Tuesday News: A tale of revenge porn, holiday book selling, academic publishing, and the unexpected death of Janet Dailey
Publishing Newsacademic publishing / digital books / Janet Dailey / Misogyny / print books6 Comments
Sex, lies and the Internet: The tale of Lena Chen – Want to know what real bullying looks like? Look no further than this article about Lena Chen, a Harvard student whose ex-boyfriend started the dog pile by releasing naked photos of Chen online (aka revenge porn). It got worse from there, with Chen’s new boyfriend, a doctoral student (and her former TA), being harassed as well, including being accused of raping Chen. These incidents are having the disproportionate effect of driving women offline:
“If the goal is to get these women to stop, there’s evidence that it works. Some female bloggers admit to self-censoring or closing up shop altogether. In 2007, two leading feminist bloggers, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, resigned from their jobs running John Edwards’ campaign blog under the crush of harassment. Between 2000 and 2005, the proportion of Internet users who participated in online chats and discussion groups fell from 28 percent to 17 percent, entirely due to women’s exodus, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which ‘coincided with increased awareness of and sensitivity to worrisome behavior in chat rooms.'” Al Jazeera America
‘Revenge porn’ site owner arrested in San Diego – Given the depressing news of the last link, here’s a small antidote: one guy, who ran a site that included more than 10,000 photos, along with contact information and other horrific invitations to stalk, harass, and otherwise intimidate and humiliate innocent women has finally been arrested. Oh, and the guy also tried to “extort money from the people featured on the site by charging a fee to have the pictures taken down.” Charming.
“According to court documents, he is said to have made “around $900 per month from advertising on the site and records obtained from his changemyreputation.com PayPal account indicate that he received payments totalling tens of thousands of dollars”.” BBC News
Booksellers Wary About Holiday Sales – That bookstores are still hoping digital will go away seems less like a holiday dream and more like still more evidence of the nightmare that is the lack of strategizing about the growth of the digital marketplace. Still, brick and mortar booksellers are hoping that the holiday season will draw more buyers to those $25 hardcovers.
“This is the time when publishers release their splashiest books and count on Christmas shoppers being much more willing to part with $25 for a weighty hardcover. The leveling off of e-book sales should help. The Association of American Publishers, which collects monthly data from about 1,200 publishers, said last month that e-book sales had been flat or in decline for most of 2013. In August, e-book sales were approximately $128 million, a 3 percent decline from August 2012.” New York Times
Posting Your Latest Article? You Might Have to Take It Down – Even if you’re not publishing academic work, this article may be of interest to you, because it concerns the controversy over whether scholarly research should be easily and freely accessible. Many scholars who have posted their own work on Academia.edu have been issued takedown notices by Elsevier, which publishes a number of journals, and whose actions have resulted in a petition signed by more than 13,000 researchers so far.
“Mr. Leonard was not the only researcher to receive such a notice this week, as Michael P. Taylor, a paleontologist and open-access advocate, reported in a post on his group blog. Many researchers post copies of their articles online, Mr. Taylor said, even if they’re not legally supposed to. ‘It’s always been so, because even though technically it’s in breach of the copyright transfer agreements that we blithely sign, everyone knows it’s right and proper,’ he wrote. ‘Preventing people from making their own work available would be insane, and the publisher that did it would be committing a PR gaffe of huge proportions.'” Th Chronicle of Higher Education
Janet Dailey Dies – Only 69 years old, Janet Dailey passed away on December 14th, apparently from complications related to an aneurysm she recently suffered. A widow herself, Dailey lived in Branson, Missouri, and like the author she became infamous for plagiarizing (Nora Roberts), she owned a historic inn, which she helped renovate several years ago. After the plagiarism scandal, Kensington picked her up with a very substantial contract:
“According to Wikipedia, there are currently more than 325 million copies of Dailey’s books in print, with translations in 19 languages for 98 different countries.” Hometown Daily News
I’m sorry to hear about Janet Dailey.
When I was an early teen–and well before the Nora Roberts situation–I was obsessed for a while with reading Janey Dailey, and only Janet Dailey, romances. Somehow, of all the books my cousin had, and of all those romances on those racks at the local bookstore (when we still had one), hers were the only ones that clicked for me.
I’ll consider myself fortunate if I write even one book that someone reads with as much pleasure as I consumed those.
I think that sounds very stiff–I’ve been trying to write mollifying correspondence in French all morning (don’t ask) and it’s muddled my speech patterns. Let me put it this way: I loved her stuff when I was a kid, and in spite of any scandals she walked through along the way, I want to write stuff people love, too.
I feel sad about Janet Dailey. I read lots and lots of her 70s and 80s Harlequins back when I first started to read romance. She was one of my favorite authors at the time. I’m sure I must still have many of her books packed away in boxes of old favorites.
Leftover Love was Baby’s First Romance when I was 12. (I stole it from the classroom reading shelf. Who decided to put it there? Who knows? It was miiiiiine.) I read that book so many times the cover fell off and I had to tape everything back together.
RIP amd thanks, Ms Dailey.
Very sad news about Janet Dailey. I was another reader of her books way back in my late teens and early twenties. The Rogue and Ride the Thunder were two of my all-time favorites.
Southern Nights is my favorite Janet Dailey novel. Just re-read it two months ago.