That's The Way The Cocky Cookie Crumbles

If you’re a romance author, especially one who has used the word cocky in a title, you have probably already heard the news. For the readers keeping up with this story, you might know too, but for those of you who don’t know. Guess what? It’s okay to be cocky in your titles.

Not long ago, I shared with you the story of a romance author who had trademarked the word cocky in connection with one of her series. Apparently, she has several books featuring characters with the last name Cocker so she decided to do something that she felt would tie all the books together in a clever way. Her answer was to use the word cocky in every title. For example, and I don’t know if these are names of her actual titles, but The Cocky Teacher, The Cocky Doctor, The Cocky… you get the idea.

You know what? I think that’s a great idea. Any author with a series has done it, myself included. When I wrote the Time for Love series, all four books had the word time in the title. Same thing with my Taking on Love series. Each book had the word taking in the title. Using a word in your titles to associate it with your series is great. Unfortunately, the author in question took it too far.

Somewhere along the way, she decided she wanted to trademark her brand. Again, I have no issue with this. Several authors have a brand trademarked, which keeps other authors from profiting from use of that brand. One of my peers, the amazing Erin Nicholas, has a wildly popular romance series set in the fictitious town of Sapphire Falls. If another author wants to write books set in this town, we need her permission because she owns the trademark. Trademarks work and none of us mind their use, but the author I’m talking about didn’t just trademark her brand when she trademarked her Cocky series. Nope, she decided that since she had a trademark on the Cocky Brothers series that she owned the trademark to the word cocky itself.

You read that right. The author decided she owned the trademark to the use of the word cocky in all book titles. With that understanding, she started sending cease and desist letters to all authors who used the word cocky in the title of any romance novel published after she secured her trademark. In that letter, she explained to each author that she owned the trademark of the word cocky and would take legal action against any author who continued to use the word cocky in her title. Further, she contacted retailers like Amazon and reported that because she owned the trademark on the word cocky, any author using it was in violation of her trademark. This led to Amazon and similar sites taking down other authors’ books, the ultimate result being lost income for those authors.

As you can imagine, this created quite the uproar. Some authors, fearing they didn’t have the money to fight a lawsuit, went ahead and changed their titles. Others refused to back down. After all, you can’t trademark a word. Several authors posted You Tube and or Facebook videos pleading with the author in in question to be reasonable. Blogs were written detailing why the author’s alleged trademark ownership of a word didn’t have a leg to stand on. Authors began tweeting about it, calling the whole fiasco cockygate. One author, who is also a lawyer, began an online petition to have the trademark reversed. Readers picked up on what was going on based on our social media posts and they weighed in, most seeming to agree that the author leading this charge needed to back off.

Not only did she not back off, she secured herself a lawyer and decided she was going to sue a few authors. Two authors and one online publicist were named in her lawsuit. How did the publicist get dragged into this? This poor woman promoted a book with a title along the lines of “Cock Tales”.  The book was an anthology with stories by multiple authors. All stories had the word cocky in the title. The purpose wasn’t just to poke fun but to start a legal defense fund since everyone saw the writing on the wall. Not one author in the “Cock Tales” book kept their profits. The author in question mistakenly thought the publicist was the author of the book and included her in the lawsuit.

This thing got so big that the Romance Writers of America (RWA) got involved. For those of who don’t know, The RWA was founded in 1980. It is a non-profit trade organization whose goal, according to their website, is to advance the interests of career-focused romance authors. When the RWA saw what was happening, they reached out to lawyers as well, and when the trademark author filed her lawsuit, the RWA announced it would fund council for the defense. Their generosity left a lot of us sighing in relief since there is no way most of us could afford to fight this in court, including the authors who were the subject of the lawsuit.

The case was heard before in a New York court earlier this year, and it didn’t look good for the trademark author. Preliminary findings indicated the trademark wasn’t necessary, that readers weren’t confusing her books with others and were sophisticated enough to know the difference. Reader confusion was one of her reasons for insisting she needed the trademark. Supposedly, multiple readers contacted her to state they had bought a book they thought was hers only to realize it was another author’s book with a  similar title. I don’t know about you, but if I happen to buy the wrong book, I simply return it. I’ve never had an issue with this, but I digress. The court also found the plaintiff hadn’t done her due diligence in bringing the lawsuit and certain aspects were without merit.

I can only imagine that the author in question heard the train rumbling down the tracks. Earlier this week, news broke that she not only withdrew her lawsuit but surrendered her trademark. This is a victory, not just for the authors named in her lawsuit, but for all authors. Forget breathing a sigh of relief, many of us are jumping for joy over this news. You can’t trademark a word and expect it not to be used by other authors, even those in the same genre as you.

Guess that’s the way the cocky cookie crumbles.