Book pirates. They don't ride on ships, there's no bodice-ripping or treasure chests, but their nickname still fits because they are going to steal your ebook. It's a guarantee. They are going to steal it, and post it online for others to download for free.

So, when that happens, what should you do?

I'm fairly laid back about pirates. I don't believe that readers who pirate are going to buy books. They aren't going to do it. If they don't find your books on their sites, they'll hunt harder, then they'll read something else. They don't give up on piracy and decide to start paying for books. So pirates are already 'lost' to me, in terms of income potential. With that said... there's the possibility that one of them will read my books and recommend them to a paying customer. And a pirate may leave a review on Goodreads which might convince a paying customer to purchase it. Those two possibilities have helped me to bury my head in the sand and pretend pirates don't exist.

I recently read a VERY persuasive article by author Maggie Stiefvater with hard proof that her bestselling young adult series lost thousands of sales due to pirates. This article, coupled with constant urging by my husband, gave me the push to enter the piracy-fighting game.

Here's the deal. If you've found out that your books are being pirated, you have three choices ahead of you:

1. Do Nothing. Adopt my la-la-la-la-la *fingers in ears, looking the other way* attitude. It's not a bad route to take, and honestly - it’s the one that I use.

2. Hunt down those pirates and take your ebooks back. It is a full-time job in an underground world that 99% of us don't understand, so you either need to clear off your calendar or hire a professional. A professional will cost you $750-$2,000+ to erase your books from 99% pirate sites, plus an ongoing monthly fee that is more reasonable. But… fighting the pirates can change search results like this:

… to search results like this:

If you're a hands-on author, you can fight the piracy yourself by contacting each piracy site and asking them to remove your title(s). It may take multiple attempts to contact them, and you might not get any response at all.

After contacting them, ask Google to remove the site from their search engine results by using this form.

There are a ton of pirate sites, so be prepared for A LOT of work. After you ask Google to remove the site, do the same with Bing and Yahoo. If you've still got some energy, reach out to the hosting platform (ex. GoDaddy) that hosts the illegal site and report the site to them.

The easier (and more expensive) way is to let a Piracy Assistant do it all for you. Page Angels is a company that knows piracy sites in and out and hunts your ebooks down like it's their full-time job (oh wait! it is!). I have gotten STRONG recommendations from several NYT Bestsellers who rave about them and vouch for their price tag, stating it is well worth the expense.

What's your stance on fighting piracy? Have you found any solutions that I don't mention here?