Withholding your book=Withholding your love...

Or something along those lines. I was just reading about Author Stephenie Meyer and her decision to put her final installment in the Twilight series on hold as a means of protesting the distribution of illegal copies of this manuscript. You can find it here. It hit me funny. I thought, "What kind of message are you sending to your readers by doing this?" She argues that the distribution of the book was a "a huge violation of her rights as an author as well as her rights as a human being." Come on! I don't know her personally, but I do believe Ms. Meyer exhibits a tendency toward the dramatic.

This is probably going to make some writers angry, but I believe that it only hurts the reader when authors do things like this. No matter what the reason for withholding the book, the reader is the one who suffers. A writer should be able to find a more creative way to deal with such blatant violations of their rights without punishing their audiences. Yes, it's a big bummer that the story was leaked and that an unedited, sloppy version of it was allowed to be distributed to people. But, does she really think that her readers wouldn't understand this if she had simply made a statement that the book that has been put out there is not the correct version of the story? She's not giving her audience any credit for being able to understand that this is not the book she intends to publish.

How do you feel about this issue? If your manuscript were to somehow leak to the public before it was in top form, would you throw a tantrum and take all of your toys home with you, never to be shared again? I'd like to know where you stand.

Until next time...


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