Piracy SUCKS-especially when it affects you

I use to think that this form of evil just effected authors and their work, but with very recent experiences I have found it can effect me too.  It SUCKS having to be in this position where I have to defend my reputation for something that I DID NOT DO!  Those of you who know me know that I would never do this and those of you who don't well I guess you can make a decision based on the facts.

Here is the email that I received last night.

Ok....

I've had so many problems with piraters that I marked all of the ARC's for (book title) so I would know if the books were leaked or not and who did it. I found the copy that I gave you on sharetermpapers. I've asked them to take it down.

I planned to let you know that I found it. I also saw a couple of tweets where the copy was given to someone else. I'm not sure who put it up on the site, you or the person the copy was given to, but it was there. I know these things go on, especially between book bloggers, but it really sucks for us. Especially when we trust you with something no one else has. This us my job, and I don't think it's asking too much for someone to pay a few bucks for a book. But people who get ARC's get them for free. So to turn around and give that free copy to a site where anyone can get it for free is a slap in the face.

All I plan to do is send this email and tell you that I know. A trusted friend who I confided in has gone behind my back and told others of this and has suspicions about their own copies. Although I don't condone what happened with (book title) being pirated AT ALL, this was all I planned to do was this email. Anything else you may or may not hear from anyone else is them, not me. I will not be posting anything about any if it.

I hate that this happened. I had already decided I won't be doing ARC's anymore, but I've said it all and that's it for me. I really hope nothing else comes if it, but if it does, I was not the one involved with it.

This is my response

First of all, I am completely shocked and devastated by this email…

I am very sorry that this has happened to you, but you have wrongly accused me.  I feel privileged to get ARCs and I have never forwarded an ARC to anyone or posted them on a pirating website, frankly I wouldn't even know how to do that and I never want to know.  I believe the tweet you are referring to is when I bought Brittni Guillen (book title) on Amazon because she didn't have enough money at the time to get it ( I attached the order confirmation from the Amazon website).  I am extremely upset by this because I spend hours promoting Indies and building reputations with authors, and I would never dream of doing this to any of you.  Whether you meant to or not, you very well have ruined and slandered my reputation by misinterpreting my tweet and having evidence that is wrong.  As a blogger something like this would completely ruin me, and it's not right that it has come out of something I didn't do.  I ask that you tell your friend and those she told behind your back that I had been wrongly accused. 

I will be anxiously awaiting your reply, so please get back to me ASAP!

Tess

Here is the screen shot of the Amazon order confirmation...why would I buy the book for Brittni if I was going to pirate it? That would make no sense.

And then her response to that

I feel bad as well. But my reason isn't for the tweet I saw. My reason is that I marked my ARCs and numbered them. I'm not sure if you live in a dorm or something, maybe people have access to your computer, I don't know. I just know that I found it.

Now as for the other people, I told them all last night that I had only found your copy, that didn't mean it was you. That I was going to email you about it. And I confronted the girl who was telling people when it wasn't any of her concern. There won't be anything coming from anyone else. I made my case clear.

However, I wasn't the only person to mark my PDF's and one person had the same results as me. That's what I'm saying. I don't know what's going on, but if it's not you, someone must have access to your computer or something.

I hate this. I hate this so bad. I don't like to confront people. In fact, I had no intentions of saying anything to you at all. The only reason I did, is because I wanted you to hear it from me, not hearsay or whatever. But as I said, no one will say anything to you.

You are a very sweet girl from what I've seen, and I really do hope that someone stole it from you and you didn't do this yourself. I am tired. So, so tired of feeling helpless with this pirating crap. I have over 10,000 illegal downloads and it's not right.

Like I told you before, I'm not going to start some kind of boycott Tess campaign. I have no intentions of saying anything else about it. Please look into your computer situation and see what's going on with that.

Just so y'all know I found the number my ARC had and it was #1...how hard is it for someone else to change a number to 1 before posting it on a pirating website... 
Also my dad is an executive computer engineer and he says that there is no way that someone could have gotten the book off my computer


I feel like y'all deserve the truth and I am here to tell you the facts.  It makes me sick that rumors are going around about this and that this author's mistake could effect me. 


If you have any questions for me please let me know.  I would rather everyone that does know confront me about it instead of talking behind my back.  All I have to say is before accusing someone of this evil ask them about it first before going to tell your friends.


*New Information* I found out last night that a blogger friend of mine has the same exact ARC that I do.