imagination and my desire to spend my entire lifetime becoming better at my craft. Please don't cheapen or make light of that. It's my life's work. Please don't steal my story. 

If you didn't suffer the 5 a.m. labour pains hunched over a keyboard pounding out hundreds of words day after day for a full calendar year; if you didn't cancel copious social outings just to complete edits and make posting deadlines; and if you didn't live with these characters in your head while doing dishes, walking the dog, or trying to get your brain to turn off at night just so you could get five hours of sleep before you climbed back into the writing chair, please don't steal my book. 

A writer makes many sacrifices in order to invest in their creation, please don't steal my book. 

If you do, I'm forced to write posts like this one instead of writing the stories you loved enough to call your own, and someday there will be nothing left to take. 

Please, please, please don't steal my book. 

---

If someone has plagiarized or stolen your work and reposted it on Wattpad, you can file a DMCA Takedown Notice at https://support.wattpad.com/hc/en-us/articles/204471770-Reporting-Copyright-Infringement. Other fiction sharing services offer similar infringement reporting policies. Stay vigilant and, remember, your creations are always worth standing up for. 

Want to know more about theft, plagiarism and protecting your copyright? The Great Lakes Horror Company, which is the genre lit podcast I co-produce, released an episode on just this subject, you can tune into it at: http://libraryofthedamned.com/2017/08/16/glhc-podcast-tackles-plagiarism-and-copyright/ (bonus: you get to hear what I sound like and more about the earlier encounters I had with unrepentant story stealers.)