I recently did an internet
search for my book, Now That I Have
Cancer I Am Whole: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and
Those Who Love Them. It’s interesting to see who is using your work, and
how. I often find references to it on sites for cancer patients, or quotes in
speeches or sermons.
This time I found that a
site I had never heard of is offering a pdf of it free. So apparently the
entire book has been pirated. I have reported it to AndrewsMcMeel, the
publisher. We’ll see what they are able to learn and do.
I’m caught in a dilemma,
though. My purpose with that book was never to make money. I want to help
cancer patients. It’s been successful at that. Just this week a university
professor told me that she has been using the book for years not just with
patients but in her research on how to lessen the long-term side effects on
chemo patients. The late Paul K. Hamilton, Jr, MD, FAPC, the co-founder, with
Lynn Ringer, of CanSurmount, called it “the best book by a cancer patient, for
cancer patients, ever.” I hear regularly from patients who appreciate having
the book as a companion on their cancer journey. I even had correspondence with
a patient in the Czech Republic who had read the Czech translation and had
enough English for us to write back and forth.
It’s a wonderful blessing
to me to know that sharing my own cancer experience has helped others. I want
to share with as many cancer patients, and with “those who love them,” as
possible. It’s okay with me if I don’t make money from the book. But I realize
that my sharing would never have been possible if AndrewsMcMeel doesn’t make
money from the book, so that they can stay in business and keep publishing.
Most authors aren’t in it
for the money. Very few of us depend upon writing income for our livelihood. We
write because there are voices in our head that we have to get onto paper or a
screen before they drive us crazy. But we also deserve the rewards, material
and otherwise, that come from working, just as CEOs or garbage collectors deserve
the rewards of their work.
So pirating is wrong, even
if you wear an eyeshade instead of an eyepatch. Pirates don’t produce. If the
people who do the producing don’t get rewarded, they can’t keep producing. The
internet makes sharing possible. It also makes theft easier. Authors should
search out their work from time to time to see if it is being misused.
John
Robert McFarland
Daughter
Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in
America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press,
in 2015.
My
novel, VETS, about four handicapped
and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will
be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.
I tweet as yooper1721.
I also write Christ in
Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/
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