So imagine my surprise while checking the internet this morning when I see someone on a website asking for a full copy of Shapeshifted, and being willing to ‘pay’ in the form of payment for that site.

It’s not the first time, nor will it be the last, but it did sort of depress me, so I responded — and thought y’all might like to see it too:

Hey there — this is Cassie, the author of Shapeshifted.

While I appreciate your enthusiasm, and understand that you might live in a country where Shapeshifted isn’t out yet — dude, my book just came out yesterday.

I know everything gets pirated eventually, but only the first few weeks of sales really count as far as publishing houses go, especially towards their willingness to buy more books from the same author so that the author can keep on writing.

I’m a nurse in real life. I get bled on, spit at, kicked at, etc, in my night job. I’ve been hurt so bad in the course of my work that I myself have been hospitalized.

So I think you can understand that I have dreams of someday being able to just write, instead of having drunk people literally fling bags of urine at me.

I’m not asking you to not look for my book, and you’ve probably already gotten a copy, so hey. I hope you enjoy the hell out of your read. It’s a good book, if I do say so myself.

But if you could give me a window of a month, say, before posting it all over the world, so that I could get a chance to get decent numbers for my publishing house, that would be nice.

I work hard at writing, and I work hard at saving lives (even the people who throw things) — it’d be nice to get a little window of respect, and the breathing room of future writing employment.

Thanks,
Cassie