Thread by @seananmcguire

To the eARC reviewer who, last year, posted THE GIRL IN THE GREEN SILK GOWN before it was released, and who has now posted MIDDLEGAME on the same site;

Did we go to high school together? Did I cut in front of you in line at Disneyland? Or do you simply not understand...

...how this works? Please. Because right now, I'm the one who doesn't understand. Right now, I'm the one who's confused.

The last time you did this, I apologized. Clearly I had wasted your time; clearly you had disliked my book so much that you were hoping to hurt its sales pre-publication. Because there are reasons that illegal downloads continue to happen.

I don't endorse them--I can't endorse them; this is my livelihood, this is how I feed my cats and keep my lights on--but I can understand them, even if I wish they'd go away.

Books can be expensive, and sometimes it feels like a choice between reading the thing you're excited about and eating. "Go read something off Project Gutenberg" doesn't help when you want that one specific thing.

And I've been there! I've been there looking sadly at hot dogs when the people around me are eating steak (or the vegetarian metaphor of your choice). It sucks!

But this book isn't expensive yet. This book isn't available yet. This book can't be purchased by anyone...although it can be acquired if you're approved as a NetGalley reviewer, which you clearly were. Did you even want to read it? Or did you just want to steal it first?

Not being able to acquire something in your country is awful. I have a tragic fondness for Australian children's television, and wow, is there a long wait before it gets a US release, if it ever does. I hate the wait.

But right now, everyone's supposed to be waiting. Everyone except, again, those rare reviewers. There's nothing unfair about a release date. It's part of the plan. Why do you get to decide for me when my book goes into the world?

And yes, sometimes it's not safe to buy the books you want, and that's huge and awful and complicated and bad and it needs to be fixed, and everything I said before still applies. You're not Robin Hood. You're not showering the disadvantaged with riches.

So I have to ask, I really do...what did I do to you? Why are you trying so hard to make sure that my books don't have the sales they need to pay my bills, and to encourage my publisher to commission the sequels I desperately want to write?

Because there are books after MIDDLEGAME. At least two of them. Big, beautiful, challenging, compelling books that I cannot wait to write, and that I won't be able to write unless my publisher gives me the green light.

You know what triggers that green light? That beautiful, shimmering light that shows me the way back to the Impossible City? Money. Sales. You know what illegal downloads tend to hurt? Money. Sales.

I write because I love it and because I need it and because my head is full of stories, but individual stories get priority because someone says "I will give you the money you need to keep body and soul together while you put this on paper."

So if you're looking to hurt a specific project, congratulations, you found the way. And if you're looking to make me feel small and sick and sad because my work is so very valueless to you, congratulations, you did that too.

I really wish you would stop, though. If I've upset you, just tell me. Let me apologize. And stop trying to hurt me, and my publishers, and the people who actually do enjoy the books I write.

Thank you.

Seanan.