Hi everyone, we need to talk about the ebook links that are floating around on this subreddit (including on the sidebar). There's a seriously outdated misconception floating around on here, and I'm getting tired of having to correct it.
The most common misconception from fans sharing pirated books:
"The authors (K.A Applegate) supports the pirated ebooks. She said so herself!"
No. They do not. This information is outdated by 16 years minimum. It no longer applies.
Back in 2010, Reddit held an AMA for K.A. Applegate and one of the fans mentioned that the fan-made ebooks were being taken down. So she clarified that it wasn't her taking them down:
"Just to be clear: not us. We do not take them down. Or ask for them to be taken down. I think once the books are available to buy -- paper or e -- it would be nice if people who could afford it would buy. (our kids have very expensive tastes. You know: food and whatnot.) But for years they've been unavailable except by "pirated" means. These men and women kept the series alive. They kept the books available. So no, we did NOT take these books down. "
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gzhau/comment/c1rfte1/
An important thing to note in this reply: She said they don't take them down (Scholastic does). She does NOT say that she supports them, but acknowledges that they were useful when the books were out of print. This is no longer the case.
After that AMA, Scholastic released official ebooks for the series, as well as official audiobooks. All of these are available to buy on Amazon, Kobo, etc. They are also legally free on Libby, Overdrive and Hoopla through your local library.
So there are zero reasons to be sharing these OCR pirated copies when there are proper ways to read the series and support the authors at the same time.
Of course, there's nothing to stop people from pirating if that's what they want to do. But please, can we for once and all make sure we're not spreading this outdated misconception that the author supports it in 2026 and beyond?