Thoughtful Thursday- Australia Flooding, Brazil Mudslides, Author L.K. Madigan, Piracy & Harper Teen's The Dark Days Tour

I'm interrupting our Meet The Admin post, as three brings were talked about a lot yesterday on twitter that caused me to either reflect on things, had me wishing I could do more to help and made me think about what part of stealing don't people understand.

What Can I Do?

I don't know if you've seen the devastation that is plaguing Ipswich & Brisbane Australia and Brazil right now or not, but in Australia, the rains they've had since Christmas have caused havoc, destroyed lively hoods and taken lives. Yesterday I sat at my computer reading news article after news article and watching videos on the flooding. I'm heartbroken for the thousands of people who are effected by their worst flooding in over 50 years. I'm sitting here feeling guilty as I have a roof over my head and my kids are playing next me, when many of the people have just lost everything. I felt helpless as I wanted to do something and wasn't sure what to do. In doing some research I found a site you can donate to that is in Australia and goes to the help needed there- The Queensland Government http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html They also have a lot of other information on the site, and have a list of ways you can donate. It's set up so those world wide and local can donate.

Brazil- is suffering from one of it's worst natural disasters in decades (reports are saying) as the death toll has climbed to over 400 people, as mudslides & flooding have destroyed neighborhoods, taking everything in it's path this past week. It's so heartbreaking reading the accounts of those who tried to save their loved ones, only to have the waters wash them away. I can't even begin to imagine. Like Australia's devastation, Brazil's looks unbelievable. From what I've read up on, Brazil has more rain in it's forecast. Like I mentioned above I've wanted to do something to help, but I've not found any where were you can make a donation to help the people effected by the mudslides and flooding. I'll continue to look and if you know of a legitimate site, please let me know.

Reflection

Yesterday authors were tweeting words of encouragement and a link to author L.K. Madigan (Lisa Madigan), author of The Mermaid's Mirror, shared with her followers & friends to a very personal blog post. Her post will leave you in awe and admiration of her strength as well as in tears over her battle. Please go here to read what she wrote and leave her a comment- http://lkmadigan.livejournal.com/185246.html

Stealing is Stealing!

This is an issue that shouldn't be happening, and yet it's happens more and more every day. I'm not being dramatic when I say that. There is no if, ands, or buts about stealing. It's black and white, stealing is stealing. Yesterday twitter was all aglow with discussions about piracy, as a fan of Sarah Rees Brennan's told her she illegally downloaded and read one of her books. This angers me, as not only is Sarah a friend of ours, but why do people think it's okay to do this!?! It doesn't matter if you're stealing the book from the book store or downloading something in illegal in the comforts of your home. Stealing is stealing. What you're doing is taking away from something that author depends on. The majority of authors are struggling like the rest of us to get by. They have rent and mortgages to pay, other bills to pay and so on. The money they earn from selling their books is their pay check. I don't know about you, but I'd be pissed if someone stole from my pay check, (not that I have one right now as I'm a SAHM), as I reply on every bit of it.

Seriously- Sarah Rees Brennan, already shares a lot of free stuff with her fans. It's not hard to have patience to wait for a book to come out or to your area. There's a number of things you do-

* Borrow the book from a friend.

* Buy if from the Book Depository if you're international. They're in-expensive and ship world wide for free.

* Visit the Library- It's FREE to check out a book.

* Visit the author's and publisher's sites as often times they'll have cookies and links to read the few chapters for free.

* BUY the book, from the book store, from a second store, anywhere... just BUY the book.

From a readers point of view, that ticks me off so much. As you're not just taking away from the author, but from the fans. Your stealing something that an author has spent years working on. I know, kinda weird that an author can't write a book over night and yep, it takes years. You're slapping them and the publisher in the face when you're stealing their work. You what, that ends up effecting me as a reader as a book that's not selling well (and is illegally down loaded a lot) isn't accounted for and therefore the publisher can/will pull it as the author nor the publisher doesn't make any money on it. Being a huge book fan, that peeves me off.

Don't just take my word for it, read what AUTHOR Saundra Mitchell wrote about it here

http://anywherebeyond.livejournal.com/342581.html?view=1732405

And you can read what our friend Carla wrote about it here

http://tinyurl.com/45uvcyd

Harper Teen's The Dark Days of Supernatural Tour- TX Book Bloggers are pleading HarperTeen to bring The Dark Days of Supernatural to Texas. This is an awesome tour that will feature some of our favorite authors, like Ellen Schreiber, Cynthia Hand, Claudia Gray, Courtney Allison Moulton, and Kimberly Derting!

Normally we don't beg, as TX sees a lot of fantastic authors, but together TX bloggers are coming together to beg to bring the tour to TX. The wonderful ladies at Blue Willow in Houston have even offered to host the event. Being that TX is a huge state, full of book bloggers, A LOT of books will bought at the event. There's a handful of TX bloggers who have petitions on their sites that you can go link to like- Girls in The Stacks, A Blog about Nothing, GReads, and Cari's Blog.