The Guardian had this article on Tuesday about authors opting out of having their books available to be read on Google Books for free. There are a number of prominent names on the list. To me, it basically sounds like the early days of Napster and downloading music for free, and Lars from Metallica being like “no way.” My book‘s been up on Google Books for a while, but it’s in a preview form, where you can’t read every page. I hadn’t even thought that this could be a bad thing, deterring people from buying it in hard copy. It probably is, though. Initially I saw it as a great thing just that people anywhere in the world could view it. And it does say on the file that it’s copyrighted material that can’t be reproduced. I’m cool with that.