independence1776:

Book piracy hurts authors. Flat out. If you don’t pay for books, authors don’t get publishing contracts renewed. If authors don’t get publishing contracts renewed, they can’t publish. Lack of publishing means lack of books from authors you love.

Obviously, this is for traditionally published works. The margins are even slimmer for self-published authors and piracy hurts them immediately because there is no middleman.

This goes for the “big name” authors, too. Yeah, Tolkien and GRRM and such will survive. The rest won’t. Seriously: read this post by Maggie Stiefvater.

If you want to read a book for free, go to the library. If they don’t have it, they can generally order it for you. Libraries now also have ways to rent ebooks. There’s no excuse for piracy.