May 22 2012
Links, News, and some WTFery | Blog | Smart Bitches, Trashy Books – “YA Author Sarah Cross has a guest blog about plagiarism and how it sucks a lot (which it does). It’s not a bad post, as it discusses the different types of plagiarism. But it’s a guest post on Kristi Diehm’s site, The Story [...]
May 21 2012
Giveaways (not taking place here) The editor, Harrison Demchick, of The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns (a recommended read by Robin aka Janet) and The Understory written by Elizabeth Leiknes, wrote us to let us know about a giveaway the publishing house is running to celebrate the release of The Understory. Basically, it’s like this. As [...]
Apr 23 2012
No deals today. Hasn’t your wallet suffered enough damage from the Johanna Lindsey backlist bonanza? No, okay. Samhain is offering 30% off. You can pick up Love is a Battlefield by Tamara Morgan or Once Upon a Dream by Jennifer Archer. The first story is a sad one. Update x 2: Kristi, the Story Siren, [...]
Mar 18 2012
Introduction: The issues of plagiarism and copyright overlap in fan fiction (and fiction in general) causing a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding. Wholesale copying without attribution (giving credit to the source) is plagiarism but not always copyright infringement. Copyright infringement can happen even when credit is being given. This piece attempts to talk about [...]
Feb 24 2012
Updated x1: Ms. Manning has commented and provided an apology: I’ve gone back and forth on how to address this for several hours. A personal blog post would not be seen by enough people. Nor would a response to Ms. Fielding’s blog. When Dear Author posted this blog, I felt it was the answer I’d [...]
Feb 12 2012
Linda H emailed me today to let me know she stumbled across a group of people (possibly the work of just one person masquerading as many) republishing works that appear to be copies of others’ legitimate work. Three examples include Kate Rothwell’s Something to Cherish, Rebecca Abbott Miller’s Save Me, Payton Lee’s, Novo Arkhangel’Sk. Kate Rothwell, [...]
Dec 9 2011
Anita Clenney has filed her answer (PDF) to the Sourcebooks complaint. In it, she asserts four points: 1) Inclusion of 8 pages of advertisements without permission and/or payment constitutes a material breach. Clenney argues that the industry standard is a) defined by the actions of two or more of the big 6 and that the industry [...]
Nov 30 2011
Do you ever wonder where the year went? Me too. It’s hard to believe that tomorrow begins the last month of 2011. I would love to post some reader reminiscences about their 2011 year of reading. What they loved. What they hated. How they’ve seen the genre evolve, either for good or ill. If you [...]
Nov 9 2011
From the Press Release: TOKYO and TORONTO, November 8/9, 2011 — Rakuten, Inc. (JASDAQ: 4755) and Kobo Inc. today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Rakuten intends to acquire 100% of total issued and outstanding shares of Kobo for US$315 million in cash. Kobo was founded by and spun out [...]
Jul 4 2011
Today is supposed to be a holiday but the news is coming thick and fast. I hardly know what to lead with. First up, though, is Pearson Australia striking a deal to buy REDGroup’s online book business and to partner to sell ebooks with Kobo. This is the first time we’ve seen a major publisher [...]
Jun 1 2011
Yesterday was hate on romance readers day. I actually read one of these a week, if not more frequently, and generally don’t share them because what is the point, right? It is culturally acceptable to repudiate the romance genre and romance readers. From columnist, Kimberly Sayer-Giles, we have the “romance as pornography” meme*; Russell Moore [...]
Oct 19 2010
Genre fiction rides a thin line between consistent recognizability and appealing freshness. Often referred to as "a narrative archetype," the form of genre fiction is often denigrated as "formulaic" and derivative (Pam Regis, A Natural History of The Romance Novel, 23). In truth, there has to be something fundamental and formalistic that binds a group [...]
Sep 11 2010
On Friday, I received a phone call from a lawyer in Utica, New York who represents Red Rose Publishing. RRP is claiming that I defamed them in this post here wherein I summarized the reported complaints of RRP authors and posted the president and owner’s email regarding her displeasure with RRP authors. The lawyer wanted [...]
May 2 2010
All About Romance was a victim of plagiarism a week or so ago. A new blogger had taken some reviews of theirs and posted them as her own. This is actually more common than you may think. Many times, blog sites called scrapers will take your RSS feed and republish it entirely under a different [...]
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