Part of a series: Cassie Edwards 1: The First Post | Cassie Edwards 2: Savage Longings | Cassie Edwards Part 3: Running Fox | Cassie Edwards Part 4: Savage Moon | Cassie Edwards Part 5: Savage Beloved | Follow-up: Penguin (Part 1?) | Official Statement from Signet | AP Article Contains Response from Edwards | RWA Responds to Allegations | A centralized document for the Cassie Edwards situation
I went back to my review of Savage Moon, and looked at the following passage, which I joked was “CSI:Shoshone”:
“See the dried material on the very tips of the sharpened stone arrowhead?” Soaring Hawk said, pointing toward it. “The points of these arrowheads have been dipped into a mixture of pulverized ants and the spleen of an animal that has been allowed to decay in the direct rays of the sun,” Soaring Hawk said grimly. “This rotten mixture combined with rattlesnake venom is the deadliest of weapons.”
Saleratus & Sagebrush: People and Places on the Road West By Robert Lee Munkres uses an identical passage and cites its source as The Shoshonis: Sentinels of the Rockies, by Virginia Cole Trenholm and Maurine Carley, published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1964.
Both books reference a work by John G. Bourke, which I haven’t identified or located.
After reading the comments I don’t think anyone (beside the fangirls) were trying to move the argument away from whether or not there was plagiarism, or even whether or not plagiarism is bad.
BUT how it was found lends itself to criticism. How many times these fine ladies googled passages from their favorite authors just to see what happens? Or even authors they gave C or D grade reviews?
No, it does not change the outcome that this woman plagiarized. Yes, sitting on this info would have been unethical no matter the circumstances, but it still lends itself to criticism.
That’s neither here or there.
I say what needs to be the focus of this discussion is what should the consequences be when an author does plagiarize.
From what I gather the punishment is more or less a slap on the wrist. These authors made a profit from stolen property (whether it’s real or intellectual shouldn’t matter.)
Melissa Blue: BUT how it was found lends itself to criticism. How many times these fine ladies googled passages from their favorite authors just to see what happens? Or even authors they gave C or D grade reviews?
That’s not how it was found. Candy and Sarah weren’t sitting around googling passages from Cassie Edwards just to see what happens (like the spiteful, evil free-speech crazies they are!)—I came across something suspicious while reading, googled it just to see what would happen (like the cynical, suspicious academic I am), and showed them what I’d found. What’s happened since then has been a model of careful, fair investigation and reporting on their parts. Your criticism of Candy and Sarah is completely unwarranted.
Candy, I’m back because this is bugging me. Why should the fact that Romance is a successful genre (cash cow) mean the industry is in any way responsible for the actions of a writer within that genre?
I’m not arguing that Edwards’ editors are solely responsible for her writing. Not even close to that. I’m not even arguing that the publisher itself is solely responsible. Cassie Edwards is largely responsible for her writing. But I’ve had the feeling for a long time now that Romance novels, because it’s a cash cow, is treated more like an assembly line by the industry—and by “industry,” I mean the process. And I think that it makes it possible for more egregiousness to slip through—whether it’s Suspicious Chunks of Text or poorly copyedited books. Romance novels aren’t just a cash cow (which means that there’s an interest in pushing out as many books as possible in as short a time as possible), they’re the readheaded bastard stepchild, and the strong impression I get is that not quite as much attention and care is given to the publication of romance. This does not necessarily mean there’s some sort of intentional neglect or malicious agenda. I don’t like assigning motivations to people I don’t know really, really well. If I had to guess, I’m going to go with “too many books, not enough editors”.
I will take back my words about how it’s romance publishing in particular that has disillusioned me. Romance publishing is a subset, and these sorts of resource-allocation decisions take place at a fairly high level.
Am I making any sense here?
Grumble grumble blah. I am cranky today, holy shit.
BUT how it was found lends itself to criticism. How many times these fine ladies googled passages from their favorite authors just to see what happens? Or even authors they gave C or D grade reviews?
Kate’s addressed the process-oriented bit of this argument (keep in mind that Kate found the passages and did the initial grunt work, and she’s completely new to the genre), but I’m going to address something that’s unsaid, but that echoes what Rich and Crusie and various other people wrote about above. See, what’s making me the crankiest right now is the implication (or occasional outright statement) that we have a vendetta against Cassie Edwards, or some sort of unhealthy obsession.
Look, just because I make Your Mom jokes all the goddamn time doesn’t mean I actually want to fuck your mom (although you know she wants it. Hard. Because she’s a dirty whore). Cassie Edwards novels and how bad they are were a running joke on this site. They’re a callback. That’s it, that’s all.
OK, back to stalking Loretta Chase and Laura Kinsale.
QUOTE: I’ve had the feeling for a long time now that Romance novels, because it’s a cash cow, is treated more like an assembly line by the industry—and by “industry,†I mean the process. UNQUOTE
I agree to a point, but I’ve talked to too many authors who sweat over their work to really be so jaded as to think the “process” at its beginning is assembly line for them. Some for sure.
Dang candy dont take ALL the romance away from us readers!
We like to think the authors are brilliant normal people like ourselves who happen to have a good enough vocabulary and enough discipline to put pen to paper , or fingers to keyboard and get published.
Surely they’re not all into it to make money!!!
HEY you authors quit laughing all the way to the bank !!
(like the spiteful, evil free-speech crazies they are!)
Kate-I find you putting words into my mouth is completely unwarranted. When I called Candy and Sarah fine ladies I wasn’t saying it with my tongue in cheek. I’m an avid reader of this blog. Before they came along the scene I don’t think many people had the balls to review a book and call it crap and back it up. I deeply admire that.
Also, Candy and Sarah weren’t sitting around googling passages from Cassie Edwards just to see what happens.
versus
I came across something suspicious while reading, googled it just to see what would happen…and showed them what I’d found.
Maybe it’s me, but the only difference I see is the who, not the how. The reason why I say the “how” lends itself to criticism is that how many people google passages from books? It could have easily been intuition, “suspicion” as you pointed out that made you do it, but still I find it odd. Let’s use the reasonable person standard (yes, now my tongue is in cheek.)
And yet I’m still waiting to hear what should happen not only within the romance community to people who steal someone’s words, but any author.
People who plagiarize are generally taken to court when private settlements can not be made through mediation. I’m no lawyer but that’s a fairly reasonable consequence of plagiarism.
As far as what should happen in the romance community… I’m a bit confused. The romance community uncovered the plagiarism and that’s above and beyond the call of duty. If you’re talking about what ACTION the community should take then there are a myriad of options—contact the authors/pubs of the stolen works to let them know what is going on; petition Edwards pubs to cancel her contract and issue a statement of apology; call local news media with the story; call bookstore owners, supermarket owners, drugstore owners and anyone else who might stock her books and tell them what has been discovered and ask them to remove her books from their shelves; create a coalition of romance community readers to do all of the above and more.
As a community, we can take many actions if that is what the community chooses to do. Personally, I am all for implementing every single idea that I put forth and would be glad to offer my help and services to the effort of showing that romance readers will NOT stand for plagiarism.
(Someone please tell me if I am making any sense at all. The DayQuil is telling me that I’m talking crazy and, if that’s the case, I should probably stop posting for a while.)
Okay, I’ll pop up again—
It seems to me that it *is* a matter of who, in that Candy and Sarah read a passage and think “wow, shitty prose”. Kate reads it and thinks “huh, that sounds familiar/seems out of place”. That happens because they’re different readers with different backgrounds. It seems plausible to me that Kate could have caught the discrepancy *because* she’s not used to romance in general and to Edwards in particular.
*ducks back under Lurker Rock (like Fraggle Rock, but less brightly colored)*
I find you putting words into my mouth is completely unwarranted. When I called Candy and Sarah fine ladies I wasn’t saying it with my tongue in cheek.
Melwhit: It wasn’t my intention to put words in your mouth, but the criticism of Candy and Sarah for breaking this news has tended to focus on the idea of them being “spiteful” for their “treatment” of Cassie Edwards. If the general and sarcastic tone of my remark wasn’t obvious (after all, I did call myself “cynical” and “suspicious”, neither of which I consider complimentary), my apologies for not making it clearer.
Maybe it’s me, but the only difference I see is the who, not the how. The reason why I say the “how†lends itself to criticism is that how many people google passages from books? It could have easily been intuition, “suspicion†as you pointed out that made you do it, but still I find it odd. Let’s use the reasonable person standard (yes, now my tongue is in cheek.)
Firstly, I am a geek. When I come across something that strikes me as peculiar, out of place, or otherwise worthy of interest, I turn to Google. [Actually, in this case, I first checked the Wikipedia article on black-footed ferrets, which, while informative, does not use precisely the same language.] Frankly, the section on ferrets was so bizarre that I am surprised no one else googled it in the few months this book has been out. A character who is elsewhere written as a relatively uneducated frontier girl suddenly starts talking about researchers theorizing that polecats crossed the Siberian land bridge? Did scientists even know about the landbridge in the 1850s? Even writing as truly execrable as Ms. Edwards’ doesn’t just turn the corner like that.
Secondly, what other possible motivation would I have? I’d never read a romance novel before this weekend, and I have no connection to this site except by knowing Candy. I’m at a loss to understand why you find these discoveries so criticism-worthy.
And yet I’m still waiting to hear what should happen not only within the romance community to people who steal someone’s words, but any author.
I was under the impression most of the discussion has been over whether plagiarism is legally actionable, whether this counts as copyright infringement, and whether this sort of discovery reflects poorly on the romance community. Does that not count?
Nope, even with the DayQuil you make complete sense, and yes that answers my question.
SB’s, fine ladies,yourself, have done a commendable job (regardless what started the ball rolling) My stance is somewhat like yours. Plagerism wouldn’t happen (as often) if the person knew they would get a MAJOR smackdown. The romance community needs to come together and personally deliver the smack down in this instance. (Not just the SBs who deliver it on a regular basis.)
This may be the first time I’m hoping for a wild fire when it comes to a blog post.(Almost like viral marketing) Most people get away with it because it’s not talked about.
~But I’ve had the feeling for a long time now that Romance novels, because it’s a cash cow, is treated more like an assembly line by the industry—and by “industry,†I mean the process.~
I can only tell you from my experience, and from the experience of every writer I know and associate with, this is simply not true.
Are SOME books assembly-lined in Romance? I’m sure they are, as some are in every area of fiction. But every editor I’ve ever worked with has put me through my paces. Again and again. And every writer pal I know would say the same.
Edwards’ editors are not responsible for her copying. She is.
You find her work crap. I don’t argue with your opinion—and because of that opinion you feel her editors should have pushed her to produce better.
But many disagree with you, and find her work satisfying. Her editor assists her in producing a work that reaches her target audience. That’s the job.
Edwards, however, is not allowed to copy other work and drop it into her books. That’s on her.
I really believe it deflects responsibility when we suggest others share the blame for a writer copying.
And, for me, doing that, rides beside the same horse that claims all Romance is the same anyway.
*raises hand* Not from books, necessarily, but I’ve found things that were suspicious and gone to Google. There was a mindboggling event a few years ago when coverage of a horse race (I think – it was definitely a sports event on NBC) lifted wholesale a speech from The West Wing. As it happened, the network owned the text, but I could only imagine the fit Aaron Sorkin was throwing over when he found out that the text was taken with no attribution to its actual author.
Kate suspected something. Not that many people would pick up a random book and start picking out lines to Google, but if a passage is suspicious, why not look? The vast majority of plagiarism is discovered because the style abruptly changes, which appears to be exactly what happened here.
I don’t know what your background is. Kate described herself as an academic, which might mean that she has some experience dealing with academic plagiarism. However, this is not something that everyone is going to catch – Alex Haley’s Roots had been on the market for two years, made into a miniseries, and won the Pulitzer Prize before the word plagiarism came up. The suspect passage was about a hundred words long, but Roots is something that’s come under far greater academic scrutiny than anything written by Cassie Edwards, and it still took a while to find.
My point is, not even the most critical readers are necessarily going to find these kinds of things. Some plagiarists get very, very good at masking their activities. In this case it was even more difficult. As someone else in one of these threads noted, the majority of non-academic plagiarism is detected by readers who recognize a passage as something from another book. The likelihood of someone having read both Cassie Edwards’ novels and a pile of anthropology texts on Native Americans and whatever else has been picked up here is pretty slim.
At any rate, Kate’s motives for going to Google in the first place shouldn’t be part of the argument. It deflects the attention from the only person I can see in this incident who seems to have done something wrong – Cassie Edwards.
Thanks melwhit and I’m completely and totally with you. After I posted that comment, I started thinking about how the fans of the TV show “Jericho” were able to get it back on the air by sending the network execs garbage bags of peanuts. (That’s a long story.)
But it got me thinking. If a small group of fans could save an entire TV show, then a coalition of romance community members could definitely cause some major waves. Since we are the consumers, spending our hard-earned money on so many romance novels, we have the power to effect change, if that’s what we choose to do. It’s our money that makes romance such a cash cow and it’s our right to use that power—to show that we have standards and will not stand for plagiarism. Could you imagine the brou-ha-ha we could cause if we all told our local bookstores that we would not patronize their business until they removed from their shelves the Edwards titles which have proven to have Eerie Similarities to certain reference materials.
Of course, I am perhaps jumping the gun a bit and am maybe being a bit harsh but… I just hate, hate, HATE plagiarism. And I hate that the public so often brushes it off as no big deal unless it’s done by a cute young girl with a five-figure book deal. I really think this could work to the advantage of the romance community if we stand firm and make it clear that this is absolutely nothing personal against Edwards, it’s about her alleged plagiarism and that we are mad as hell and not going to take it any more!
(Okay, maybe the “Network” quote was a bit much.)
I’ve never read a CE book based on the pure cheesiness of her covers and titles. They just scream that this is not a book I would not enjoy. I do wonder since my degree is in cultural anthropology with an emphasis on Native Americans of the Southwest US if I would have picked up on the academic text? And if I did, would I have thought to Google that text? Probably not. I probably would have thought, “gee, this sounds an awful lot like a textbook, let’s skip to the good parts”. And then been ever so sad when I discovered the lack of good parts to be found.
So kudos to Kate who actually thought this sounded like a textbook and actually did something to see if it was.
As to plagiarisim itself, I remember the “research papers” in elementary school where you basically wrote the encylodpedia again but by 4th grade I was taught footnotes and a bibliography. And most important that it was wrong, WRONG and BAD, to plagiarize. As someone who went on to write a thousand papers for school, I know how to reword the general ideas and how to acknowledge the information to my research source. It is not that hard. It would seem that CE’s books could have been vastly improved if she had wound that fairly interesting information about Native Americans into her story without just copying text. Tony Hillerman writes marvy mysteries based on the Navajo reservation giving lots of information about the culture without the stilted language and info dump. So it can be done. Just my $.02.
“At any rate, Kate’s motives for going to Google in the first place shouldn’t be part of the argument. It deflects the attention from the only person I can see in this incident who seems to have done something wrong – Cassie Edwards.”
I’m quoting Anna, but this is a good point several people have made.
Why on earth should Kate have to defend why she caught C.E. all plagiarizing books she sold for money?
It doesn’t matter why Kate googled it. She googled it because it was plagiarized. If it hadn’t been plagiarized, she wouldn’t have noticed it.
I don’t agree, but I get the point that since this site gets some serious snark on for Cassie Edwards, it’s awkward that the owners helped find and published online their findings. It’s awkward and maybe it adds a little lemon juice to the wound, but it doesn’t change that she’s plagiarizing like it’s her job.
The discovery wasn’t made in a vacuum. It’s easy NOW to point out that on top of discovering plagiarism, the SB’s are “mean” to her. Yes, in retrospect, that sucks for C.E. But only in retrospect. It’s not like it was a plot to give her very bad reviews and THEN oust her for palgiarism.
Sorry to respond so late, but I have to agree with you on this. My initial reaction was WTF?!? My next reaction was to hoof it on over to YouTube to see if Jenny and Lani had posted a LEAVE CASSIE ALONE!!! video…I’m still watching out for that, heh.
General wondering follows:
What difference would it make whether someone noticed something wonky with the text of a supposedly original work of fiction and checked through Google, subsequently discovering instances of plagiarism… or whether someone fed Google bits and pieces of awkward text from a supposedly original work of fiction by an author s/he may despise/have an issue with/ran over his/her dog, subsequently discovering instances of plagiarism.
Whatever the supposed motivations of the whistle blower, the malfeasance was not their doing. However, speculating on the meanness/motives of whomever exposes unethical/illegal/criminal behaviour does tend to deflect from the unethical/illegal/criminal behaviour itself.
The reason why I say the “how†lends itself to criticism is that how many people google passages from books? It could have easily been intuition, “suspicion†as you pointed out that made you do it, but still I find it odd.
How, then, would you suggest that plagiarizers be identified? I’m sorry to disillusion you, but there isn’t some magical plagiarism detector out there. In fact, what Kate did is *precisely* how I have caught out plagiarizers in my classes. Just last month, I read a student paper and thought, “Gee, those paragraphs don’t sound at all like her.” Guess which paragraphs were c&p’d verbatim from her “sources”?
It’s how we all do it. The fact that it happened to be Edwards who got caught does NOT make this part of some ev0l Smart Bitch conspiracy to bring her down.
I don’t agree, but I get the point that since this site gets some serious snark on for Cassie Edwards, it’s awkward that the owners helped find and published online their findings.
Lori said it better than I did. In this instance it seems to me the argument is that the means justify the ends, which is something I can’t agree with for every situation. Which is also the same reason Crusie got flak for posting that readers letter and Rich’s response.
My next reaction was to hoof it on over to YouTube to see if Jenny and Lani had posted a LEAVE CASSIE ALONE!!! video…I’m still watching out for that, heh.
I laughed at this, but at the same time as a writer if a review of my book read like Edwards…and then I became the butt of the joke…see where my line of thinking is going. I’m not for reviews that are always nice, because you can learn how to write better from bad reviews with substance. Yet, you don’t learn anything from a running gag joke.
Could you imagine the brou-ha-ha we could cause if we all told our local bookstores that we would not patronize their business until they removed from their shelves the Edwards titles which have proven to have Eerie Similarities to certain reference materials.
Yes, I can imgaine. It’ll be much more proactive than going back and forth in a comments section on who shouldn’t have said what, what’s taking away from the real point of the argument and whether or not Crusie or Rich have made a youtube video.
It’s how we all do it. The fact that it happened to be Edwards who got caught does NOT make this part of some ev0l Smart Bitch conspiracy to bring her down.
I’ve re-read my comments and I don’t recall ever saying that. I also don’t recall anyone saying SBs somehow created this to show how bad of a writer she was. The cut and pasting speaks for itself.
Just delurking to throw in my vocal support for the SBs, Kate, and their amazing Nancy Drewesque investigation.
I’m really surprised that Jenny Crusie showed up only to chastise the SBs for their… what? big meanyhead meanness of mean? I’m still puzzled by all these people who are more upset over Sarah and Candy being honest and funny than over Cassie Edwards stealing someone else’s work and profiting off of it.
Way to prioritize, folks.
Actually,melwhit, I do believe that people can learn in any number of situations. Yes, constructive advice is always the preferred way. And,on the other hand, sometimes people learn to improve even when the criticism is harsh and unrelenting. Clearly Ms. Edwards’ chose her path regardless of the criticism here.
And as to my Jenny and Lani snipe, I’m still waiting for the video.
Melissa Blue:
Could you clarify what you meant by “the means justifying the ends”? Usually that is taken to mean that the person has engaged in some sort of negative, underhanded, or bad behavior in order to accomplish a result that is positive.
I don’t see any negative, bad, or underhanded behavior here, at all.
I’ve re-read my comments and I don’t recall ever saying that. I also don’t recall anyone saying SBs somehow created this to show how bad of a writer she was
No, you didn’t say that. But there has been a definite *tone* throughout the comment threads that implies that Sarah and Candy are making a big deal out of this *because* it’s Cassie Edwards, and, as everyone else has said, that’s distracting from the real issue here.
I admit, I was being deliberately dramatic—hence my use of the “word” “ev0l.” However, I was being deliberately dramatic not in defense of Candy and Sarah, so much, but because I find it irritating that the standard method of recognizing plagiarism was made out to be part of a vendetta against Edwards. And that *has* been implied in these comments—there’s been decided suspicion that the SBs are sitting around Googling Edwards’s work for the schadenfreude of it.
I would like to retroactively remove the emphasis from the word “tone” in my previous comment.
WTF is that? Ugh. Sorry, Melissa/melwhit. It sounded totally patronizing, and I didn’t mean it to.
BUT how it was found lends itself to criticism. How many times these fine ladies googled passages from their favorite authors just to see what happens?
and
The reason why I say the “how†lends itself to criticism is that how many people google passages from books? It could have easily been intuition, “suspicion†as you pointed out that made you do it, but still I find it odd. Let’s use the reasonable person standard (yes, now my tongue is in cheek.)
Huh. Criticism for fact checking? I’ll delurk for that.
I’m not an academic so checking up on suspicious student papers isn’t something I do. But I am an avid reader with a healthy curiosity. So I do regularly google things I come across in my reading both in books and online content. I’ve googled several times while reading these Edwards threads as a matter of fact. Looking up things I don’t know, don’t understand, or just find odd is part of the reading process for me. [Apparently, aubergine is purple like an eggplant.]
Remember the old ‘if you can’t spell it, look it up in the dictionary’ rule? And sometimes I check to make sure an author isn’t feeding me a line of bull. [I SO would’ve googled the penis bone.]
Relurking.
DS-Not necessarily, but most people who do justify are justifying something negative.(In this case it falls into the not necessarily category.) And what I mean is that spending time looking this up (specifically the suspicion that triggered it) wasn’t wasted.
To put out there I would not have gone a step further and googled text, passages in a book that seemed out of place, especially if the book was complete and utter crap. I would have closed the book and moved on. Yes, I would wondered why in the hell did they publish said book(s).
If a book is utter crap I don’t devote any of my time to it. So spending precious moments, that I cannot get back, on the world wide web is beyond me. Good thing these women did, because no one would be the wiser. I’m not saying there was a witch hunt. And that’s what I’m basing my opinion on.
Regardless, it doesn’t change the fact Edwards work is very similiar to already published work.
As a sidenote: Willa, I think this argument is more over principles than what’s actually being (or that have been) said here, i.e. should there have been a neutral party to out Edwards? At least that’s what I’m arguing.
Snarkhunter-that’s fine, no need to apologize.
Now hold on. neutral party
WTF?
These guys review books not authors.
When did having an opinion about a book become a vendetta on an author?
Because somehow I get the feeling even with all this cheerleading commerce and constant promotion going on all over the place that people seem to not be able to figure if it’s a business or a club meeting.
Cassie Edwards wrote a 100 books… They have reviewed how many of them on this web site? If they had reviewed all 100 I could see calling them out for stalking the woman but this authors books are consistently present on any shelf, of any book store, with any form of a Romance section.
So she gets the feast or famine that comes with that achievement.
This is not a jury or a court of law, it is simply another well thought out opinion with a ton of documenting and reasoning attached. Much like any of the other reviews I have read on this web site.
You can still make up your own mind and they have nicely provided you more than enough information to do that with instead of the typical overgeneralizing it down to a midget paragraph with nothing to back it up.
I really get tired of people constantly negating the Bitches as “Mean Girls” and all this is “personal attacks” and the whole neutral party deal smacks of that attitude.
I guess honesty about books and how well they are written must really threaten a lot of people with all these implications as to the unscrupulous motivations of those bringing actual facts to the discussion.
Um, Cassie Edwards is one of the few romance novel authors out there who consistently writes racist trash about Native Americans, and people are complaining that SBTB calls her on it?! More people should call her on it, and her publisher should drop her immediately.
The fact that she is also a plagiarizer should make her publisher drop her even faster.
For the Gods’ sake, the woman admitted in Kathleen Falk’s 1981 book on how to write a romance that she went to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (the group that did more to eradicate Native American life and language and culture after the natives were all confined and controlled on reservations) for her initial research into NA culture. The woman is slandering an entire ethnic group, plagiarizes on top of it, and horrors! Candy and Sarah aren’t nice to her?
Good. Don’t be nice to racists. They’re wrong, they perpetuate pain and harmful stereotypes, and people should know about them.
Why oh why is a “neutral” party necessary to “properly” unearth a wrongdoing? Why is it more acceptable to you (Melissa Blue) for a Cassie Edwards sympathizer to shine a light on her transgressions than a Cassie Edwards non-fan? Do certain types of people have more or less right to conduct REPORTAGE, now? To find a truth and relay facts? Please.
Melissa Blue, I do appreciate your desire to be evenhanded in this. But you’re making broad assumptions about others based on what you would or would not do (who knew Googling was such a mark of nefarious cynicsm?), and judging another’s actions by those standards. By your logic, your persistent claims of the Bitchery’s, well, bitchery would suggest you have as much a vendetta against the Bitches as you suggest they do against Cassie Edwards. As I doubt very much that you do, I hope you see the faulty logic in persisting THEY do.
Is there much difference between shooting the messengers and taking pot-shots at the horse they rode in on?
~Is there much difference between shooting the messengers and taking pot-shots at the horse they rode in on? ~
If this refers to my comment, you read it incorrectly. As I’ve supported the messengers from the gitty-up, it’s an odd question.
And I stand by all my comments.
here’s what I think:
I think criticizing or looking for underlying motivations regarding the Bitches and this discovery (and boy, I know how THAT feels) is shooting at the wrong target—and blurs the issue.
I think blaming the publishers, the editors, the genre, the industry does exactly the same thing.
I think taking happy-snarky shots at Edwards as a crap writer (Beyond the plagiarism) at this point does it again—and lends an air of misplaced glee.
I think, as a writer and a reader, we should all be grateful when someone discovers plagiarism then takes the time and the effort—and risks the fallout—by making it public.
Publishers deserve the original work they contracted for. Readers deserve the original work they paid for. Other writers deserve to know when someone has broken the cardinal rule of the profession.
And the accused deserves the right to respond to the accusations—or not.
Sarah and Candy had ever moral, ethical, and legal right to break this news story. They made a careful investigation. E printed their findings.
So what they made snark? The use of the word “neutral” goes to the questioning of the motives to which I say, who cares what their motives are and, more importantly, who knows what their motives are?
Why are the SBs motives in question anyway?
Definitely and absolutely does NOT refer to comments by you, Nora.
But rather to the “suspicion” and desire for “neutrality” posts.
Neutral party? Really?
Honestly, there’s no such thing. There’s no news source in the world, professional or otherwise, that is neutral. The best thing Candy and Sarah could have done was present the information with as little of their own commentary as possible. Candy’s opinion of Edwards’ work did play a part in how this mess got started, but by no means should anyone think it has a part in the results.
Honestly, I can’t for the life of me figure out why their neutrality or lack thereof is so important to you. Sometimes things are discovered by unbiased sources. It happens! The only thing to be done at that point is to present the information – including their bias, which they did. At this stage they’ve provided enough references for YOU to look at it yourself. Continuing to call the source into question is annoying at best and disingenuous at worst.
The call for a “neutral” party is an interesting one to me. I will have to agree that really there is no such thing. Everyone has a bias, a perspective, about just about anything. It’s why 3 different people will see three different aspects of the same accident.
The thing that I admire about Candy and Sara’s reporting here is that they have never pretended to like Edwards’ work and then blindsided people with their true opinion. There has been no hidden opinion or perspective here. They have been totally upfront from the get-go.
There has been some talk about motivation. What motivated their research? Etc Etc. In some very real sense I don’t even care about their motivation. Do I ask about the motivation for any network reporter? Do I care why the professionals break big stories? Maybe they hate tobacco and have a vendetta against people with yellowed teeth? Maybe they want fame and fortune? I don’t care. I care about the quality of reporting and the facts as they stand.
Ultimately the only motivation I do care about is the motivation of the perpetrator of the alleged crime. In this case, the only person’s motivation who interests me is Cassie Edwards’. She perpetrated what looks like plagiarism. Did she not know what she was doing? Did she not care? That’s the motivation right there that I think counts in this discussion. Do I expect for Ms. Edwards to step forward to explain her motivation? Not really. I’ll probably go to my grave curious on that one.
All of this back-and-forth arguing over how/why the alleged plagiarism came to light is not helping the romance community in any way.
Excuse my boldness and I sincerely do not mean to offend anyone. I just think that we are only hurting the community by bickering amongst ourselves. That doesn’t mean that I have some silly, grade-school wish that this comment will suddenly get everyone to join in a group hug and say Yes! We all agree and it is wonderful! I know we don’t all agree and, at this point, I think we need to agree to disagree about some things if we are ever going to keep the focus on the matter of real importance—the plagiarism.
I’m also not claiming to be a neutral party. I’m not neutral and I’ve made my opinions clear but I feel very strongly that the more we let the topic stray from the issue of plagiarism, the more harm we are doing to the community. How can we get the public to take the issue of plagiarism seriously if we are unable to maintain our focus? I know that we ALL agree that plagiarism is unacceptable and that there should be consequences for it.
Again, I’m truly not trying to offend anyone. This is not directed towards any one person and I’m writing this for my own benefit, as well, because I’ve let myself get caught up in the bickering and it’s just not productive.
Regarding my disillusionment with the industry: I think the official Signet statement I’ve just posted encapsulates it all.
Also, somebody in another thread stated what I wanted to say but couldn’t find the words for: I don’t blame the editors for not catching what Edwards did, but I am deeply disappointed that they didn’t.
Given that this particular publisher actively supports Edwards’ efforts, however, I have to say that my attitude is shifting more from “disappointment” towards “blame.”
Candy, once more I think it’s a writing industry problem, not a specific Romance industry one.
And while I don’t blame the publisher for not finding the plagiarism, by my scale, the statement absolving it puts them—from this point—in the mix.
I don’t agree with some commenters stating they will no longer buy from this publisher. That’s punishing innocent, hard-working writers, too. I understand the sentiment, but can’t agree with it.
I didn’t stop buying Harper books because Dailey was a Harper writer when the plagiarism was discovered—and it was her book for them that set it all off. Harper didn’t handle the issue as I’d hoped and expected, but I wouldn’t have cut them out of my reading choices because of it.