Shay Miranda & Piracy | AUTHORS BEHAVING BADLY
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 มี.ค. 2023
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Authors: here’s my morally grey hero!
Authors when confronted with grey morality irl: no
LMFAO
I once was basically attacked on Instagram for saying I had got some books on Amazon by American fans of one of said books. They told me to go support a local bookstore and that I was the reason the book economy is failing and when I tried to explain I live in a small European country that has barely any books in English to begin with and the only store that does is one Waterstones where hardbacks are 35€, they said I was just making up excuses 🙄 Americans sometimes don't realize the privilege they have when it comes to books.
Similar issue in Ireland :') I try to exhaust so many local/Irish options before resorting to Book Depository, but I have to live tightly with money and places that a) actually ship here and b) ship for FREE and have prices I can often afford are just....so few and far between. Trying to avoid Amazon in these situations is like trying to swim in the ocean without getting wet. It really sucks that it's very often our only reasonable option.
I don't think well-off people realise that the main reason most poor people don't "shop local" is because mega corporations like Amazon and supermarkets and fast-fashion stores have deliberately made it so that it can easily be as much as 2-3 times more expensive to shop elsewhere, and even in cases where it's only a little more, that little can mean a whole lot when you're low income and/or living in poverty.
These billionaire owned businesses monopolise markets so that smaller competitors have too little custom to be able to price competitively and still meet their running costs, and they undercut prices through poor wages, government back-handers, tax evasion and unethical product sourcing so that smaller competitors are completely unable to match those prices without resorting to the same tactics. Even where products are unique or well-loved enough to stay afloat in spite of all this, they just get bought out and incorporated into some monopoly or other. And it's self-perpetuating. Poor people can't buy us out of that cycle, it needs legislature that no government I've heard of is currently willing to introduce or enforce.
None of us want to support Amazon or pirate books, but the outcome of unrestrained capitalism is that those of us on low incomes often don't really have a choice due to how tight our own budgets are. And you can "but what about libraries" all you want, but many libraries in English speaking countries are few and far between and may have limited selections and accessibility. And that's WITHOUT international issues surrounding availability, comparative pricing and censorship
@@Author.Noelle.Alexandria As non-Americans, we absolutely know that Amazon is shite to it's workers. There are warehouses in Europe and the UK as well, and workers are generally treated just as badly. There isn't really two sides to this - Amazon needs to do better, so much better, by the people it employs.
...and it's a little bold to assume that all non-American countries have good access to medical care. OP didn't even mention where they're from. As for Ireland - I'm on disability, which is why I have to be so careful with money. Rent and bills first, groceries second, savings third. €35 for a hardback is practically a week's worth of food for me.
The good aul capitalist machine is the problem here, not us in Not USA who have hugely limited options when it comes to book-buying. Us feeling shitty because we've exhausted all other options before resorting to Amazon for whatever isn't going to fix Amazon being putrid to its workers. Legislation that puts worker's health and rights before penny-profits would be a good start. Naught we can do about that. Maybe send a letter to your state reps about it instead of getting mad at us?
I live in one of the largest cities in the US. And bookstores (esp indie bookstores) aren’t prevalent here because this city isn’t a “book city” I have to drive 30+ minutes to get to a bookstore in a major city. Smaller towns around here sometimes dont even have a pharmacy or hospital, so they definitely dont have a bookstore.
The privilege in American/Western book spaces is mind boggling
@@Author.Noelle.Alexandria equating healthcare and education with buying books is..... a take lmao truly quite singularly american. i hope you hear yourself.
So I'm both physically disabled and autistic and I can articulate exactly why this is ableist- she makes a point in her bio to emphasize that "despite being disabled [she] can work" as an achievement and goes on to link productivity and being able to afford things to moral goodness. She's absolutely got some internalized and lateral ableism about disabled people like myself, who CANNOT work.
I'm pretty sure she's neurotypical, so its likely she didn't think about people with mental disabilities or "severe" mental illnesses AT ALL. She also (clearly) has the resources and money to make living with her physical disability easier to live with that most people don't, which I image she also didn't think about.
@@Author.Noelle.Alexandria well, what you’re describing is usually inspiration porn, which is ableist, so…
@@cannibalgender Yeah, and those are usually not aimed at disabled people either, they're more for able folk who get to say "hey, if someone with (insert disability here) can do that thing then surely I can do it too!"
@@Homodemon hey you definitely didn't do anything wrong but i wanted to hop in here to hopefully clarify your point just a bit! the word allistic means "non-autistic"- i think "abled", which means non-disabled, might be the word you were looking for!!! this isn't meant to be mean or nitpicky btw, if this wasn't cool of me or i misintepreted just lmk 👍
@@kathleenh2782 is okay, I always confuse the two, English is my second language and sometimes I don't think too hard about the meaning of words before saying them.
Ok, but the way her bio also goes out of its way to talk about how she’s able to work full time & make a living despite being disabled really does make it sound like she has A Thing about disabled people and “productivity”
My thoughts on this aren't quite gelling right now lol, but! I have a dear friend with severe POTS (keeps them practically bedridden many days) and I am not okay with people learning about the condition from the busybody this video was about. 😀
Being also a veteran might have something to do with that. The US Military, at least, is reknowned for making people feel like crap about themselves if they are or become disabled in any way. (Caveat: in my secondhand experience)
It does give off ‘well I find a way to get things done despite my disability’ vibes. Which tracks with being a disabled veteran.
It’s a capitalist notion to “be productive” and it’s ableist in nature. Our value is only in how much we “produce” or contribute to a capitalist society. It suggests that people who are disabled and unable to work are of lesser value. Of course, a person is more than this.
the weirdest thing about her "productivity" comment to me was that she associated "being a productive member of the book community" with paying money.... As though you can't be a productive member of a community without paying in? I get the vast majority of the books that I read from the library... and I actually am a member of a library of another state, and tbh I'm not sure it's legal but my local library has a pretty poor selection... so I guess I'm an "unproductive" member of the community!
(and FYIY Rachel is right, Brooklyn library no longer allows out-of-state memberships because I tried that. I found one from another state instead... I'm hesitant to announce it publicly for fear of it going away, lol).
I live in Iran. I think that's self-explanatory. Reading what I love that helps me keep my sanity together IS NOT AN OPTION for me unless I pirate books. I wish I had a bookshelf. I wish I could have my favorite books physically so I can admire them. But I can't for a MILLION reasons such as needing to save money for FOOD etc.
I don't know, but this author clearly has zero knowledge about currency and censorship. Sorry, but I can’t bring myself to feel sorry for trying to make through this shitty life reading pirated books. I can't just wrap my head around this, every time someone says something like this it's like they mean: Put your head down and die, while I'm sure they can't live for a month they way we do over here.
Yeah, the way government censorship just gets completely overlooked in these conversations is wild to me! Like all these writers want to be wild radical revolutionaries who change the world with their writing and bring new representation to the people who need it most... right up until those living under censorious regimes that physically won't allow those books to enter the country legally ask for a little solidarity and understanding on the need to sometimes be a pirate.
@@camillagilmore1547 Some people have never had to smuggle their homework past border security and it shows.
@@camillagilmore1547 honestly, as someone who has made money from writing, the only reason I even want to be paid for it is that I myself struggle financially. I don't write to get people to give me money, I do it for my own escapism and (hopefully) to share that with others. If someone couldn't access my work legally then I'd be thankful for them being able to do so another way.
Being that it literally says in her bio that she wrote/writes fanfic, you'd think this author might have a less mercinary and more humanitarian outlook on sharing stories.
I heard from a friend who comes from Iran about the censorship issues. I don't know all the details obviously, but the thought that there's so many people out there that are restricted by their governments on the literature they read is heartbreaking for me. I can't believe there's people out there like Shay who are so blinded by their privilege and ignorance that they don't understand this. It's like they are both blind and deaf to the world around them. Never read the book and never heard of the author, but to think that she had a promising career as a writer only to destroy it in less than a year...
@@Author.Noelle.Alexandria I know this is coming from a good place, but it's a bad idea. Because from the pov of the governments in these countries the problem goes from 'individual breaking the law' to 'Organised Western p0rn/drug ring aimed at undermining our society'. Anyone found to be involved would be treated more harshly and there would be more effort made to find people pirating books.
My take, having lived in Saudi.
"What? The poor can't afford books? Let them pay for Kindle!"
"16 dollars is nothing these days"
There have been times where I've literally had to decide if I wanted to splurge and by a physical book that I really liked, or if I had to save the cash for gas money
Reminds me of “how much could a banana cost, ten dollars?”
When I worked sales for a mobile network, they had someone train us on how to sell phone insurance and I nearly turned it into a fight over this. His whole recommended tactic was to emphasize how "it's only £10 a month! That's like 30p a day! What can you even buy with 30p a day?", and I spent like 5 mins arguing with him over how you could (in 2017) buy two tins of value brand beans for 30p depending on where you went, that £2.50 a week could buy you those beans, plus a cheap loaf of bread and bag of potatoes.
He was not impressed. His rebuttal was basically "but why would you want to buy those things" and told me everything I needed to know about his life experience and sales attitude.
Yes. 16$ can put half a tank of gas in my car so can get to work for the next several days. Or it can feed me for a couple weeks. Or it may NEED to go to rent or heating or phone bill. And don't get me started on asshats thinking a phone isn't needed to get out keep s freaking job nowadays.
So out of touch.
@@katharineeavan9705 His privilege was showing smh
The original statement radiates so much privilege. There's been times where I literally didnt have a single dollar to my name.
Brazilian here: minimum wage in Brazil is around 1200 reais per MONTH. So yeah, 800 reais is 80% of a minimum wage earner's month of salary. I live in a fairly comfortable situation and have access to tons of libraries and book shops and yet, I cannot afford to buy a book not on Amazon/Kindle. It's very expensive.
Also, please remember we're not all poor, just different realities.
I can’t believe the author didn’t name the Gutenberg project. It’s an online compilation of books that are so old they have lost copy-write protection. Its just a nice resource to know about. Especially if you like trivial book related tidbits like this. 🤷🏻♀️
My guess is she likely didn’t mention it because her passion isn’t providing people with resources, it’s creating a half assed “resource” list to save face for her classist rant. I think that motivation is proven in her “problematic reader” list because that list had to take many many hours to make in comparison to her lackluster resource list. The Gutenberg project is a fantastic resource, thanks for mentioning it.
I love this site, it's such a great resource for old as dirt content. But yeah, no indie books there lol 😂
@@hatchet1013 well, open source so if there’s someone willing to translate into a written file, it can appear there.
Yep. My dad was talking about how he loves reading ebooks and I reminded him of Gutenberg. He's really interested in old first-person historical accounts from the 1800s, so Gutenberg is perfect for him.
Hell yeah!! I used it during my studies, especially for classical reads. That's such a great site! Saved me from bringing back heavy collections from my uni library, also I could add the compulsory readings to my kindle.
I like how she rec subscriptions that are still roughly equal to the price of buying her physical book lol
Even in first world countries books are still hella pricy. In Canada, books are generally double the price from that of the US.
EDIT: I'm reminded of Neil Gaiman's thoughts on piracy and how much the effects (positive) actually changed his mind:
"“When the web started, I used to get really grumpy with people because they put my poems up. They put my stories up. They put my stuff up on the web. I had this belief, which was completely erroneous, that if people put your stuff up on the web and you didn’t tell them to take it down, you would lose your copyright, which actually, is simply not true.
And I also got very grumpy because I felt like they were pirating my stuff, that it was bad. And then I started to notice that two things seemed much more significant. One of which was… places where I was being pirated, particularly Russia where people were translating my stuff into Russian and spreading around into the world, I was selling more and more books. People were discovering me through being pirated. Then they were going out and buying the real books, and when a new book would come out in Russia, it would sell more and more copies. I thought this was fascinating, and I tried a few experiments. Some of them are quite hard, you know, persuading my publisher for example to take one of my books and put it out for free. We took “American Gods,” a book that was still selling and selling very well, and for a month they put it up completely free on their website. You could read it and you could download it. What happened was sales of my books, through independent bookstores, because that’s all we were measuring it through, went up the following month three hundred percent.
I started to realize that actually, you’re not losing books. You’re not losing sales by having stuff out there. When I give a big talk now on these kinds of subjects and people say, “Well, what about the sales that I’m losing through having stuff copied, through having stuff floating out there?” I started asking audiences to just raise their hands for one question. Which is, I’d say, “Okay, do you have a favorite author?” They’d say, “Yes.” and I’d say, “Good. What I want is for everybody who discovered their favorite author by being lent a book, put up your hands.” And then, “Anybody who discovered your favorite author by walking into a bookstore and buying a book raise your hands.” And it’s probably about five, ten percent of the people who actually discovered an author who’s their favorite author, who is the person who they buy everything of. They buy the hardbacks and they treasure the fact that they got this author. Very few of them bought the book. They were lent it. They were given it. They did not pay for it, and that’s how they found their favorite author. And I thought, “You know, that’s really all this is. It’s people lending books. And you can’t look on that as a loss of sale. It’s not a lost sale, nobody who would have bought your book is not buying it because they can find it for free.
”What you’re actually doing is advertising. You’re reaching more people, you’re raising awareness. Understanding that gave me ha whole new idea of the shape of copyright and of what the web was doing. Because the biggest thing the web is doing is allowing people to hear things. Allowing people to read things. Allowing people to see things that they would never have otherwise seen. And I think, basically, that’s an incredibly good thing."
What a lovely perspective
That's was an amazing perspective, thanks for sharing! ❤
That's a very nuanced viewpoint from a creative. I completely understand the reasons why authors and artists are protective of their work, so it takes an amount of open-mindedness to even consider the positives of piracy.
Bro gets it
Absolutely love Neil. He's one of the most down to earth and amiable authors I've ever seen. He's so successful as an author, with none of the pretension you tend to expect from a famous person. ❤
Oh my god the "Problematic Readers List" just gave me "Big Name Sinners" flashbacks and I wasn't even IN that fandom mess.
THIS WAS MY FIRST THOUGHT AS WELL, god we're all tainted by msscribe's legacy aren't we
same but it isnt even fun this time
wATCHFUL eNtiTy
oh I NEED context on this one
@@dropslemon The MsScribe saga, as detailed by such sources as eldenadoubleca5t and StrangeAeons. Basically it was someone going through Harry Potter fanfic in the pre-ao3 days and declaring who was a "big name sinner" aka someone who wrote "problematic" content. I think frenemy of the channel Cassie Claire was a BNS. Of course "calling out" people as big name sinners backfired because it just became a point of pride/niche meme. Like I said, I wasn't involved, but I love long form listenable content (adhd yo) and that particular saga is incredibly long. The Big Name Sinners thing is literally a fraction of what all went down.
also its hysterical but not shocking that a disabled person didnt even consider disbaled readers in the global south where its even more expensive to read as it is in usa
What she said about being a 'contributing member of book-whatever' came off incredibly ableist to me. No-one is required to contribute to any community or group that they're apart of and just because other disabled people (like the author herself) can contribute doesn't mean that people (even with the same disability at the same "level") can.
She has a lot of internalised ableism that she needs to work on unpacking, and as some other people in the comments have said, it seems to have come from her experiences as a veteran and how ableist military groups can be. I hope she unpacks this crap and becomes better, but as it is right now, she isn't someone who us disabled people can trust.
@@dawnshade4939 couldnt of said it better she the kind of example i give to when i'd describe interalized abelism.
as a brazilian reader and fan of booktube in general, i thank you so much for putting the prices in perspective. last time i tried to complain about brazilian prices to a north american, she just converted it online to canadian dollars and said “see, ours is still more expansive”. perspective goes a long way and i thank you so much for doing this. love your channel btw
also i’m a translator and if ever someone doesn’t have the means to buy my work, i say go for it however you can. knowledge is power.
right?! new books are unbelievable expensive specially nowadays! thank god for scribd ♥
back in the day on neopets the brazilian neopets community was able to make a ton of money by buying neocash cards via their own currency and selling them to ppl not from brazil in their currency and thats what taught me about currency conversions. They'd make a ton of money through this and there was some dude who was able to get through college via neopets neocash cards
neopets staff eventually made it so there was a universal card price so this couldnt be done to the same extent it was anymore (it can still pull a profit but not a huge one) but most of us still buy from brazilian sellers because they've always been helpful and good to us
I can understand a slight increase since there would be (presumably) translation costs and shipping costs as well as additional printing costs for different translations. But at the degree it is? Absolutely insane. I don't even know what to say about it, honestly. I hope someone can find a solution soon, though. I hate that readership anywhere is essentially being forced out (or forced to piracy) due to greed. :(
Lou Reading Things did a great job talking about the issue of how capitalism screws authors over. She basically says that a kid in Brazil downloading a book does not hurt authors like Harper Collins can.
I love her! I watched her video and she made excellent points.
Facts. Publishers have the capital and the clout to drop an artist like a hot potato.
Yeah, because a kid here in Brazil probably wouldn't be able to buy books, they are expensive, I was one of the children with more acess to resources where I live and I couldn't afford books, I only started to really read when I got the internet and found manga and books for free or pirated, and even though Amazon sucks, kindle unlimited is good for me , I wouldn't read as much without it.
The US-centrism of this issue and the book community at large is so frustrating. Let alone the access-issues within the US.
BOTM ships to Canada now, but it’s not affordable. At like $30/box it’s definitely a luxury.
I didn’t want to make a separate comment saying it, because I didn’t want to derail the conversation, but since you mentioned access issues within the U.S., I wanted to say that she doesn’t even have to look to the global south to understand disparities in wealth!
I grew up in a low income household in the Texan country. Our local library had fuck all of nothing & going to a bookstore (the nearest one was an hour away) not only required money for the book, but to know someone who could afford to get their license, has access to a car, has money for gas, etc.
Like even if she doesn’t want to look past the U.S., she’s not even capable of looking at the U.S.!
As an Aussie I've always been able to understand the stupid as US-centrism of book communities even since I was a young kid looking at the price of a ebook on amazon compared to the same book on my kindle (would sometimes be triple the price). US-centrism affects so many groups to the point where a book which came out over six months ago in the US hasn't even gotten down to us in Australia. (Also goes the other way with 'new releases' in the US which came out a year or two ago in Australia which sometimes really just shows how little confidence they have in non US-based authors.)
As a Canadian I was so disappointed to see that the BOTM is basically just the price of the book at the store. Like if I want to pay $30 for a hardcover I can just walk to the Coles at the mall, why would I waste that money on something that's advertised as "cheaper" when it isn't. Especially when rent for a 1 bedroom apartment here is $1200+ a month and i have groceries to buy.
YES. BOTM is not really a discounted book service in Canada. Its so disappointing.
The US-centracism of the internet at large is frustrating ngl.
What authors should be angry at is that people having to pay so much- that’s lost sales. If they were cheaper in the global south, and everyone could have access, there would be SO many more actual sales…
Thisssss! Capitalism is so ass-backwards to me: if you lower prices, more people are likely to buy, easily off-setting any theoretical losses of charging a lesser amount for the product. I THOUGHT that was how capitalism worked back when I was first taught the concept in middle school. What they didn't teach me was how capitalism actually functions in practice: anything is permitted as long as you increase profits, with one exception, that you apparently can never lower prices. Because of 'inflation' or whatever
I'm a Library studies major and we went over this topic in class just last semester. Our teacher explained that book piracy doesn't actually hurt the author/seller in the long run. Not in a way that would be devastating. Paradoxically, it can sometimes even help with sales (for example when a person likes the pirated book and buys other works from the author etc.)
I'm studying in the same field and butted heads with a teacher who was all aghast at my stance on book piracy. But like, I live in a country where access to books is not that difficult - most of the world doesn't. I don't get why I wouldn't view things from the perspectives of the people that don't live like I do.
Opposition to book piracy also assumes that all books still get printed, which of course they don't.
It always strikes me as something like the people who whine about knock-off designer products. I might buy a fake Gucci bag on holiday in Italy, but I was never gonna buy a real Gucci bag in the first place. They never lost me as a customer because I was never going to be one.
Yeah as an author I call bullshit stealing is fucking stealing, you fuck us over
@@wolftitanreading5308 I'm not saying that pirating is necessarily morally right but as Rachel said, the majority of the people who pirate wouldn't buy the book anyway if it wasn't for free. You're not losing a buyer. In this world, books are a privilege and we as authors should rethink where we stand in the power balance. If you disagree with that, I have nothing else to say to you.
One issue that impacts indie authors that you might not have covered in class: Amazon recently blocked a bunch of books from big name indie authors because the books were "freely available on the Internet," which is against Amazon's terms, especially if the book is enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. In this way, piracy IS a problem for indie authors, but I would lay the blame with Amazon for punishing authors for their books getting pirated.
@@Ericaaaaaaaaaa I haven't heard about that and I would agree that Amazon is to blame. It makes me even sadder that this is happening since big corporations who are setting the prices and rules are a major part of why book pirating is even a thing.
When I have conversations about wealth disparity I always say, "There's a huge difference between having 19 dollars in the bank and 20 dollars in the bank" and when people blink at me and say "the difference is just a dollar" I kno that they have no idea what it's like to be poor.
Also way for Shay Miranda to not factor in that not everywhere speaks primarily English. Translators and reformatters have to be paid as well. Just speaking as someone who reads a lot of manga, there's often as many people working on an English (American) localization as there were working on the original Japanese release.
And even then, sometimes the translated scanlations have a better translation than the office version
manga reader here, i can attest to that. i think manga is even *more* expensive than regular books sometimes, even in the us. $15+ for a manga im gonna read in 25 mins is absurd
@@ladylark10884 Where I live, manga is around $35NZD for a softcover. I have two manga books [a Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure hardcover that was around $95 and a Chainsaw Man softcover that was $35] and it makes collecting physical manga + supporting the authors so much harder :(
@@dio1803 right 😭 and i feel so bad too because mangaka work like 20 hours a day- mangaka dying relatively young is relatively common due to how much they excert themselves. it's a common practice for mangakas to give their notes and storyboards to others *in case they die* so their story can still be finished 💀
Many mangas are not even translated to many languages! I love Akatsuki no Yona to death but it literally *just* started being published in my language. As in, the second volume *just* launched.
The anime was finished in like, 2014 or something. How am I even suppose to read it if not by piracy?
People like shay are why the phrase "Check your privilege" was invented
I realize I’m very late to the conversation but also- foster kids often do not have access to the books they want to read due to money and/or foster parents who don’t support diverse books. Pirating books and reading them on their phones is a way these kids can find reflections of themselves in books.
Just want to clarify that openlibrary is not piracy, it is a nonprofit organization protected by Fair Use butttt
The whole point she made is so absolutely unhinged, egotistical and selfish. She doesn’t care how poor someone is as long as they don’t pirate her book? Honey nobody is interested in pirating your book 🤣
I was really hoping I could see if she added me to the problematic reader list so I could sue her for libel
Eh, Open Library *says* they are covered by fair use, but they're operating in a grey area at best. They scan physical copies of the books they own and make them available. During the pandemic, they made it so people could download unlimited copies of these digitized books. Sounds like a copyright violation to me. That's not how real libraries work. If I buy a copy of a book, I can't scan it and send the entire text to thousands of people.
@@Ericaaaaaaaaaa as of this moment, however, they are legally operating with a 503 nonprofit license, which would be taken away if they were not abiding by the law. There is not, as of yet, any court judgment stating they cannot do what they are doing and have been doing for years. So it is absolutely okay and legal for people to use OpenLibrary. They also operate with full support of the Authors Guild, the only ones salty about it are publishers, who are literally the enemy here.
@@Ericaaaaaaaaaa also, libraries do frequently have one copy which has been allowed to be downloaded an unlimited amount of times at once rather than one person at a time. This happens with their book club selections and sometimes other collections. It was more common during the pandemic because libraries were shut down. Even reading hours were filmed and put on TH-cam, allowing millions to access a digital stream of a book at one time. OL may push the bounds of open access and CDL, but they are far from the only legal library that does so.
Miranda's privilege is showing even before the pricing issue because implying a poor person should spend any amount of money on something as extraneous as a subscription to anything every month, is a very rich idea. Regardless of the price. Imagine struggling to pay rent and afford food, hallmarks of poverty, yet tossing almost 20 bucks away every month on a book box.... it don't add up!
Seriously, if you're 'splurging' on a subscription service it's likely food/grocery delivery, medication delivery, or, y'know, the goddamn Internet.
right. those are the necessary ones or at least the first i'd consider if finances were bad def not netflix or something otherwise entertainment related lol @@Listening_Books12345
Yeah like obviously poor people still deserve nice things, but they shouldn't have to throw away $20 a month for a subscription for things they could find for free because you'd rather blame poor people than capitalism for the shit treatment of authors
fact of the matter (that a lot of anti-piracy people like shay fail to acknowledge) is that, no one is pirating these books for fun. no one is happy giggling at the prospect of that. literally every single person you ask would rather be able to BUY those books physically, to have their own shelves and their own collection. every single individual would LOVE for that. that is still very much the basis, the first step of a reader. following closely is your library. it's then borrowing from friends, people you know or exchanging books online with people on facebook, etc. the very last thing people do, the last thing people discover, is piracy. everyone keeps going from this point of malicious, harmful intent, when it's purely people wanting to read what they want to read to continue LOVING to read. they will STILL buy your book if they read it and love it. they will save up, they will wait for it to come to their bookstore or even order it on amazon. one shouldn't make people feel like shit because they are poor, or then claim that poor people don't deserve nice things. this same person who is here saying she doesn't need poor people like me in the community, would be the same person to tell me i'm wasteful with my money if i bought a book instead of paying for rent.
I ended up having to pirate “I’m glad my mom died” because I bought it pre release, but it didn’t take my money out til it shipped. By that time, I didn’t have money, so I lost the order. On top of that, it was sold out anyway and every library copy had a list a mile long. When I have money again I’m gonna buy it but I still wanted to read it right then. It’s really that damn simple and she really got a whole chip on her shoulder over it.
Nailed it! This comment should be pinned.
I pirate books with glee all the time, excited to have new books to read, and at no cost!
You feel you are entitled to the intellectual and emmontional work of the author for no compensation in return? Most authors write for the love of their craft, but it is also their job and how they pay for things they need. Writing is not a hobby, it is a job that takes a lot of work, years of labor goes into the books that you want for free. Expecting this labor for free devalues the authors work and the book they produced, and fosters an enviroment where artists of all kinds are not valued for their contribution but expected to produce for free. It has happened a lot in the visual art world, people steal digital art and act offended when they are called out on it, and is sadly spreading to writing.
@@Sammathnar i feel like you haven't watched the video at all, because everything you say is countered and explained. no one is entitled to free labour but also everyone should have access to books. there IS still a lot of respect for the author's work: the main issues are 1) accessability and 2) money. both points which are covered in the video. blaming author's compensation on individuals pirating is akin to blaming climate change on those using plastic straws when the problems are systemic and on a much bigger scale. you can use the exact same logic to devalue libraries or spotify as devaluing artists' work because the fee authors get from that is less than minimal. so should people no longer borrow books or stream music? when i borrow a book from friends around me - which ends up giving the author no money as well - by your logic that is also wrong and immoral. you're coming from a place of purposeful misunderstanding, and this is simply a waste of my time.
The fact that her list of readers absolutely took at least a few hours to compile, while her half assed list of “resources” was most likely off the top of her head or aided by a five minute google search shows how she feels and where her priorities are. It is disgusting and shameful that she’s doubled down instead of listening to those willing to educate her and simply apologizing.
“Productive member of the book community” ??? WTF does that even mean?
It screams “you worth is in how much you can spend” vibes..
Nice lil capitalism cogs I guess
Germany isnt even the global south yet for many years e-books cost the same as bound physical books (usually between 10 and 25 € back then). It only changed iirc bc Amazon put pressure on. 10-25 € would be a good-sized takeout order for one person, so its not a monthly salary, but for teen me and I guess for many poor adults that was still a tall order if you want to read more than one book/month. Cant imagine how much worse it must be in countries that have lower average income and get trampled upon more.
As an author, I’d just be ecstatic to have people who want to read my stories. As long as they’re leaving reviews (when they can!) I don’t see any problem with it. And I’ll admit it, I’ve pirated books for college when not required to get special ebooks. I don’t have $100 for a textbook for every class and I think academics should be more accessible.
Textbooks are soo expensive. I’ve raided trash cans for textbooks after semesters.
@@simplesimply3753 nahhh who throws away textbooks like that 😭
As a very poor Brazilian (prolific)reader, this reminds me of a research i read once that said that people that pirate books buy more books overall than those who dont, cause they often buy a copy of the books they already read to be able to re-read them once they have the means to.
This matches my experience so well, cause i keep a spreadsheet for the books i pirate so that i can build my own library when i get the means to.
Im very fortunate to be able to read bc my family had given me a bunch of books but this only goes so far, i dont have any books outside of my little bubble and that hinders my knowledge of the world so much even if i speak another language, what's the use if i can't read books in English then?
This is me too and I can’t afford to just buy books that I may not even like. I pirate or go to the library. When I really like a book I’ll buy it.
I've done this. I read a book in 2017 and loved it so much I went back to the library to borrow about three times, then finally was able to buy it. Then I had the rest of the series gifted to me by a friend. I have a section on Goodreads that's called something like "To Buy" or something like that.
Just out of curiosity, how are the access to libraries where you live? I'm very fortunate to live in a country where there are libraries everywhere and they provide a wide range of books, new and old, for free and also movies and other resources as well. But I understand that's not the case for everyone.
@@sebastian-lb7ko i live in the capital and there's a few more Libraries than most places, but 90% of the books there are in Portuguese, and they rarely get any new donations. the collections are cool but very old. im lucky that Brazilian literature is vast, but if for example i wanna read something from any other place or language, their not gonna have it. the Libraries here are also very under funded too.
its also a matter of access too like, the hours they are open is the hours most people are working and can't visit them, they're open from 10am to 5pm. sometimes on Saturdays but a lot of people also works on Saturdays. its hard to go when you're a functioning adult 😓
@@Arinrine I see. That really sucks. I used to think that access to libraries would be a obvious solution to this but it’s definitely a more complex issue with regard to stuff like opening hours, fundings, which books the library provides and in what language/s and etc.
her take is terrible even WITHOUT taking into account how ignorant and wildly US-centric it is. i’m a broke college student in NYC and $16 is just barely under what i’m willing to spend on a week’s worth of groceries (~$25). it’s just… so wildly out of touch.
As a brazilian I laugh when someone suggests "just buy the ebook" bc most of the traditionally published books are expensive even in ebook form.
Last Christmas me and my friends (all Brazilian) decided to make a secret santa of only ebooks with the maximum price of 15 reais and some of us struggled just to make a wishlist. I myself while searching found countless books that the ebooks were MORE EXPENSIVE than the physical copies. The biggest exception to this were national indie books.
Publicly shaming people who can’t afford books is a new low
This whole situation speaks to why I hate the whole “America is a third world country with a Gucci belt on” because it leads to a lack of perspective of what life in the global south looks like. though I grew up poor, people all over the world don’t have access to free lunch or an extensive public library system like I did. Even people in the rural areas of my state don’t have access to that. But these people cannot see beyond themselves, and think that poverty in their world is the same as poverty everywhere. you may have a multitude of avenues to obtain cheap/free books (in a language you understand, might I add) but many don’t.
I'm Brazilian, and yeah, books are RIDICULOUSLY expensive here. Sometimes I go to the bookstore and I just laugh at the absurdity. And Lou was spot on about the other problem, which is what we have available here. The big publishers control what gets translated, as in, bestsellers. Tiktok books. If you don't speak English (which most people don't), that's what you get. We get no midlist books translated, and on the rare occasions that we do, the delay on release is real. And when you try to buy books in English the price tag is in dollars or euro, so... yeah. Also, websites like Book Depository don't deliver to Brazil anymore. You can see the issue lol
É realmente triste, né? Até o kindle unlimited é um absurdo de caro.
Mas enfim, é isso. Ler é caro no Brasil.
right?! new books are unbelievable expensive specially nowadays! Also, yeah - we miss book depository. thank god for scribd ♥
@@kkikisa how much is kindle unlimitied in brazil?
Edit: i looked it up. Its 19.90 Brl, which is the equivalent of about $3.80 USD...
Tem literalmente uma única livraria na cidade em que eu moro e nenhuma biblioteca pública, só duas de universidade privada... E olha que eu moro numa cidade bem grandinha do RS!!! Ler qualquer coisa que não seja livro clássico ou do tiktok é quase impossível! Eu tenho sorte que as vezes tem livro contemporâneo Br nessa livraria, mas ainda assim é caro pra dedéu.
@@persephone3892 Amazon BR has some periodical sales in which KU costs R$ 1,99 for 3 months. The sale sometimes is exclusive to new subscriptions, but whenever is for all, I sign it. I just follow some @ at twitter that tells us when the sale is on.
I live and I am from a “third world country”. Shipping services don’t work and if they do they cost more than half of my salary. There’s literally ONE public library full of gov books and nothing else. People like me depend a lot on piracy because we want to read and even if we want to pay for them, 90% of resources online cannot be accessed because of regional issues, I buy e-books when I can but my access to books would be cut down to almost 0 if it wasn’t for those pages. I am a small book content creator and a lot of pages have saved my life sharing my love for books. I would love to spend my money on physical and digital copies but I just can’t. People who tweet things like that don’t even take into account how much it pains us to not have access to things like books, book mail, and such.
Edit: MIND you the average renta-per-capita is 1.50 US $ so no, most people cannot afford even the digital version.
An answer you are entitled to a book you can buy a book, but you are not entitled to steal books from writers who work their asses off making those. You are not entitled to being handed over someone else hard work. You are entitled to read and get books but not from someone's expense. We all have trouble
In my country, the only "public" libraríes are the ones un the universities, and you can only accesos them if you're a student. They hold only academic books.
@@fuunosenshi then start setting up and try and get a public library made
@@wolftitanreading5308 with what funding? The government Is giving less than 4% to education, and basic programs like daycare and cáncer medicine funding are being cancelled, so they won't give a shit. There was a program with Subway stations having books you could borrow with a small fee; they cancelled it because they had almost no users. There's people who still have these boxes on a public street to "take a book, leave a book", but people only put the books they don't like, because they're so expensive. Those of us who read do it digitally. And out "beloved" presidente wants to put taxes on EVERY digital content so that's about to get More expensive and unafordable for us.
@@wolftitanreading5308 as a writer and a poor reader, this is more nuanced than a broad “if you do piracy you are bad” and “if you want more books just make a library”. You sound like you’re not being receptive to the people talking about their experiences and just inserting your opinion.
I love thriftbooks, but the shipping is only cheap if you are in the US. I live in Canada, and the shipping cost will double or triple my order total.
Adding it to a "cheap book resource" list is misleading even if I like the resource. And especially not if you are shipping farther than Canada.
Personally, the 'just use your library card' argument against piracy annoys me the most. It assumes your library has robust services. Libraries are great, I want them to have all the funding and support, but they aren't monolithic in what they are able to provide the community.
Great points as usual.
“Just use your library card” is so funny because I’m even giving my library card info to my U.S. friends who live in rural texas and don’t have a library. That’s not an option for so many both inside and outside the US. If we have that privilege (I do) and we are concerned about piracy then we should share our library account info so others can benefit.
Thrift Books is a ripoff even if you're in the US. They deliberately lie about a book's condition. If you purchase a 'like new' book, it could be a decade-old library book with ripped pages and stains all over. Not worth it, and their prices are higher for garbage than what Books Depository charges for new
yes thank you! I've used second hand book selling pages a lot, and when you pay more for shipping than you pay for the books themselves, you know that you can't keep on doing it. i agree on the library thing as well. most of the libraries where i live, usually do not have a big variation of titles
I'm always jealous when youtubers mention this cool new release or fantasy, horror whatever they got from the library
In my country we don't get New releases or a variety of genres, maybe if it's a library that works with donations
the idea that people can "just use a library card" is also not viable for everyone because where i live (in the US but fairly rural) i have to pay a subscription fee monthly (money i do not have as i live in poverty) and provide ID papers (that i do not have) in order to apply for one
I feel like so many of these authors who are mad at poor folk for pirating think that doing something like this will get them to buy the books somehow and like. When people pirate things, very often the alternative is not paying for the thing, but not getting it at all. This goes for movies and video games too, not just books. Getting mad and making lists of people you think suck isn't going to do anything but make you look bad and it certainly doesn't help anyone.
Not only is there a US centrism for her, there also seems to be a New York/big city centrism too. My county’s library system is pretty wonderful, but I live in my state’s capital. The library system that my friend is a part of on the other side of the state doesn’t have nearly the level of infrastructure that it needs and they don’t have many online/ebook resources. When you live in a big city, it can be easy to forget that even within your own country there are huge discrepancies in quality and availability.
Also, this lady had a *whole lot* of internalized ableism to work through! Yikes! I also have POTS, I don’t do anything *despite* my disability. I am disabled. Also, fucking “productive reader”??? Wtf???! The productivity mindset is one of the first, but also hardest things that you need to unlearn when confronting ableism.
I'm lucky that a friend is sharing their library access with me but not everyone can do this 😔
I live in Chile, and for me buying books online from* overseas paying amazon price together with shipping and import tax through a proxy is cheaper than buying them from my country lmao. Even still I have to save for months to buy ONE book, and since I have to make every penny count, I can't risk buying a book I don't know is in my taste / haven't read already. We don't even have that many libraries either 🤷♂️
The struggle de tener que ahorrar por meses para comprar un libro en inglés, para que después lo traduzcan como 5 años después cuando se hacen famosos skjdashkj
Es que el IVA wn, encarece caleta
Como ODIO cuando me dicen "Just go to your library" pendejo las bibliotecas de aquí no tienen NADA. Pero les cuesta tanto ponerse en los zapatos de alguien más.
@@miyuu1317 Como que no, simplemente lee los 7 mismos Coehlos e Isabel Allendes 😔
I just wanted to say I live in the US and have a job and $16/month for a book subscription is NOT affordable 😂
Maybe it's just me, but if someone wanted to pirate my books I would just give it to them for free. Like I wanna make a living writing bc I need money to survive, but outside of that it doesn't matter to me. Like part of me wishes I can just hand out physical copies.
Piracy also is more so towards the company than anything else. If she wanted to share free resources then she should have just shared them instead of getting on this soapbox.
Edit: Hearing those prices. Part of me wants to just self-publish, and charge people $1 for my book. Almost $170 for 12 books is fucking insane and I know for a fact those authors are seeing a fraction of the cost and most of it is for the publisher's profit.
Your comment reminds me of the academic who basically said "hey. Do you want one of my papers but it's behind a pay wall? Email me and I'll send it to you for free. I don't get any money from the publisher anyways" Piracy hurts the publisher more than it hurts the individual generally.
@@43v3rh1d3n Yep. Books of any kind should always be free, and accessible. Usually people who pirate was never gonna purchase anyway, so like why not just ask me for a PDF or some shit lol.
I can get a full collection of books or fifty book sets for 200$ so there's either some first edition stunt going on or she's scamming hard.
Same goes for me, I have dreams to become a writer someday, but just staring down these stupid ass prices and inaccessibility of books for the large majority of readers has me wanting to completely vow to never join up with a big publisher.
@@dawnshade4939 I wish I had time for self-publishing but I gotta work to be able to afford a living for my daughter.
Shipping is so expensive. I can't even use bookdepository anymore because our government now demands import fees that started this year. Bookdepository Book parcels were free since I was gifted / sent books in 2012. :/
IMPORT FEES! My family in the US is visiting and I'm making them mule so much stuff for me. Dad asked me why and I had to very calmly explain that I wasn't paying an extra 35-50usd for shipping and then an additional unknown cost in tarrifs and fees unless I have to and am saving for it for MONTHS.
@@MerryMerino 🫠🫠💕
To put in context the price of books in Brazil - she said all those books would cost 846,80 BRL and the minimum monthly wage here is 1.302,00 BRL. A person in an average job earns 2 or 3 minimum monthly wages, so to buy all those books, you would need to spend almost 1/3 of your MONTHLY INCOME!
The average also really depends on where you are, some places are more prosperous and have higher wages, from all the more populous states Rio is the worse for wages and unemployment, the northern and northeast parts have even more inequality, so the average doesn't actually ecplain the whole picture.
Today I learned to now call it "the global south."
Good to know cuz I grew up in some of those countries. The experience was rough on me, but the citizens of those nations still deserve respect, dignity & understanding from us. (Especially since so many of them were screwed over by the US even in recent decades.)
Same here, regarding the term The Global South! My only excuse for not knowing is my age. Hadn't heard it before today. Thank you Rachel for your wonderful talks - they're always enlightening
Such a good conversation, in Canada a new hardcover can go for $40-$45 easily. Sometimes, big releases are marked down, but for other books, it's not uncommon to see these prices.
@@burnt-croissants some hardcovers can be that cheap usually when they are clearing out stock on older and less popular works. All new releases unless specifically on sale is in the 40 range. And I’m also in the TO area.
@@burnt-croissants it’s also worth noting that at least in my town, the used bookstore went out of business. So, it’s only chapters/indigo, Amazon and the thrift store - two of which are run by Christian charities, so, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were ‘editing’ their stock.
@@blueconlan9180 I find books that are classified as YA are in the $20-$25 range for hardbacks. But if it's anything else it's $39+. :( I live in Saskatchewan.
I was honestly shocked by kid's book prices in Canada. Over here (UK) you often got in store deals on children's books for like 3 books for £5 on promotion or something, and they often weren't super popular books but there are some solid ones that often got put in those deals. Meanwhile, when I was in in Canada and wanted to buy books to read to my kid via skype, I struggled to find a single book for less than 10-15$. That's a big mark up even when you don't take into account just how common those 3 books for £5 were.
@@burnt-croissants I'm so jealous. I want to go to Glad Day so bad. It's been so long since I"ve been to the city. And yes, there's definitely a conversation to be had about accessibility across North America. I remember going to the Indigo close to my Grandmother's small town and it was all mass paperbacks and big authors like James Patterson, Lee Child etc. So, even in the biggest bookstore in Canada, there are variations.
I also wanted to shed light about the library situation. In the town I grew up in, there's none. Not even a private one. When I moved to a bigger city for college, there were libraries, most of which weren't public or free, and they only stocked super old books or textbooks. We don't have an abundance of public libraries I the global south that stock new books.
SAME
I remember one time a popular game dev on youtube (Pirate Software, dev of Heartbound) spoke about how the best way to counter piracy is to alter prices based on region. They have some of the best sales in Brazil because they deliberately lowered the price there, as they know different things are considered expensive in different places. She should look at the wages comparison from Brazil to the US. Authors should take this practice up too, if they're able.
wish most devs were empathic (or inteligent) like that
Book piracy is also a big deal when it comes to purchasing books for collegbe courses. Some of these books you'll use for six months and then never open again. It's why people decide to pirate textbooks instead of buying them because they are ridiculously expensive. Depending on your course load, you may have to drop $80-$300 on a book per class. If you have the bare minimum hours of a full time student (12 credits, 4 classes) thats $320-$1200 a semester. Don't even get me started on ebooks....
Speaking of, Sci Hub can be helpful.
One way you can support a lot of indie authors/artists/etc is simply talking about them as well! If you can't afford to purchase their work legally, boosting them on social media and recommending their work to friends can be hugely helpful for broadening their audience to reach people who may actually be able to buy their works.
Though even then, not everyone has access to free/cheap internet or devices that use social media, and there are also plenty of places that block most major social media. Definitely not a perfect solution, but as a poor person who does have internet and device access at the moment, it's one of my favorite ways to support creatives that I love!
I started reading books from wattpad, that was my gateway (I was & still am poor), then pirated some books, but once I got into books, I started buying them.
I think we can all agree that artists should be monetarily supported whenever possible, in order to support the continued production of art. I think the question to consider is: Do we find it acceptable that art and access to it is permissible to be a luxury and not a basic human right? Housing and access to Food and Clean Water and Healthcare and Education are all things that need to be made more accessible, both locally and globally; but as we consider the “basic necessities of life” list, let’s not overlook that art is a component of education and of cerebral health. Most Artists need to work full time jobs (or the equivalent) as the “side gig” to be able to create their art - in a capitalist society this is the norm and has been the norm historically. Is it fair to suggest that a fan/consumer of art is to blame for the artist not earning a livable income from their art…or is that whole notion what the “1%” want us to think? Are we being distracted from attacking the true cause by the promotion of this inner debate? I suggest maybe there is No “grey area,” that Readers (of all levels in society) are not and never have been The Problem.
It's a shame most of the money goes to the publishing company.
I live in Eastern Europe and yeah books arrive late here too, months if not years, if they ever actually get here. English releases right now cost 1/20 of my monthly salary, the price doubled over the last three years, and I definitely cannot buy more than one or two if I am lucky. I love the library argument as if libraries worldwide are as stocked with new books as they are in America -- they are not, libraries here barely have any books let alone modern literature, and there are no free resources or monthly subscriptions available either.
As a Eastern European myself I can say this comment is absolutely true. Reading is something that cost us a lot of money, as the only option is to buy new books. Sometimes directly from abroad. Seconds head option or library is definitely do not hold nearly the same level of options as in US or something not available at all
Exactly! The library argument from USians pisses me off so much!
Im Brazilian and outside of the fact my libraries are not stocked with new releases, much less anything that isn't brazilian or a classic, I cannot borrow the books, I need to read them in the library at working hours, which are from 9 am to 5 pm.
im also from brazil and was exhasperated with that third world country tweet. books are way more expensive in nearly all ways (i make minimum wage yay) but even willing to pay the access is super limited to a lot of stuff. it blows my mind to think of the fraction of books i would be able to read if i wasnt bilingual or really resourceful on the internet
girl wants people to straight up not read. in this century. revolutionary
Also, if you're queer is nearly impossible, it's getting a little better but still most books are not translated, most books are not published here and even when they are sometimes is just on ebook format, also, hard to find libraries and book stores.
Yikes, that list is... gross, to say the least. As an indie author myself with lots of indie author friends, we're mostly just terrified of having our Amazon accounts obliterated. We're all in KU (it's great for little authors trying to find new readers!), and once Amazon's bots get a whiff that your book's been pirated... they punish us, the authors. And then getting your account BACK and functional is a nightmare I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I wish Amazon would get their sticks out of their asses. That said, most of my friends and I would definitely prefer to give you books for free so hit up an author sometimes to see if they can get one to you for free. I'm not speaking for trad pub authors, here, only indies because we really do not want our accounts closed.
as someone who has "sailed the seven seas" before, i am so incredibly sorry amazon does that to you and i was totally unaware of this problem!! thankfully i've never "yar har har'd" any books from indie authors but if i ever do in the future i'll definitely be careful and take your advice (and also try and support you guys financially while i'm at it, if i'm able)!! thank you so much for spreading awareness about this issue affecting you guys
@@kathleenh2782 it's okay. It's Amazon's fault, not yours. They're so difficult to work with. Thank you for being so kind though!
I saw the spreadsheet of "resources" before she took it down and nearly everything she listed having a "international??" note made me laugh. How are you giving out resources but can't even be bothered to check if their available to the people you're shitting on or not?
$10 in South Africa is a bit over R180, that's a lot of money that can go towards other needs.
Thanks for this video 💜
And paperback books are around R300 lately 😕 it's ridiculous
@@bethanyc5712 Ikr! So ridiculous
I live in a third world country and I only make about USD 100 a month. I can't afford books! I have cats to feed!
I used to pirate books because I could not afford to purchase them. I also wasn’t near a library so it was the only way I could read and enjoy books. But once I had some income, know what I did? I’d end up purchasing a lot of those books (sometimes in multiple forms) because I loved them and wanted to support the authors. I’m generally of the opinion that people aren’t pirating books because they want to.
It’s the same as with streaming providers. Once people get priced out of culturally relevant activities, they find alternative means to gain access. It’s not malicious, it’s desperate.
as a brazilian person i would like to add that minimum wage here is R$ 1.380,60 currently, 1 dollar it's 5.99 BRL so the minimum wage here it's something around 230 dollars, thinking about rent, food, clothes, transport, if you have a child all that costs even more, so thinking about buying a book is pretty much impossible for some people which is very sad
This video is full of great points. I don't live in the Global South, but I do live in Spain and it's really frustrating sometimes trying to get some Americans & Brits to understand that everything here doesn't work in the same way as it does in their country.
KU isn't available worldwide either. My sister in Europe can't get it because it's not available in her country. I'm in Australia and $10USD is $15AUD.
Perspective from Europe: I could add that the US and UK have one thing that doesn't often work in France : SALES. Books sold at supermarkets for 1$ or things like that are not allowed in France (publisher's price can't be changed by retaillers). When I see these sales happening at Target or B&N etc (sorry if I have the wrong retaillers names but you get my point), people often say that it's a good way to buy books when you are poor. But sales for cheap books are not worldwide (even in a country outside of the Global South and considered "richer" than most, such as France).
Same thing goes for ebooks : in some countries, publishers are very open and set small prices for ebooks. Well, not in France. Some ebooks for famous releases can go up to 15€ (so double the pocket size's price, which is a small version that costs around 7€ and usualy the best way books can be affordable ; but not every book releases in pocket). Library suscription are starting to include ebooks catalogues but it's not a lot, and not available for everyone.
Anyway, my point is: the US ways are not the world's ways, rich or not rich. It's easy to be generic, but it really doesn't picture the reality.
BOTM JUST added Canada. I don’t see how someone could claim BOTM as a “cheap” resource and then not know that??
$10 USD is currently $1,540 Jamaican dollars. Sounds fair to you? People need to understand that getting books across the world is expensive. And let's not include the nightmare of shipping prices in places where you often have to buy the books from abroad to have a copy. Especially when our libraries are years to decades behind in book stock.
I'm not even poor and i live in a "1st world country", but what a lot of americans don't understand is that even here, access to books is quite limited. Libraries barely have any books, a lot of books are never translated (and when they are, it's only several years later and they end up being like twice the price of the original), and shipping english books from amazon or something (since they're not always available in bookstores) is really expensive (i recently ordered 2 books and the shipping cost more than the books themselves + it's gonna take like 1 month to arrive). I'm not gonna spend all that insane amount of money to read books, especially when i end up not always loving them. At this point in my life, I pirate books, and if i end uploving them enough to want them on my shelf, i buy them. I'd rather read books from the library, but alas, we don't all have full libraries like in the US :/
Not just stuff in US dollars, but try buying from a lot of those places without a credit card.
Conversation I had about this was when I asked if theft was wrong. Then asked if stealing from major corporations was wrong. Then asked if stealing food was wrong. It got gray real fast.
The notion that the “Thieves” are the problem is a fallacy from the start; and these “gray” debates are exactly the distraction that the “1%” want us to focus on. What IF there actually isn’t any Gray it’s merely the wrong framing of the issue at hand?
@@kimberly3706s Theft isn't something you can moralize IMO. It exists despite any moral stance.
If you pirate a book and enjoy it, and want to support the author leave a review. That helps the author more than you think
I just looked up where bookbub serves and it doesn’t serve the Global South. So that “resource” for those in the Global South is moot. I live in Canada and while I’m not that well off, I can still access some free resources. Im thankful that KU is $10 CAD, I can only imagine how much harder it would be for anyone else outside North America, especially if they hike the price and don’t even do straight exchange rate. Gross
I feel like a “book piracy list” is like an idea that sounds good for like a second. Then you would go “ew no that’s not a good idea. I’m just angry.” Or your friend should be like “yeah no you’re just upset right now let’s take a break from tiktok/Twitter”
Many, many moons ago, I published a few books through a small indy publisher. One of the reasons I stopped (besides ADHD) was piracy. I was naive enough to think I would one day make enough money writing to quit my day job. Watching people take what I had worked so hard to create without bothering to pay for it was hard.
I'm writing again, and if I actually finish the book and decide to make it available (don't bet on either of those, BTW), I will offer the book for free but will have links on socials and in the ebooks to a Kofi account for those willing and able to offer support. The explanation would be something like "If you've found this book enjoyable and have the means, please consider donating through Kofi so that I may continue to write and offer work to professional editors and book cover artists instead of trying to do it myself." I really don't know how this model would work, but I think most authors need to come to understand that being able to make writing your whole job is unrealistic. I think the most I made from one of my books was around $1000.
For anyone interested, the Las Vegas-Clark County library grants free electronic library cards regardless of your address. I don't know if it works outside the US, but anybody in the US can get one in less than 5 minutes.
I am very fortunate that I grew up in a city with one of the best public library systems in the United States. The Cincinnati public library has every book you could ever think of, no rental fees even for new DVDs, and so many resources I can't even remember. They also got rid of late fees during the pandemic. One of my best friends works at one of the branches and they have after-school programs, free printing, faxing, employment assistance, and so much more. We should not be an anomaly.
It makes me wonder how a library gets decided in an area. I live in an area that has one main branch and multiple branches in other areas, but how was it determined to be built? My library is a bit behind on new releases(like sometimes they get new ones like the same month it comes out and sometimes it's like months till they do) and didn't get rid of late fees when it came during the pandemic.. only had to call to have them bring it out to you. Meanwhile, in the city I went to school their library the main and one always had multiple new books, like a whole section of new releases from that month.
As someone who was in the anime community back in 90s it reminds of the fansub issues. I tended to side on supporting a series you like however you can based on what you can afford. If you can buy it, then you should buy it. If you can’t afford that than just share your love for the series whether it be buying merch (which can be cheaper), with fan works or simply spreading recognition for it by word of mouth.
Even in the US, $16 isn't nothing. That can be 1-2 hours work, depending on minimum wage. Thats food on the table.
The part of the “Problematic reader list” I missed the first time was that she was going to spread it around so people would be excluded from ARCs and giveaways. Like, the things that would help people who need access to books? I can understand if someone is leaking ARCs to the pirate sites to begin with, as that’s not great and goes against most eARC team policies. But from the evidence provided, I don’t think Shay had any proof of that…she just chose to go after people who had a differing opinion in any way from hers, like that one author whose tweet you included.
Thank you so much for mentioning Brazil
Books are getting more and more expensive here and it sucks, years ago I could buy tons in one go and now I have to wait a lot before buying, but at least I still can. Every single one my Reader friends can't so whenever I recommend something I send a pdf and I will not feel bad about it. It's not our faults prices and taxes are getting worse, my friends and I deserve to read and talk about our reading experiences.
My ocd making me buy new editions when my mom damaged the spines can be my redemption
Re: the first couple of minutes of your video:
It disappoints me that so many book events have reverted back to being solely in person events instead of making them virtual AND in person.
Many people who couldn't/can't be there in person for whatever reason (including disability and poverty) can no longer participate.
Virtual events were my favorite part of Covid, and they've largely been abandoned. 😰
So the nice thing about booknetfest is that typically all of the panels are recorded and then uploaded to the Snark squad podcast. At least that’s how it was when I went in 2019 but thank you for pointing this out and I will message Mari and ask her if there’s any way that I can help facilitate this being available online (as in live) for those who are not able to attend in person.
@@ReadswithRachel I wasn't specifically talking about Booknetfest, honestly. I was speaking in general.
I feel like people embraced this awesome technology that saved people money and time, and made it so more people could participate.
Then when Covid was "over" (it's not), people just said ok, let's go backward. It's frustrating.
Thank you so much for your response. ❤️
I totally understand. I hope that more events will change this, but the book community definitely needs to lead the way and take up the initiative
As a writer who hopes to publish eventually and try to make a career out of writing, the thing I really care MOST about is people reading my stories. If they can buy a copy? Great! If they have access to a library to request a copy! Amazing! If they pirate a book because that’s their only option, yknow what, that’s fine! I just want people to READ the story and enjoy it. Of course it’s great if I get monetary support, but that’s not always accessible to people, and if you’re writing only to make money and not about people actually reading your work you’ve chosen the wrong career for real
same :3 i don't think making writing my full-time job is plausible for me but id still like to get a bit of money off it yk? but if my books get pirated, id still be over the moon because the more people who read it, the more people might like it ^^
I still reviewed books I pirated as a kid. So that hopefully made up for having to sneak books that would have gotten me beat.
The problem is Amazon shutting down authors' accounts when their books are pirated.
@@Ericaaaaaaaaaa I mean that sounds like we should yell at amazon, not poor people
i live in south africa, so our exchange rate is something like 18 rand to 1 dollar. a 300+ page book tends to hit you anywhere between 150 to 250 rand - and this isn't even touching on textbooks, which instead can hit you closer to 700 if you're lucky enough to find it second hand.
Oh my gosh don't get me started on textbooks. Most of mine were around R1000. My year had just moved to new editions as well so secondhand textbooks were either defunct or not recommended, AND I had to buy supplementary material on top of that.
Being from a third-world country, it's so sad that publishers or book promotions are majorly done in the US.
What you said at 21:40 is very important. Many people who pirate do it because they do not have access to what they pirate. They would not have bought the media anyway, because they can't, but at least they can enjoy some entertainment through piracy.
This is a complex issue and doing a 1:1 comparison with stealing misses a lot of a needed nuance in this conversation.
I couldn't agree more! I'll say again here what I twted in response to her BS: Book piracy should be encouraged by authors. Anyone who can afford a book SHOULD pay for it HOWEVER stories should be accessible to ALL. NO ONE should EVER have to chose between feeding the body and feeding the mind. Multiple times I've had friends interested in reading my Novella from the global south and so I copied it into a google doc and sent it to them, and I will continue to do so, not just for my friends but for anyone who I become aware wants to read my stories but does not have easy/affordable access to them. I am completely serious and think that other authors should be doing this as well. I'm not sure how to make this more wildly accessible to people who don't contact me directly but I'd love to figure out a good way. I was lucky enough to grow up with a VERY good library system and always had has many books as I wanted at my finger tips without it costing my family a penny. I strongly believe /everyone/ should have that same freedom. Yes, I'm trying to build a career on my writing but I'm not just writing for profit. I want my books to do some good in the world and that starts by making sure they can actually get into the hands of anyone who might want/need them. Its like you said, if the person can't afford the book regardless, then them pirating it anyway doesn't lose me a sale, so why shouldn't they do it?
Most indie authors will do this too. The issue becomes when someone pirates it and uploads a copy to a file sharing site. Amazon scans those sites and if your book is found there, they will unlist your book because it’s now in violate of the terms of publishing. It can get your entire catalog and account shut down.
Do you see the difference
This argument comes up in the manga community all the time too and I feel like people have gotten way too comfortable shaming poor people and people in countries where those manga don't get translated
Author here. I am so glad you made this video. You have really changed my perspective on book piracy.
I am from Latin America and used to work for Amazon as a Program Manager and my paycheck was barely 1k usd, and books are around $25 to $50 and rent is about $500 - $600... I don't condone piracy, but sometimes is the only way you can read some books, and that is extremely sad.
Can i just add that i tried getting kindle unlimited and it is also region locked, AND i've ordered books from thriftbooks before that i had to pay 30 dollars of shipping fee on and then pay for the import fees :).
i know a lot of people who will buy a physical copy of a book way after they pirated it because they either couldnt afford it or it simply wasnt available in a bookstore OR in their local library at the time. the only other way to get it is order it online if youre willing to give up an organ for the shipping price i suppose. must be nice only viewing the world from a financialy well off american perspective.
Rachel, thank you so much for this video! 😭 As a Brazilian myself, I've seen so many discussions where usamericans refuse to understand the struggle of the global south when it comes to piracy. It's so refreshing to see an usamerican person being so open-minded and on our side! Recently, a beautiful thrift/used book store here in my town got sold out and it's now being used as a storage space for the nearby supermarket, it breaks my heart every time I see it... It was the only place I could get semi-recent books and books from countries other than the US, especially with an affordable price, since my local library only has old old copies of old old books. What sucks more it's that I can't focus with audiobooks and reading from my phone or laptop gives me a headache, so I only like reading physical copies... Oh, well. 😞 Thank you so much again for the video, and I wish you a great week!
As an author, I understand where she is coming from and what she is trying to do. HOWEVER, we live in the real world where there are real-world problems and expecting people with no means to find other ways to participate in the book community (or any other similar community) only further perpetuates the class divide. Besides being an author, I also work as a school counselor in a public school in an area where there is a lot of poverty. I see the effects of this daily and much of what I do in my job is addressing poverty as a barrier for our students and families before ever addressing anything else (like low grades, attendance, mental health). I've had students admit to doing illegal things as a means to get out of worse situations or to avoid going without. Life is not black and white. Life is gray.
From my author perspective, I don't like when people pirate my books. I don't. However, I do understand that it happens sometimes by people with no other means of reading and I only hope that I get a review out of it and if I don't, oh well. I hope that they enjoyed my book as much as I did writing it.
Since publishing the first book in my YA fantasy romance series, Guardians of the Sixth Gate, I have had constant campaigns on BookSprout where I list this book for people to read and review. It's free to sign up as a "reviewer" on BookSprout. I don't always get reviews from this, but I have had some great conversations and met some amazing readers through BookSprout. I've never used BookSprout from the reader side and I don't know how this would work for someone outside the US, but I highly suggest it if you have access.
Should people pirate books? No. I'd prefer they didn't. On the other hand, I love reading and I always have and if my circumstances were different and the only way I could read a book I was super interested in was to try finding it on the internet, I probably would. I think so much of this discussion boils down to privilege. If you are fortunate enough to view life from a more black and white, right and wrong, perspective then you probably shouldn't be pirating books. You can likely afford to buy a book and support an author through a sale. If much of your life is through shades of gray though...
Just a note on why I adore the indie author community:
Unlike traditional published authors, self-published authors a lot of times will send you an ebook for free if you reach out, especially if you are willing to post the cover on social media, share it with a friend, or leave a review. Most of us will do this. Some of us can't all of the time if we have a low sales month, write full-time, etc. But so much of the indie community is about real, honest interaction online. It is my dream to be a full-time author and support myself off my book sales, but my "why" for what I do is and always will be about sharing these stories that I am so passionate about. All I want is someone to love my characters as much as I do ❤
As an indie author, do you maintain a list for circling back on higher rev months? Luke w reminder list to contact and affirm you're still aware of the request?
As an indie author, yes! Happy to send out free books. I've given out a hundred copies of my ebook for free. I mostly care about my Amazon getting shut down because my books are in KU, and if Amazon finds out your book's been pirated, they will shut your account down. It's heartbreaking.
@@dayfish I also worry about that. Amazon needs to work on their policies.
@@JessTalkingBooks I do have a list. I use my ARC list to keep track, even after the ARC period has passed. Sometimes, people leave comments on my TikTok videos promoting my ARC after the time has passed and I try to include them somewhere.
Another indie author here, and I co-sign this! I have offered people free copies and even shipped physical ones out of my own pocket expense with the singular request of a review. Access to books, even inside the US, is unsustainable. Piracy is an issue, but more on the side that Amazon’s KU program will crack down unfairly on the author for the actions of others.
Indie authors and readers should probably stop fighting amongst ourselves and look to solving the systemic problem that books are too damn expensive at the behest of corporate greed.
(Sorry for my long winded reply everyone)
As someone that used to be disabled and working, I understand the mindset of "at least i'm productive". Since my disabilities caught up with me and working is impossible, I resent the notion of comparing yourself to anyone else, especially in regards to disabilities and how well you're doing in comparison. You have no idea what someone is fighting!
Your point about how if they couldnt ever buy the book to begin with, there is no real damage, is what i always come back to. I was thinking it the whole time. Like, book pirates arent stealing physical copies out of someones hands. Theres no net loss at all. They were never going to buy that book. Its so cruel to look at people who have to choose between a week of food and buying a book, and admonish them for piracy. There was NO WAY they were going to buy that book! And even if they were to save up to buy one, it probably wouldn't be the authors, bc theyd have to pick and choose WHICH books they buy very carefully. I rarely have expendable income, I know what it feels like for $15 to be a big decision, or completely undoable for a monthly service. This author is so out of touch and wrapped up in her own privilege if she can't understand this.
This is why I buy multiple copies of books and mail them to friends, wherever they are. Once you've lived somewhere other than the US, you get it.
I suspect Ms. Miranda has little awareness of the wider world, service or no.
Yeah, living outside of the US for two years changed my perspective on so many things and caused me to come to a lot of conclusions that I would not have if I had stayed inside of the United States, my whole life
My husband told me a story about how Gabe Newell, one of the co-founders of Valve, rebuffed people telling him that Russia would not be a profitable market for Steam because of rampant piracy. He countered that the problem is that games are not reasonably priced and accessible to Russians.
Sure enough, Russia became one of their most profitable markets. At least before the current events.
I cannot help but think of this story when hearing you speak about this author.
another exemple is in my north african country english books are quite expensive , sometimes i can afford it like as a treat but continously no , are it would be hard and my parents make masha allah , a good living .
so what happened , is that another market appeared , of off brand books at a fraction of the prices , a lot of non affiliated people started also making the books i must admit in lesser quality , and that is what a lot of readers buy , because it is what we can afford
South African here 🙋♀️ and the prices for books here are honestly so laughable. And I've noticed this trend of splitting one book into 2 (when they dont even need to do that)so you end up just paying double the amount of money for literally 1 book.
She also reviewed her own book on her own personal account and it was so cringey but also hysterical 😂
My feelings on this has basically come down to if you need to pirate to read, go ahead. But if you got the money to buy it, pay for the book. It's kinda on us who can pay to not use other people's circumstances as an excuse for pirating. Authors deserve to get paid for their work, and if there is no one around willing to compensate them for their work, well then we need to get used to having a lot less to read. Until we can give everyone basic food/income, then we need to try and not starve artist/writers just because we want free shit.
(Honestly I'm just tired of people who have lives/incomes that can afford to buy books but decide to pirate because they already bought 15 books this month and they can't be bothered to wait a few weeks till they got some more cash.)
Also 10 us dollars a month is still not that cheap
people (mostly americans apparently) are so out of touch omg. books in Australia, which is obviously not even a developing country, cost about $25-35 AUD for a new release and $32-45 for any hardcover. not to mention the hundreds of dollars you’d have to spend to get just one month of a subscription box due to shipping costs. ‘book of the month’ has never even crossed my mind.
I used to work as an optician in Pennsylvania, and sometimes there would be a patient on Medicaid who wanted the most basic lens upgrade, but it was $8 over what their plan would cover. They almost never had $8 to spare. It broke my heart every time. Sometimes people just don't have the money, and there is no reason to be a jerk about it.
I’m from Iceland, books are very expensive. A simple paper back book can be 25-35$ and don’t get me started on hard cover books. And buying online is no better, shipping is hella expensive and the fee to even get the book you order online is another 15-20$ on top of the book and shipping. This makes me very infuriated. She could just have said “Hey, how about y’all stop being poor and cheap?”