I Swore I Wouldn't Post About This But...

...I can't help myself. I swore I'd leave the Cassie Edwards plagiarism quagmire alone. I swore that I wouldn't jump back onto my unheeded soapbox and shout my disguat to the uncaring crowds on the sidewalks of cyberland but I can't help it.

Smart Bitches (God, I love that site) broke this news last week. Now it's all over the web and the AP and various other news agencies. Cassie Edwards, Queen of the Savage Whatever Indian romance novels, plagiarized her research material. Although almost all writers research, very few that I'm aware of lift research word for word from an academic tome and insert it, with a few comma changes or maybe a word or two, wholesale into their fiction. I'm not going to rehash all of that here; head over to the Smart Bitches for the full 100% lowdown on the allegations surrounding Ms. Edwards. What I am going to talk about evolves from a post I had at Absolute Write.

So how exactly does the industry punish plagiarists? This isn't the first name author whose world has collapsed under this allegations; there was a notable case of Janet Dailey plagiarizing from Nora Roberts a few years ago. I'm not talking about the legal actions one author can take against another, I'm talking about the publishing industry at large.

Do authors get asterisks? Do they get their awards pulled? Are they blackballed from the Writers' Hall of Fame? How will the industry penalize Cassie Edwards, a woman who's had more books published than I care to think about? Will they pull all of her books from the shelves? Nooooooo....that would cost them money.

So you tell me: what will happen to Edwards and all the other uncaught plagiarists out there? What is the societal penalty for the wholsesale theft of intellectual property? Anyone? Any thoughts?

Yeah, I heard the crickets too. You see, what makes it so easy for plagiarists to get by in this day and age is that it is an unpunishable crime. Ever hear of someone going to jail for plagiarism? Nope; me either. Janet Dailey is still writing and still making money despite the settlement of the lawsuit in which she admitted she stole from Nora Roberts. Think Cassie Edwards will have a book come out later this year? Although Signet , a division of Penguin, is 'reviewing' the situation, will their review encompass true penalties? Or, will the overwhelming pull of the all mighty dollar keep Cassie Edwards, Plagiarist Extraordinaire, on the bookshelves of stores across the world? Will her agent drop her? Will her readers drop her?

I think I know the answer. I'm sure you know it too. At every level of this business, I have encountered one plagiarist after another. I've seen the victims of plagiarism barred from sites while the plagiarist remained. I've seen plagiarists whine about their various ills and ghost writers who 'screwed' them after their stolen 'book' has been published. And now, this?

Don't you think it's time to lay some of the responsibility for plagiarism squarely where it belongs? How about an industry where, as best I can figure, the criminal is rewarded and the victim unheard?

Nah. A pipe dream. Hand me another syringe, Jose Canseco; I think there's someone needing a fix over there.

Distractions

I can't concentrate today. I've been too concerned with why the Pepto doesn't work. So, in response to my intestinal agitation, I meandered on over to the Smart Bitches site and took a gander at what they have going on.

Uh oh. More cover snarkiness.

*snicker*

Sad but true, I laughed until I cried. It wasn't so much the covers as the comments they make on them. I can't even really describe it without stomping on some formidable toes...and gods forbid any of MY covers get honked. It did make me wonder, though, how I'd react if one of my covers DID get snarked upon over there.

*snicker*

Probably just about like that. Book covers are supposed to sell books, right? Well, I have to admit I popped on over to the Lady Aibell site and checked out the alien book. I couldn't help myself. I just had to know.

At any rate, the book is listed under a section called Hillbilly Haven--oh dear!--and you can read the blurb for it here. Granted, it's not my cup of tea, but it DID get me to go look. It sounds like something I would write for one of my crit group's Friday Night Writes--on purpose to be a smartass.

Now, a friend of mine did comment that Eros looked like a psycho killer on the cover of my first book Goddess' Revenge--and I agreed with him. He did. But I thought it was funny. *grin* guess where I'm trying to go with this is simply this: no need to get your knickers in a knot if someone snarks your cover. Even a bad cover (particularly a VERY bad cover) might get people to go look at your book and if your blurb is well-written and has a nice hook, they might buy your book regardless.

For example, this recent comment I got on an email from someone who bought Goddess' Revenge:

I don't usually buy stuff from Changeling because I don't like their
covers, but this is definitely one example of 'don't judge a book by its cover' ,because your story was fabulous.

See? So snark away at my demon-eyed stalker covers! I think the shit is funny. *grin* Just don't laugh at my adverbs--then I might have to kill you.

Promo, Promo, Promo

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