Earlier this week, The Guardian published a list of what they viewed as the twenty best young novelists in genre fiction. It's a pretty good list, and I'm awed and delighted to appear on it.

But as I looked at this list, what really struck me was how many of these people I call friends, and how many I call friendly acquaintances ('cause they're not quite close enough for me to call them up and swear at them about the X-Men, but I would totally let them crash in my guest room if necessary). And that was, honestly, even more awesome and delightful than being on the list in the first place.

Lauren Beukes and I were on the Campbell ballot together, and she has been a joy and a delight every time we've been able to spend time together. Saladin Ahmed shares a publisher with me (DAW), and DAW is a family: he's like the cousin I never knew I had until he was stealing my hash browns and lecturing me about my taste in music. NK Jemsin just might be one of my favorite people to share a panel with—she's thoughtful and passionate and engaging, and her thoughts and passions are so brilliantly put together that I can just sit and listen to her forever.

Chuck Wendig is a man I would call brother (and also a man I would call a flaming cockweasel, because that's how we communicate; we're like a spinoff of John Dies at the End, scored for bearded penmonkey and shrieking murder princess).

And then there is Catherynne Valente, about whom I have already said everything, including the eternal "I miss you and I wish you were here."

There are names on the list that I've heard only in passing, names whose works I have read and names whose works I haven't reached for yet. And I know that these people are friends of my friends; that there's this huge web of community that connects us, because we came through the same forests to get here, even if we didn't come via the same paths. It's a wood that shifts every few years, although parts of it remain the same.

I didn't know any of these people before I started publishing (although Cat and I have so many people in common that it would have happened eventually; she has been an inevitability in my life since the day I met Vixy, and that is wonderful), but we have walked the same ways and seen the same sights and we are connected now, and that is incredible. There are so many other names that aren't on this list (Jim Hines, Elizabeth Bear, Peter Clines, Amber Benson, to name a few) who are part of my unique web of connections, and they all have their own webs, forever and ever, to the end of the horizon.

Community forms one meeting and one miracle at a time.

I am so glad to be part of this one.

The world is wonderful.

My beloved Chuck Wendig (he upon whose shoulder I ride always, invisible, intangible, and whispering horrible profanity into the jellyfish-like ridges of his ear) made a post about book piracy yesterday, declaring today, February 6th, International Please Don't Pirate My Book Day. He asked people to post about their experiences with piracy. And as I am an amiable blonde, I am posting.

I've talked about book piracy before, and at the end of the day, it really does come down to a pretty simple statement for me: I don't like it. It makes me uncomfortable, and it makes me sad, and it makes me feel like the hours I spend working hard to write good stories would be better spent doing something else, like say, watching Criminal Minds. I do recognize that piracy is a huge, complicated issue, and that no one is innocent, because everyone who exists in the modern media world has committed some act of digital piracy, whether intentionally or accidentally.

Books are a luxury item. When I was a kid below the poverty line, if I'd had access to book torrent sites and an e-reader, I can guarantee you that I'd have been one of the biggest pirates around, making me the biggest hypocrit around. And those authors would not have been losing sales, because my money was never on the table to begin with; I didn't have any money. Instead, they would have been gaining my undying loyalty, and I grew up into an adult with a passion for owning things. I love owning things. I want to own all the books I love, so that I can stroke them and loan them to people and yes sometimes, give them away when somebody loves them more than me. (No, Bill, this does not apply to any of my folklore collections.) But I am not the norm. My housemate hates owning things, and if he hadn't been conditioned that free books come from the library, not the internet, I think we would have a very different set of things to fight about.

But you know what? "I'm sorry I downloaded your book, I couldn't afford it" sounds very different coming from the teenager in tatty jeans than it does coming from the thirty-something fan with a Starbucks in their hand (and I have heard this statement from both these people). There's a point at which we have to make choices about our luxury items, and sadly, those choices sometimes involve going without. My book or your fancy coffee: please choose, and don't tell me you chose "ENJOY ALL THE THINGS" when it meant that your choice didn't help me feed my cats.

It's funny, but for a culture that's obsessed with wealth and fame, we view money as somehow crass. I love money. I am terrified of slipping back into poverty; terrified enough that I sometimes have trouble remembering that I can afford to buy brand-name cereal. I didn't become a writer for the love of money, but it's the need for security that's kept me working two jobs. I write four books a year. I write a lot of short fiction. I put in, easily, forty hours a week at my keyboard, and that's after I spend forty hours a week at my day job. I pray to the Great Pumpkin that my books will sell, because I want to get out of that day job, I want to spent sixty hours a week at my keyboard and have twenty hours to do stupid shit, like sleeping. And no, it's no one's responsibility to pay my bills but me; I have to do that. I have to make my budget and live within it, and while the things I'm most likely to share with the internet (dolls! Disneyland!) can seem financially silly, I assure you, they happen after I pay the power bill.

If I wanted to write for free, I would have stuck with fanfic, where I was paid in a loose publishing schedule (I.E., "whenever I wanted to post") and with immediate, unrelentingly positive comments, because no one wants to stomp on a fanfic author. I became a professional author to get a wider audience, to share my work with more people, to be someone else's Stephen King (the way Stephen King was mine), and yes, to get paid. I do a job, I really, really enjoy getting paid for it. And yet I see more outrage over someone not tipping their waitress than I do over someone not wanting to pay an author.

(It's horrifying that we pay restaurant staff under minimum wage because "they'll make it up with tips." When you add up the time it takes to write, revise, edit, polish, and promote a book, many authors also make below minimum wage.)

So please, don't pirate my books. When you buy them, you feed my cats and you pay my bills and you let me sleep a little easier and you keep me sitting down at the keyboard, ready to slam out another story. And if you really feel you have to pirate my books, if your situation is such that you can't buy things and this is the only joy you have, please buy them later, when you can, even if you're not normally a re-reader. Please make it possible for me to keep doing this job. I am a human too, and I could really use the help.

I will close with a quote from Chuck:

"If you find that some component of the books doesn’t work for you—some kind of DRM or issues of access, I might suggest pirating the book but then paying for a physical copy. And then taking that copy and either using it to shore up a crooked table or, even better, donating it or passing it along to a friend. Don’t donate directly to me; my publisher helped make my books exist. Publishers catch a lot of shit for a lot of shit. Some of it is deserved. But the truth is, my books—and most of the books you’ve loved in your life—are due to the publishers getting to do what they do. They’re an easy target but they deserve some back-scratchings once in a while."

Thank you.

At last it has come; the final round of the Ranting Dragon cover battle is upon us. On one side, the armies of Chuck Wendig. On the other, the armies of my own. What do we fight for?

We fight for the title of Best Cover of 2012. The entrants, Blackbirds, and Discount Armageddon. The prize? INFAMY.

Chuck is a dear friend of mine, at whose head I often hurl foul profanities. This is the basis for our relationship. And Blackbirds is a truly gorgeous cover; if I lose to it, I will feel that my battle has not been in vain. (It's also a truly gorgeous book, which you should totally read, assuming the phrase "foul profanities" is not your kryptonite. He has swear words like I have talking mice, and it is awesome.)

Chuck has said a few words about his cover, and I thought I should say something about mine. Here's something you may or may not know: I begged my publisher to give me Aly Fell. Literally begged, along with mailing my editor half of his publicly available images, while going "see? He has the right quirky cheesecake feel, he would be amazing." When they said he'd agreed to do the book, I cried.

I cried again when I got his roughs for the cover. Literally hand-over-mouth, can't-see, sat at my desk and sobbed, because it was perfect. It managed to be quirky, almost ironic cheesecake: perfectly Verity, perfectly sincere, perfectly Price. This is a series that's aimed at a very strange sort of demographic, almost like Adventure Time meets Sanctuary meets Leverage. I needed a cover that got all those things across, and Aly Fell did it magnificently.

It still makes me tear up when I remember seeing the cover for the first time. I cried again when I got the cover for Midnight Blue-Light Special. Just, "Oh, there you are Verity," and all the tears. All the tears, always.

I love both these covers, and while I would of course appreciate it if you voted for me, I will not feel slighted in any way if I don't win; it's apples and oranges at this point, and Chuck and I have one thing in common. We both won the cover artist lottery.