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This is directed at those of you visiting from piracy forums. (Not the rest of you. If you're not visiting from piracy forums, I love you and want you to go back to reading the chapters.)

Hi there. Yes, I know where my work gets posted. Yes, I know when you're visiting here after finding me there.

Although the copyright pages of the PDF ebooks now being distributed at "file sharing" forums state that my consent should be obtained before distributing the works (I changed this policy once the rights for the new chapters were changed), I was going to brush it off 'cause the books are freebies anyways. Serials have always been my way of thanking loyal readers for supporting my commercially published work as well as attracting new fans.

Since you're new, I'm going to summarize the situation for you: there are seven chapters publicly available in Part Three of CotA. The rest of the chapters, for as long as I post the serial, are restricted to members here who have donated.

You will not find torrents or illegal versions of these new chapters. There is no backdoor for reading them. You pay, you read. End of story.

If you are the sort of person who steals from writers via piracy forums under the notion that you're sharing and not hurting anyone, you are wrong. You are hurting people just like you and families just like yours. I'm not rich--I struggle every month to pay the bills. I have no extra luxuries.

If you are the sort of person who participates in piracy, you're the reason WHY I had to close the community down and restrict my readership. You're the reason why writers like me are quitting. You're why there are typos on books as publishing houses have to lay off editors. You're why ebook prices are going up as content creators have to compensate for the loss.

Writing for publication is a job. Now imagine you go to work every day and don't get paid. How long would you keep going to work before quitting? When your hydro was cut off? When your children were starving? When you could no longer afford medical care? I don't ask you to work free. Don't expect writers to. We already work several jobs to pay the bills, and if writing income isn't there, most will choose not to publish their work at all. Make a change, be a grownup, and obtain your books legally. I realize you don't think you're causing harm, but you do. Besides the loss of income, I *know* every time my work is uploaded or requested by thieves. I *know* every time someone hits my site looking for illegal versions of my work. I'm not oblivious and I'm not stupid. If you have even an ounce of empathy, just imagine how willing I am to do any writing at all when I see evidence of piracy all over.

If you love books, you'll get them through legal channels, be it contest wins, (legal) free reads sites, borrowing from the library, or purchasing. If you refuse to support the people producing books, those books will disappear. It's that simple.

My sincerest thanks for your time and I do, genuinely, hope you enjoy what's available of the serial. I also hope you won't be a douche bag and try to steal the rest.