Writers Benefit from Developing Loyal Readers

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

Monday on her FaceBook page, Sue Grafton, author of the Kinsey Millhone mysteries posted, "An alert reader---Sarah Nicole B.---spotted a site where it would appear my books are being downloaded without charge and therefore without compensation to me. It occurred to me that others of you out there cruise the net, and I would love it if you'd let me know when you come across sites that appear suspicious. I know there are those who earnestly believe that all books should be made available to the public without charge. I'm not sure what the logic is since a free download is the equivalent of piracy if it's done without the writer’s permission or consent...and most particularly if it's done without attention to copyright laws. Please post a note to me here if you see a link that you have questions about. The legal team at my publishing house will check the source and see if something egregious is going on. Thanks!"

Hats off to Sue Grafton for acknowledging the situation, complementing the reader that reported the issue, and urging all her fans to alert her to anything that appears pirated. Clearly her publisher will actively pursue the pirates around the oceans of the Internet, to protect their product and profits that could potentially be lost. An author's work is legally protected and should be. 

School children are taught early they cannot copy someone else's work. Plagiarism will get students removed from classes if not school. More information about plagiarism can be found at http://www.plagiarism.org. Most colleges for the admission process and class work along with some high schools require work to be run through a program like Turnitin.com just for this reason. 
The point is, with all this emphasis on plagiarism, how has the world accepted that it is okay to download an author's work from questionable sites and it be okay? As Internet consumers we know trusted sites that have credibility and if in question go to the author or their publisher and ask. 

Publishing giant Simon & Schuster has a link to a piracy form if anyone suspects one of their authors has been pirated. Thereby, allowing the public to alert them which allows them to have the possibility of gaining information directly and without delay, which will only compound a loss of revenue for both the author and publisher.

Thanks has to go to the reader of Sue Grafton who questioned it and contacted the author. Ms. Grafton was unaware as was her publisher until a reader made an inquiry. Creating your tribe of loyal readers as an author certainly benefitted Sue Grafton, who unlike some best-selling authors is easily reachable on Facebook, her website and other normal social media links. 

Hopefully, this will not happen to you. However with a cultivated tribe of readers it will allow for you to immediately send out a "rescue party of readers" and elicit their help in trying to locate the faceless internet pirates. Take the time to help out a fellow author and report it to them. As authors, readers and book lovers we are all in this together. 

Has this ever happened to your books?

Mark Twain Was Right: Truth Really is Stranger Than Fiction

By Deborah Halber

The walls went from plasterboard to cold green tiles; the carpeting became institutional linoleum. When an airlock door slammed shut behind me, I realized--too late--that I had followed a coroner into the actual morgue. 

It’s moments like these that make you think twice about writing nonfiction.

My first thoughts went something like this, “What if there are bodies in here?” (duh). “Am I going to embarrass myself by fainting or barfing or otherwise wimping out?” And, “what is floating in that Tupperware?”

(The answers are: Yes; sort of--I’d have to leave the room when I started to feel panicky; and organs awaiting lab analysis.)

A few seconds later: “This is pretty cool.”

Mark Twain once said that it’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction--because fiction has to make sense.

To me, one of the best things about writing narrative nonfiction is that it takes you places you never expected to go and allows you to meet people you never imagined you’d meet. You then hear people tell you things that confirm--in case you ever doubted it--that the real world doesn’t actually make much sense. The writer’s challenge is to create a framework that helps your readers make sense of it.

Trailing around after the Mike Murphy, the colorful real-life coroner for Las Vegas--the setting for the original CSI--was one of the scenarios I couldn’t have anticipated when I set out to write a book about the national problem of unidentified human remains.

In 2010, I’d come across a facial reconstruction of a 1974 Provincetown, Mass., murder victim--a doe-eyed, auburn-haired beauty who, inconceivably, had never been identified--and I was off and running, researching a topic that I had previously never knew existed. 

I spent two years writing THE SKELETON CREW: How Amateur Sleuths Are Solving America’s Coldest Cases, and many of my interviewees lived in the South. I went to Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Mississippi. I encountered accents that at first threw me for a loop, as I’m sure mine did for my interviewees. In the end, I exceeded my comfort zone in a dozen ways, met some amazing people and ended up with compelling material that sheds light on a little-known issue. 

So the moral is: don’t shy away from the unknown. Even if it means catching a glimpse of an autopsy in progress or bodies lined up on gurneys. Even if you must--as I did that day--high tail it out of the morgue. Because every experience provides material that you can then imbue with your own unique perspective. And a writer--especially a nonfiction writer--is only as good as his or her material.    

____________________________________________________________________

Deborah Halber started out as a daily newspaper reporter, then worked as a writer and editor for Tufts and as a science writer for MIT, where she chronicled everything from quantum weirdness (that’s the technical term) to snail slime. A freelance journalist since 2004, her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, MIT Technology Review, the graphic news magazine Symbolia, and many university publications. Her narrative nonfiction book, THE SKELETON CREW: HOW AMATEUR SLEUTHS ARE SOLVING AMERICA’S COLDEST CASES, released in July, from Simon & Schuster. She lives near Boston in a house with a lot of former pets buried out back. Her website is www.deborahhalber.com