[DIGEST] "What if somebody steals my work?"

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Hi friends,

One of the most common questions I get asked by new authors is some version of “How do I protect my work from getting stolen?”

While this assuredly does happen sometimes, in almost every case an author should worry much more about nobody reading your book than somebody stealing it.

This is mainly because people don’t want to steal stuff that isn’t popular. The reason people steal things is because they already know it’s popular. It’s already worked before, so it will probably work again.

You, however, are untested. Your work has no proof that it is popular so, for the most part, nobody wants to steal it.

That’s not always true, of course. I know plenty of people who’ve had their work stolen before they were successful but in general you’ll spend more time bemoaning obscurity than fighting plagarism.

You can only hope that people want to read your book enough to steal it. Usually, you will have to beg, borrow, and plead to get them to read it for free, especially at the begi…