Debra - Piracy is a dirty word.

Okay, I'm taking a stand. Stealing the work of writers and posting books on file sharing sites is evil. I'm not good-natured about this anymore. I'm tired of people telling me, "Well, there is a school of thought which says piracy builds readers."

No. It doesn't. What it does is steal money from the author and the publisher. In the last two days I've had ONE file-sharing site take down files with over 500 downloads for ONE of our titles - BITE ME by Parker Blue.

What did that mean to her in real dollars? A lot. You can assume that not every scumbag who downloaded the free book would have bought a copy, but this is still a lot of money the author has lost, and from just one of these file sharing sites.

Large publishers and their authors suffer just as much.

When did it become okay to steal?

I checked this same site (there are dozens to work through) and found other books of ours. For EACH violation I have to fill out a separate form to request the file be pulled. www.4shared.com has quickly taken down the files, but WE (the publisher and the author) are required to find these violations. The process is a continual one. Get to the end of the file sharing sites and start again. Why? Because new files had been posted within 24 hours of having the first files removed from 4Shared.

How about the authors on this blog?

Christie? Probably a 1000 downloads from 15 files.

Cindy Gerard - tons of files, many foreign editions

Michele Hauf - yep, her books were there and not just the free one from Harlequin

Lois Greiman - 106 downloads from 2 books, 3 files.

Kathleen Eagle - yep. Looks like mostly foreign editions.

I bet Helen and Kylie's work was there. My work wasn't on the site. Neither was Betina's or Susie's. But there are many other sites. Dozens.

Some folks say book publishing better take a lesson from music file sharing and get the price down. What they don't realize is the printing cost is nothing. Not if you're a large publisher printing thousands of units at once. Books can't be divided into discrete units in the same way that music can. Kindle lets you download a nice sample for free as do most of the ebook sites. Can't get much fairer than that. When wholesalers and booksellers expect discounts of 40-55% off the cover price of the book, there isn't much room for maneuvering on price. No one works for free.

If the authors can't make a living, maybe they'll go back to Corporate America, to the farm or simply retire. Then where would we be without that next great book from our favorite author?

Romance Writers of America has compiled an extensive list of file sharing sites. I see this as a never-ending battle, but I'm going to make the effort to treat this like the crime it is. I'm not going to ignore this.

Am I over-reacting? Is stealing a basic human right that stems from our survival instincts? Have we missed the boat in teaching some of these concepts to our children? Please don't tell me to bend over, close my eyes and think of England!

GUEST - Deborah Smith

From Debra Dixon: Soooo long ago when I was trying to decide what I wanted to be when I "grew up" as a writer, I decided I wanted to be the love child of Stephen Hunter, Deborah Smith and Tami Hoag. All I knew of Deborah Smith was that she could sling words that were so deeply human and true that her books piled up on my keeper shelves. Then in a twist of fate, Bantam bought a book of mine and I found myself at a fancy restaurant. Eating dinner with Tami Hoag, Deborah Smith, Iris Johansen. I said nothing and just smiled. Terrified.

Halfway through desert, Deborah Smith "yipped" (she yips) and said, "OMG. Who's desert coffee is this?" It was my coffee but I was too scared to say anything when she stole it from the waitress, who--I'm sure--thought Deb would hand it to me.

That was the beginning. Today she's the dearest of friends and I scramble to keep up with her mind. I hope you'll all join her in a rousing discussion. She loves to wrestle with ideas. So, you chime right in with your thoughts!

I have seen the future of books, and they will have a lot in common with my great grandpa's wooden-framed writing slate. He toted his slate (which I've inherited) every day of his boyhood to a one-room schoolhouse in the mountains above Atlanta, circa 1870. Great-grandpa Robert, who was named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee, (my great-great grandpa Kimbrough, Robert's father, was an infantry sharpshooter under Lee's command) could chalk no more than a few words or perform simple arithmetic ciphers on his little five-by-seven rectangle of smooth gray slate. And then, with a simple movement of his hand, those images could be erased.

You could say it was the original beta tester for an ebook reader.

A few minutes ago, as I started to write this blog on an entirely different subject, Jeff Bezos, head of Amazon.com, sat down on the TV screen across from my coffee-table-propped feet to be interviewed by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

And he handed Stewart the new Kindle.

I gaped at it. I'd never seen one in the flesh before, meaning on TV, not a still photo. So there it was. The size of great grandpa's boyhood writing slate. A screen inside a delicate white frame, at most one-half-inch thick (I bet I could slide it under a closed door) and small enough to tuck inside most purses, fanny packs, or the average Bible, if you wanted to secretly download the Sunday comics during church.

"You can download an entire book in sixty seconds," Bezos told Jon.

Jeff Bezos wasn't what I expected as the big kahuna of the massive online bookstore that's re-defining how we shop and read. He looks like a cross between Howie Mandel, Peewee Herman and a barista at a really trendy coffee bar: Slight, bald, hip, in slender pants, a black pullover and a simple jacket, but with a big, disturbingly confident laugh. He guffawed at least once every fifteen seconds at Jon's jokes. His laugh sounded so happy and boyish. Is he Satan in slick threads or an adorably successful elf?

I was still recovering from the "download a book in sixty seconds" announcement as Bezos went on to say that the Amazon Kindle books are all 9.95 (cheaper than most print books, he pointed out) and the latest Kindle model will hold fifteen hundred books.

The Kindle is wireless (and Amazon doesn't charge users for the wifi connection,) its battery will last up to two weeks without re-charging, and it will read aloud to you. "Is it like one of those robot voices?" Jon asked, to which a chortling Bezos admitted it was -- for now. Neither Jon nor Bezos mentioned the Authors Guild's recent challenge of Amazon's ability to, in essence, create audiobooks without paying the authors or the publishers for those rights.

But Jon did note, "Uh, publishers are worried about people being able to pirate books with this."

Bezos breezily dismissed that concern. Publishers have the option of encrypti ng their books to protect them, he said, not mentioning that Digital Rights Management is considered the clunky Frankenstein of the ebook world and is fading away quickly. In other words, readers want NO hindrance to their ability to transfer their Kindle books to other readers or share them with friends. And Bezos surely knows that.

"We're finding that people are buying more books because of the Kindle," Bezos said. "They're buying more books and they're reading more." I assume he said that to reassure us book industry worrywarts that just because Kindle is lowering the value of the content authors create, *and* making it easier for readers to steal that content, *and* preparing to undercut the value of audio rights for books, that we'll make up the losses in volume sales.

"But I like the feel of a book on my chest when I fall asleep in bed," Jon pointed out. (Warning: paraphrase alert in effect.)

"You can do that with the Kindle," Bezos told him. "And you only need one hand to hold it."

The audience hooted and Jon moaned lecherously, "Ohhhhh, The Great Gatsby."

Then Bezos told him the Kindle's retail price. $359.

Jon stared at him. "And on top of that I still have to pay for the books I download?"

"Yeah," Bezos chortled.

Jon flipped the Kindle at him with comic disgust.

Okay, so . . . cute interview. But serious subject. The experts think we really are on the cusp of "Ebook Nation," a time when the always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride digital book finally catches the eye of the mainstream audience. Good news or bad news or both for the book world?

Readers are clamoring to remove all encryptions that hamper their use of the files. Pirated copies are zooming all over the world in increasing numbers. A whole bunch of "new media" gurus are calling for ebooks to be sold at a fraction of the price of print books, and there's even a respected school of thought that says ALL digital content -- books, articles, music, etc. should be free. Absolutely free.

I'm not sure how that rationale works. The "free for all" folks merrily insist we publishers and authors can come up with some nifty new ways to make money off our content other than charging people for the privilege of reading our stories. But so far none of the "Free the Books" crowd has displayed even a remotely accurate understanding of the costs of publishing -- costs that will remain whether the book is digital or print -- and so far, the suggestions for how to make money without asking readers to pay for anything have amounted to vague and ridiculously naive ideas based on the belief that, Golly gee, most people will be happy to contribute money to authors if authors are really really nice to them.

So I'm thinking about my great grandpa's writing slate some more. Maybe I'll go get it out of the display cabinet next to Grandma's wire-framed glasses and Great Aunt Ruby's hat pin.

Maybe I can stand on street corners, a tin can for tips at my feet, holding up my antique ebook with these words chalked on it.

WILL PUBLISH FOR SPARE CHANGE.

DEBRA - Announcing Bell Bridge Books

Well, we've gone and done it. Decided to open a new imprint over at BelleBooks. Yep. I'm still getting a few hours sleep every day so adding more to the workday shouldn't be a problem.

I bet you think I'm crazy, but you wouldn't if you'd seen some of the good books we've had to turn down over the years because they didn't quite fit our audience. Combine that with my love of fantasy, dark fantasy and urban fantasy. Those don't fit with BelleBooks' Southern slant either. And we've managed to acquire the reprint rights on some of Deborah Smith's books from Little Brown.

We want to get those in print, but they've already been in print, had their time to shine as frontlist. So, we're really looking at serving a writer's backlist, which is also different from what we do at BelleBooks since those are all original titles.

A new imprint was the only realistic choice. It allows us to "brand" a division that can handle this diversity! (Didn't I hear that word brand around here recently?)

http://www.bellbridgebooks.com/

We're currently looking for fantasy, especially urban fantasy. We'll also be publishing a few of those Southern books that we can't publish through BelleBooks' traditional program.

Bell Bridge Books will be an advance and royalty paying house. We'll publish POD (print-on-demand) and ebook simultaneously. The advances are small but our cover looks will be "big house" looks. We've included some samples in this blog. Fake books but real covers produced by Bell Bridge Books.

We aren't looking for "romance", even though that cover to the right skewed to the romance side! Romance is a well-served market and there isn't any reason to dip a toe in that pond.

What we are looking for is writers with unique voices who create strong fantasy, dark fantasy and urban fantasy stories with compelling characters--male or female.

We're looking at some young adult. Very excited about that. If you're interested in querying, head on over to the website: http://www.bellbridgebooks.com/

Tell a friend. Tell two friends. We're beating the bushes for good quality fantasy.

So, folks! What do think about our new imprint? What are your thoughts about our cover looks?