Who is Stealing Your Writing ?

I woke up Sunday morning and did my weekly Google search for reviews or references to my book, THE FIRST AMERICAN GRAND PRIX: THE SAVANNAH AUTO RACES 1908-1911.  A few days ago, I had noticed a spike in sales for kindle and wanted to see if someone had published a review or made mention of the book online.

Shock hit me when I saw that my entire book - published in May 2014 by McFarland - pirated by the Russians.  Yes, I am serious.  A Russian based Porsche Club has published my entire book, every page cover to cover online.  At first I felt panic.  This will definitely hurt sales and I researched this book for 10 years and put my whole heart and soul into it.  Granted, like many writers and historians, spreading the message is a major goal too.  So a tiny part of me feels thrilled that someone thought enough of the subject of Savannah's amazing races - and maybe my writing - to want to ensure that the whole world could access it freely.

However, I do have bills to pay too.  Admiration is a wonderful thing and feeds the soul, but it doesn't put food on the table or kids through college.  So I have been in touch with my publisher and I hope there is something they can do about this situation.  I have no idea at this point how to even reach a Russian entity, albeit I did study Ukrainian for a while so maybe I could write a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet.  They will probably not understand my language skills however, as poor as they are. 

Here's what I will do: I will keep you posted on this blog about what happens.  I hope this will benefit others who find their books pirated by foreign entities.  I started a blog for this reason, but I will also endeavor to add some writing articles and tips to help other writers.  I taught Creative Writing, Memoir Writing and Non Fiction Article writing for about 7 years while living in Canada. I am here to help and hope you'll enjoy the blog and find some valuable information here! 

Thank you for the warm welcome to the blogosphere!!!!