Miscellaneous FAQ

In short: of course not!

Buying a copy of my book is good for me, financially speaking. It means the bookstore sends money to my publisher, who then gets rewarded for taking the risk of publishing me. Eventually, once my book sales have paid back the money the publisher spent on me, some tiny portion of each sale also makes its way to me in the form of a royalty. The publisher is then able to publish more of my work, and I'm able to spend time writing instead of chasing dollars for the rent some other way. Everybody wins!

However, it does not follow that borrowing a copy of my book is bad for me. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Libraries actually pay an author every time their book is checked out of the library, because that represents a sale, of sorts. So borrowing from the library isn't starving an author at all: in fact, not only is it making it clear to libraries and publishers that the author's work is valued, it's keeping that book on the library's shelves. Which, given books vanish out of retail stores pretty quickly these days, is valuable marketing for an author. So a library is also an everybody-wins avenue for authors: I get to stay in the business of writing, and readers get to try some (or all) of my work for free.

Borrowing from a friend, of course, doesn't on the surface have the same direct impact as borrowing from the library. But the best kind of advertising is word of mouth, because people trust their friends' opinions far more than they'll trust sales hype. So if you've borrowed a copy from a friend, perhaps consider paying the author back in a similarly-immeasurable way that is in your power and doesn't cost you a cent: if you like the book, recommend it to someone you think might also like it. Then, again, everyone wins.