Pirates, the Bane of Writers Today

by Linda Rodriguez

The modern image of pirates today was formed by the movies, which chose to make them swashbuckling rebel heroes. In the past, however, pirates were terrifying bandits who hijacked ships and might or might not kill those on board, but always stole everything the ship carried and the ship itself, setting any passengers and crew left alive off in small boats to make their way to safety (unless they took them to their hideaway and held them for ransom). Travelers always feared pirates, much more realistically and viscerally than we now fear terrorists. But since Hollywood made them romantic heroes at the beginning of the 20^th century, we've forgotten the real horror of piracy.

One would hardly think we could still equate pirates with romantic leads or endearing but moral scamps, but Hollywood has such a grip on us that we do. Even though modern pirates are even more brutal and less romantic than the criminals of the past. Now, however, they prey on freight or oil being transported because consumers seldom use ships for serious transportation any longer. Passenger ships are usually only for shorter vacation cruises around concentrated coastal locations in highly populated and protected parts of the world. Consequently, when we hear the term, “pirate,” we seldom think of these modern-day thugs or the real criminals that the ancient pirates were—instead we see popular comic or romantic characters. We even have a day for pretending to speak as the screenwriters have depicted pirates.

At the link below, you can find information about modern-day pirates with their machine guns and rocket launchers.

http://www.criminaljusticeusa.com/blog/2009/10-shocking-facts-about-modern-day-pirates/

This is one of the problems I have with calling book thieves pirates. It allows them to feel like romantic rebel heroes when they're actually grubby crooks. But unfortunately, that seems to be the nomenclature in use today, so we must use it if we wish to be understood.

I recently received a Google alert for mention of one of my books on a pirate site. This is nothing new. It happens all too often. This mention, however, was on a bulletin board on one of the biggest pirate sites. I found a whole long page of discussion about my book. High praise, glowing recommendations to other readers—people even said my book had changed their lives and wanted other books of mine. Of course, they wanted them for free, also.

As book piracy becomes a huger and huger problem, more and more writers are dropped in the middle of their series because their sales have plummeted. For most of them, a tiny percentage of the illegal free downloads, if actually paid for, would have saved their series and career. I have no patience with the folks who say blithely that those people who frequent pirate sites wouldn't have bought the books anyway. If even a tiny percentage did, that would make all the difference to those writers—and to the readers who love those books and have been supporting the series by buying them or checking them out of their libraries (which buy books). I also don't want to hear their second excuse, which is that all content should be free. When you work hard to write that content over months and years, you can decide to make it free. You have no right to make that decision about my hard work.

Pirates are thugs and crooks with nothing romantic, heroic, or comic about them. And the same goes for the book thieves, as far as I’m concerned.

Linda Rodriguez's Dark Sister: Poems is her 10^th book and is a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award. Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited, were published in 2017.  Every Family Doubt, her fourth mystery featuring Cherokee detective, Skeet Bannion, and Revising the Character-Driven Novel will be published in 2019. Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, Every Last Secret—and earlier books of poetry—Skin Hunger and Heart's Migration—have received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices & Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,” published in Kansas City Noir, has been optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International Thriller Writers, Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Learn more about her at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com