Last month, one of my books was published in Spanish! What a thrill! The translator worked under a royalty split agreement, meaning that she'll get paid half of the royalties for every sold book. I had a fantastic cover, I had some reviews lined up, I was ready to see what the book would do.
Well, this is what it did: it sold 13 copies. In an entire month. So, let's see - the translator made about 7 dollars. But that's not what I am pissed off about. It is this: someone stole my book, pirated it, and now it is being plastered all over the internet for free. And I don't just mean shady torrent sites. I mean actual YA blogs. That's right, bloggers who write reviews about books and apparently are 'passionate' about books are shamelessly putting up my book FOR FREE DOWNLOAD on their sites. Meanwhile, the translator gets $0.00. I'm not even that sad about myself (I make enough money off my English books for the moment) but what about this poor woman who slaved away at my book and is not compensated for it by seeing some actual sales? She's currently working on another title of mine, and I have half a mind to just tell her to stop, because I sure as heck can't afford to pay for it upfront (not with sales figures like those) and I can't in good conscience offer her another 'royalty split' deal if this is how young adults in Spain treat their authors.
If you think this is a disgrace, share this post and make people aware of what they're actually doing by stealing books! They made me decide to just give up on the Spanish ebook market. I won't be publishing any more books in digital format if this is what will happen.
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