Copyright Troubles and Book Piracy - The Middle Ages Unlocked

I have pondered whether to blog about this or not... but I've decided to do it, in the end. Our book "The Middle Ages Unlocked" has been out for a week now... and it has already been pirated, as the epub or mobi version. Yes, really.

Gillian told me about this just this morning, and I have since wasted some time reading up on ebook piracy, getting some information from our publisher, and other related stuff. I have also sent off a notice to the cloud service thingie that hosts the download link, duly informing them about the infringement. And now I'll do my best to forget about this until it requires further effort from my side and move on. (Well, after this blog post, that is.)

I am, let me whine for a bit here, please, not at all happy about this. Gillian Polack and I have spent many, many hours working on the book, reading, researching, writing and refining. (I actually logged the hours. I have not checked yet how many they were. I am not planning to - it scares me too much.) We have spent a lot of time looking for a publisher willing to take on this exciting-but-also-slightly-daunting Beast of a book. Neither Gillian nor I are going to get rich off this (as is usual for authors).

Neither Gillian nor I expect to get rich off this book. What we do expect, though, is to be treated fairly - and that does not include somebody taking the hard work that we and our publishing house Amberley put into the book and placing it online, for free. That makes me sad, and a bit angry, and also a little depressed.