Last week, the romance community was rocked with yet another
scandal, and it’s an ugly one. Much uglier than one misguided author trying to
copyright a commonly used word to prevent other authors from using it in their
titles. It was a case of one author stealing from another, more commonly known
as plagiarism.
The theft was discovered by an astute reader. While reading
a best-selling novel, that’s right, it was a best-seller, the reader was
certain she’d read this novel already. The problem was it had been written by
another author, who also happens to be a best-selling author. The reader
alerted the author to the theft, beginning our trip down the rabbit hole.
The author who had been plagiarized was incensed, rightfully
so. She reached out to the other author and demanded she take action to remove
her stolen story. The victim also demanded a public apology and suggested the
thief keep a thorough accounting of any money she’d earned through the sale of
her stolen property, as she would need to compensate our victim. Wisely, our
victim also suggested the thief come clean about any other authors she had
plagiarized. Better to own up to it rather than have it discovered after the
fact because you’d better believe everyone was going to take a closer look at
every work our thief had published.
And do you know what our thief did?
If you guessed that she denied her crimes, you would be
partially right. Our thief took her denial a step further and added a hearty
helping of good old pass the buck. In other words, she blamed someone else.
According to the thief, it wasn’t her fault. The ghostwriter she employed was
actually the thief. That right there is an entirely different can of worms she
opened, but we’ll talk about that later, and when I say later, I mean in
another blog post. If we talk about it today, we’ll never get through this topic.
My initial thought was there was no ghostwriter. This was
just a case of a desperate thief trying to keep from incurring any penalties that came
from being guilty of the crime. Imagine my surprise when I learned there was a
ghostwriter. The ghostwriter adamantly denied plagiarizing anyone and instead
insisted she took several piece meal scenes given to her by the writer and
turned them into a readable novel. If our ghostwriter is to be believed, she
wasn’t compensated for her work because the author gave her a sob story about
not having the money to pay her due to an unexpected illness of her daughter.
I’m inclined to believe the ghostwriter and not our thief.
Anyone who steals from another writer has already proven she has a compromised
moral compass. It’s no stretch of the imagination to think she would lie about
her culpability and refuse to pay for services rendered.
To add another log on this steaming pile of dung, it turns
out our thief did indeed plagiarize other romance authors, including Nora
Roberts. In the wake of this scandal, the thief deleted her social media
accounts. While she may be doing her best to hide from what she’s done, I have
no doubt we haven’t heard the end of it. Don’t be surprised if multiple
copyright infringement lawsuits are brought.
There have been times when I’ve read something another
author has written and wished I’d written it, but it’s never crossed my mind to
steal it and claim it as my own. As an author who’s been plagiarized, I know
how gut wrenching this crime can be. It’s like having someone reach inside of
you and rip out a piece of your soul.
Writing a book is more than just putting words on paper.
It’s pouring your heart and soul into something and hoping enough people like
it that you can at the very least break even on the cost of production and
promotion. For someone to take your work and try to pass it off as
their own is not just a slap in the face. It’s a hit to your bottom line, which
can be devastating to those who make their living as authors.
