I started composing this before I got the news that Signet had issued a new statement—had, in fact, beat a hasty and rather strategic retreat. (If the legal department goes “YOU FOOLS WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?” but there’s nobody in PR to listen, did PR still collectively crap their pants? Ponder this koan.) So this is no longer strictly relevant, but I like my strategy at the end of this post—and I’d argue that ultimately, that was the strategy that worked in this case.
When Signet released their first official statement about the Cassie Edwards debacle, I admit was furious. What the hell was going on here? Nothing wrong? Nothing wrong? Nothing illegal, arguably, but nothing wrong? Compounding this anger was the realization that really, other than raising awareness (and thereby treading the line between getting the word out vs. being obnoxious brats—and many people have argued that we crossed the line right off the bat due to what a snot I was in that first post of mine), we’d done all we could do. We’d e-mailed our findings, we’d made them public, and we were told, essentially “Tough. Suck. It. Up.”
And the rest of you were mad, too, and wanted to show your displeasure in a way more concrete than words. The idea of a boycott was immediately brought up. Hey, hit them where it hurts, right? In the wallet, bitches, in the wallet.
Except wonderful as the idea sounds, and appealing though it may be, a boycott in this particular case isn’t going to do much at all.
Janet at Dear Author provided some very good reasons why it’s a less than ideal solution, but it all boiled down to this: it’s going to hurt the authors a hell of a lot more than it’s going to hurt the publisher. Signet is huge, and their parent company, Penguin, isn’t huge so much as it is HOLY CRAP HUGE. Any sort of concerted effort to organize a Signet boycott would’ve produced at best negligible results against them while smacking innocent authors in the bank account and making them cry. The average author? Not quite as rich as Signet. Boycotting Cassie Edwards novels would’ve perhaps been a more productive move, but as many people pointed out in the comments: her fanbase is not necessarily reading this website, and frankly, most of her fanbase may not care about—or even be downright hostile towards—our efforts.
Amelia Elias provided more detail about why a boycott will hurt innocent authors disproportionately in an e-mail to me:
If people boycott Penguin books for even just a couple of months, it will have a tiny impact on Penguin’s total bottom line—TINY. But for the honest authors who have releases during those months? The impact they face is HUGE. The first month a book hits the shelves is the highest visibility and the best sales most books ever get. Thirty days in the sun to get the best sales you can. Authors plan advertisements, book signing events, interviews, etc—anything they can come up with to get their name and title out to the buying public during that time. The next month, if the book is still on the shelves at all, it’s shuffled to the back and hidden behind the next round of new releases.
And it’s not just that one month of royalties that’s at stake, even though to me, that’s enough by itself. Publishers negotiate an author’s future contracts based on the sales of past books. If the author’s sell-through sucks, their next advance will also suck. Their print run will be smaller, their advertising less or nonexistent, their distribution smaller. A new author with poor sales might not get offered another contract at all.
So in essence, if you decide to boycott Signet, you’re penalizing the authors for the high crime of signing on to Signet, and not only that, you’re penalizing yourself for denying yourself the pleasure of reading some damn fine authors, because Signet publishes good stuff, too.
And even if a boycott worked—even if we raised enough awareness to get the word out and actually organized something—history shows us that this isn’t exactly the fastest way to move. And you know what? I’m an impatient little monkey.
Which is why I advocate a method that works, and works astoundingly well, and has for centuries—one that has become a near art-form in certain cultures. Shame. Shame and humiliation. Public humiliation. Publishers want to make money, sure, but they also want to be known for putting out a quality product. Exotic grammar, stilted dialogue and characters hewn from the heart of the mighty mahogany tree could all be passed off as subjective preference, perhaps, but allegations of unattributed usage that are as widespread as what we have going on? Not quite as easy to sweep under the rug, especially not when there are a lot of people making noise.
So make some noise. If you need your noise to be more directed, write a letter expressing your very polite, very pointed ire at Signet and/or Penguin.
Shame them. Shame the everloving hell out of them. We can’t make enough of a dent in their wallets, but we sure as hell can make a dent in their professional image.
Or, why not start a campaign to return as many of CE’s books as can be found? Even buying them in a UBS and returning them would be worth the money and the statement in my opinion. That would at least affect the author in question.
I bet UBSs are rife with her books.
It’s actually Janet (aka Robin) not me.
Exotic grammar? Quixotic, more like.
My favorite bit of twisted language from a novella she wrote: “You dare not touch me in that way,†she hissed.
How do you hiss that?
Oh. Sorry.
Plagiarism = Bad.
Jane, Jayne, Janet…psh, who can tell you bitches apart, anyway? Y’all just a bunch of haters, anyway.
Which is my way of saying: Ooops! Sorry. Didn’t see the T at the end of her name, there.
FWIW, I was just on Barnes and Noble’s website, looking up Cassie Edward’s books, just to see if there were any comments 🙂 but I noticed that many of her books have recently been re-printed, some to come out later this month and Feb. So maybe Signet/Penguin may get hurt in the pocketbook some if word gets around a little more and the re-prints don’t sell as well as they might have otherwise. Just a thought. Great job Bitches.
I passed an entire endcap at Borders today with her books all bargain priced at $4.99. It was all I could do not to pull out a sticky and put a nasty note on the endcap.
Candy and Sarah, I’m just so impressed with your work on this. Many, many kudos should go to you Bitches for the hard work and continuous updating.
Thank you.
I was contacted by the NY Times today. Anyone else?
Anyway, I think if any boycotting happens it should be THIS author’s books. Frankly I refused to buy them to begin with.
I’ve been surprised at some people in the publishing community… not all, just a few. Honestly, taking the Pollyanna “those SB people are mean” line is weak. If you can’t be tough on THIS topic you don’t belong in the business and your ethics are pathetic.
If it were 1980 and the only recourse for consumers to show their disapproval was to boycott and attempt to affect the companies bottom line, I’d say go for it ..but it isn’t. We have technology that lets us direct our disapproval directly at the author involved and the companies invovled if we want to.
That way honest authors do not get penalized alongside suspected dishonest ones. (and I don’t have to stand in front of a bookshelf in B&N reading a book that I’m not gonna buy in protest) LOL
I agree with this, and apologize for my jumping on the bandwagon.
Signet needs to realize that the veracity of a claim does not arise from where it was made. I have a feeling they were originally dismissive because the allegations arose on a blog (and because the plagiarized works were out of copyright and non-fiction).
Penguin’s response is doubtless heavily influenced by their lawyers, who are looking at the legal definition of plagiarism. Very different from that skin-crawling, “she cheated!” reaction the rest of us tend to have when we come across something like this.
Unfortunately, there does seem to be a greater acceptance of plagiarism these days, as long as it’s “legal.” Look at Dan Brown. He won, legally, and the news media backed him up. But what Cassie Edwards “borrowed” pales to insignificance in comparison.
I think the server gerbils have run their little feet off—not all the comments are making it through.
In any case, I’d just like to apologize for my above snarkiness. Bashing Ms Edwards’ prose has the nasty side effect of deflecting attention from the real issue, which is theft.
Penguin’s response is doubtless heavily influenced by their lawyers, who are looking at the legal definition of plagiarism. Very different from that skin-crawling, “she cheated!†reaction the rest of us tend to have when we come across something like this.
Unfortunately, there does seem to be a greater acceptance of plagiarism these days, as long as it’s “legal.†Look at Dan Brown. He won, legally, and the news media backed him up. But what Cassie Edwards “borrowed†pales to insignificance in comparison.
I just want to point out that the Dan Brown case was tried in a UK court, which IMO makes it substantively incomparable to any US claim of infringement or fraud. Although I agree with you about the increased tolerance of plagiarism more generally.
As for what plagiarism is, exactly, I loved what “rhetoretician” had to say on Ros’s livejournal about the difference between plagiarism and copyright, both of which are in play here, albeit in different ways: http://girlyswot.livejournal.com/83299.html
I think this guy would make a great guest blogger (hint, hint).
C.S., the problem is that there is NO such thing as a “legal definition of plagiarism”. The lawyers don’t care about plagiarism. They want to know things: whether any of the works she allegedly plagiarized were still under copyright at the time they were first published, and whether she contravened the terms of her contracts with Signet.
That should be “two things”.
There is a little “game” over on another site (that shall remain nameless) in which some participants like to play. The rule is simple: “mis-file” a particular author’s books to protect innocent readers from accidentally picking up those books.
Wait, Ros is girlyswot?
Dude.
For those of you who love the Bitches, you can show your support by voting for them:
http://www.critters.org/predpoll/reviewsite.shtml
Have fun!
Just because Cassie Edwards accidently ran over you dog is no reason to treat her this way!!!
Also, Dan Brown didn’t copy entire pages from the Holy Grail book but just used some of the ideas. And those ideas have been around since the homo erectus or something, they weren’t invented by the authors.
In the late 90s, I wrote three romances for Harlequin (I stopped when my line did…), and I remember the way the media treated the Janet Dailey plagiarism scandal (with predictable jokes about how all romances read alike…). Ugh. There are so many good writers in this genre who make both creativity and professionalism a priority. They are all done a disservice by Edwards (She didn’t know she was supposed to credit her sources? Come on…) and her publisher.
As I college student in this day in age, if I did the same thing in a class I would be kicked out of school. I find it ludicrous that simply because the sources she stole from are too random or little known to have a copyright worth prosecuting over this some how makes it ok. To me this shows that she knew exactly what she was doing by plagiarizing random ferret literature rather than the encyclopedia brittanica. Schools are so strict nowdays when it comes to plagiarism every essay has to be turned into detection software. Why isnt this type of software used in the publishing industry?
And I have to say, to all the bitches, you are some smart classy women and you rock my socks! Keep up the good work!
I think the one completely positive thing that may come out of this kerfuffle is that the media may well come to realize AT LAST that romance novels are read by intelligent, educated, and thoughtful women, not just stereotypical frustrated housewives.
SaucySam,
Thing is, she did copy out of Encyclopedia Britanica!
I’m late to the game but I can comment anyway can’t I? Okay, I will.
In college I got all freaked out over the hassle of footnoting every quote and source I used in writing my term papers(computers were just on the rise then). But I got through it. It’s not that big a deal to list a text that you used in your research. (Nobody would have believed I came up with any of that stuff on my own anyway)
Fiction writers use their acknowledgement page to credit their sources, don’t they? Hell, LKH does it in her books and you know how we always go on about her sins. Other authors do the same thing.
I’m appalled that CE plagiarized from Defenders of Wildlife – a charity organization for crying out loud! I sure hope she made a substantial donation at least. Who did she thank in her acknowledgement? Her agent and editor most likely, but could she have listed Defenders – ‘Thanks for the ferret info I lifted from you guys, here’s a check.”
I’m glad I never read her stuff.
But I agree with not boycotting Signet and Penguin. That would hurt innocent authors and other innocent bystanders.
Shame is good. But I was wondering if there was a way to credit all of CE’s sources for her, for the publishers, mostly for the sources. Like publish a booklet of the work SB Sarah and SB Candy did then distribute it? Maybe place links in appropriate places? How about another one of the bombs similar to what Candy set up for the asshat dude?
Just a few thoughts….
I figured enough people had commented already, so one more voice didn’t need to be heard, but this is beyond awful.
Makes my stomach hurt to read.