AMA - You Ask, Bethany Answers!

Hey, loves! We’re back for another round of AMA where you ask me all your burning questions, and I do my very best to answer them. As a reminder, my AMA form isn’t the place for Outtake requests, as I do have a form for those and I post it every Friday whenever I write and post an outtake on the blog for you. So, please put that there so it doesn’t get deleted on you.

Do you have a question for me?

Awesome.

Drop it into my form HERE and I will get to it as soon as I can.

Onto the questions!

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1. How does it feel too know so many fictional characters? They have all families and friends and you just keep giving us amazing stories I just wanna know how your daily mind goes at it to walk around their world and know this happens. Also this may be too probing but I am a avid fan of your work so yeah. Much love, keep doing what your doing and waiting next book to come out.

Hi there! And thank you so much. This is a really great question because it’s so different, and I love that, so it made me think for a minute.

It feels like my headspace and real life are both very chaotic and full for the same but also different reasons. Because in real life, I also have a lot of family and friends, I know so many people, they all have their own stories and things going on and I need to keep up with it all because that’s what you do when you care about people.

Well, I do the same for all those fictional characters in my head, too. Just in a different way because I put their stories and lives on paper for you all to read and enjoy. So, I constantly have to keep up with what’s happening in these fictional people’s lives as well, and whatnot.

So, just chaotic and busy. That is my mind on the daily. I never went into the Marcellos thinking, “Oh, by the time I’m done with this world and these people here, there will be 15 connected series or standalone books that all exist in this same world and they’ll all know each other.” It just continued to grow and grow with each and every series that I wrote. Someone else stepped forward with a new story to tell, and I felt like I didn’t have much of a choice but to tell those stories. It was all my muse wanted to focus on, so that’s what we ended up doing.

And this was what you got from it.

2. Hi Kris! I wanted to ask you about your readers, piracy and trust. So piracy is definitely a big problem for authors, there is no way to stop it and unfortunately I see that many "readers" beside sharing books also share ARCs of said books. I find that more horrible than sharing released books because ARCs are not finished products and they can contain typos and grammar mistakes and what not. So how do you trust your readers that they won't share ARC of your book? Did it ever happen to you? Just, it can happen and I guess that is very stressful for authors so how did you protected your self from that. Thanks and have a wonderful day.

Hi there, and thank you for the question.

So there is kind of a lot of different facets to your question in which I deal with them in many different ways, so I am going to answer this in the same way, like a breakdown.

Piracy is a huge issue – however, I learned very early on in my career that with how rampant piracy is, and how much time it takes for one author to actually battle their piracy problem, that I had two choices. I could spend hours every day searching for pirated copies of my books on the web, some of which are very hard to find but those are often the ones most pirated, and send DMCA take downs for copyright infringement to each of those sites hosting my pirated books, which again … takes a lot of time because DMCAs have to be filed correctly, if you can even find a place to submit the DMCA to a hosting site … or I can focus on writing my next book. Because it literally takes hours, and I’m not joking. I’m not exaggerating it even a little bit. Currently, there are over a thousand copies of my works between sites and I have to do a separate take down for each copy, if the sites even have DMCA take down availability because a lot don’t and they don’t honor them anyway.

I would rather write my next book.

As for readers on this side of things … the rest of this isn't directed at the person who asked the question, but rather those that pirate, so keep that in mind. Please know that if you pirate my work, you’re not wanted here. I don’t want you here. Don’t comment on my posts, don’t tweet me, like my IG posts, don’t drop me questions. Don’t fuck with me at all. You don’t support me in a way that helps my career, allows me to continue this career, or to put food on my table. If you pirate my books, you’re not wanted here. Don’t be a fake fan, just have enough respect to stay away from me, it’s really that simple.

If that seems harsh, and you pirate, that’s not my problem.

Art isn’t free.

Pay your artists.

Real fans who support their authors don’t pirate, they don’t go searching for new releases in forums where they can get it for free and if you do, then refer to the above, and stop fucking with me like you care about me or my children’s ability to live in a house, wear clothes, or have food to eat three times a day because you don’t care at all.

So I don’t care about you, either.

That’s a two-way street, you know?

Simple as that.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program and the rest of the questioner's question.

As for this ARC thing … if ARC readers are sharing ARCs and authors see it, they need to deal with it. And if any of my ARC readers are caught sharing or selling my ARCs, trading them or otherwise, then they will be handled, removed from my team, their name and info blasted to every author on my friends list, and whatever else I feel like doing just because I can and that’s good business here, people. It’s how we authors protect ourselves and our business. People on my ARC team are vetted; we typically know who they are, they’re bloggers or readers of mine who have been following me for a while. I’m also lucky enough that a large handful of my ARC readers who get the early copy still go ahead and buy their own copy after it has been released. I trust the people on my ARC team, but again … they’re vetted. And then revetted again by my PA when she feels the need because she is the one who controls my ARC team, I don’t even have much say on what goes on in there anymore to keep in line with Amazon’s TOS about early copies and whatnot. Business stuff, you know.

Because again … we can only keep writing if we can afford to do so.

And I don’t know about other authors, but I have no intention of going back to working eleven at night til seven in the morning 7 days a week. I have far better things to be doing with my life, and that ain’t one of them.

As for how I deal with piracy, those are private. I pay money for it. That’s about all I am going to say on that topic.

3. Hi there! I was curious about if you have a date for Corrado’s story? And when will it be? Ps: I am getting obsessed with your books.

Hi there.

And yep, I sure do.

You can find it on the Coming Soon page of my website: www.bethanykris.com where my entire schedule for 2019 with release dates that are firm have been posted. Always check there when you want to know something like this because it’s almost always over there already and you will get your answer far sooner than dropping it into this form.

Hope that helps.



Okay, loves, that is all for this week, until the next!

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