Piracy, in terms of copyright violations, "includes the unauthorized storage, reproduction, distribution, or sale of intellectual property." Which includes books. For my purposes, and this post on my blog, this particularly applies to the unauthorized distribution of the electronic copy of the galley of The Raft, which will not be released until August. Here is a screen shot from the website Share Term Papers.


As you can see, The Raft has been down loaded 61 times. Of course, this was March 7, so I can only imagine how many more times it has been downloaded since then. Share Term Papers does have an Author Opt Out list, so you can put your name on there and this will not be allowed on the general boards. Of course, this happened on the private boards, and you can see the bold-faced Please do not repost on STP or any other site.
And apparently, Net Galley denied Book_Fiend an electronic copy of The Raft ( for review purposes only) , so she went on here to get it. I don't think that's the way Net Galley intends for their review copies to be used. I did a bit of looking around, and found a book of Lauren Myracle's that had been downloaded 45 times.  Now you are probably thinking, "Oh well, 45 copies, 61 copies. No biggie." My books don't sell a million copies. I am not wealthy. Nowhere close. And I have a kid in college this year and will have two next year. But the royalties from 61 copies might buy a week's worth of groceries. Or fill up the gas tank once, maybe twice. Maybe buy a textbook for one of my kids. In this economy? That makes a difference.
Honestly? I believe with all my heart that none one of these people would have gone out and dropped $16.95 on The Raft when it comes out. Does that mean they should get to read it for free when most of my friends and relatives will wait until August? Hell no.
And I'm not going to sit here without at least letting people know this crap is going on with a  lot of people's books.