Cristiane Serruya: Alleged Plagiarist

Road sign that reads Copy Cats AheadAt some point one might blink in un-surprise to yet another discovery of rampant holy shit plagiarism, but today is not that day (and frankly, I hope it doesn’t arrive).

Per Courtney Milan, Tessa Dare, and many, many other people doing the terrible work of unearthing and checking  books page by page, it seems writer Cristiane Serruya has lifted…sheesh, at this point, half the internet into her books?

As always, a fan found it and let Courtney Milan know:

If you know me, you know I do not make accusations lightly–especially accusations about plagiarism and copyright infringement. Earlier today, a fan sent me an email claiming that portions of my book that had been copied by another author. After investigation, I have concluded that Christiane Serruya has copied, word-for-word, multiple passages from my book The Duchess War.

There are more passages copied than what I list below, and history suggests that if you delve deeper into this book, and other books, there will be even more plagiarism.

Oh, indeed. Sad Plagiarism Bingo square: it’s never just one book.

Once folks began looking, there were plenty of additional examples. Which of course means buying copies of a book one suspects contains other people’s work – a particularly galling enterprise, return policies notwithstanding.

As Tessa Dare searched, Natalie The Reading Debutante identified The Duchess Deal as one of the sources.

A screen shot of highlighted text that reads at the start This wasn't tenderness that filled him with a fiery resolve....
Image credit: Tessa Dare

A picture of a tablet with the same passage highlighted
Photo Credit: Natalie, Reading Debutante

 

It seems the lifting is rampant and thorough, too:

And while passages from Bella Andre, Trish Morey, Lynne Graham, Abby Green, Karen Marie Moning, Lisa Kleypas, Kresley Cole (is your jaw on the floor with mine?) and many others have been identified, reader Kawy also spotted lifted recipes from The Knot, and from The Field Magazine:

Oh for...

Sigourney Weaver as Gwen DiMarco in Galaxy Quest does an epic facepalm

We haven’t gotten to “and the ‘author’ once managed Blues Traveler” territory yet, but that is definitely a new subterranean notch on the WTF scale.

The scope of the plagiarism is still being revealed, with new updates at the #CopyPasteCris hashtag on Twitter.

I’m still caffeinating but I’m about 87% bafflement face at the moment, with an equal amount of exhausted empathy for the individuals doing the investigating. The hours it takes to identify, search, and match passages from other books are not small in number. (Been there.) And it is work that the potentially wronged individuals have to do, because otherwise the plagiarism continues.

And then there’s the ridiculousness of lifting so much from so many places to assemble into one book. Imagine the work that goes into creating a new document, then taking portions of others, fitting them into the skeleton of some kind of narrative, and finding others to add in as well. Forget the mathematical calculations of how many tabs that would be in a browser. Why would someone do that? It seems like an astonishing amount of really, really dumb work and, as always, you’ll get caught.

Looks like I’m going to have Rihanna stuck in my head all day:

And it's over now...

Rihanna singing Don't tell me you're sorry cause you're not baby when I know you're only sorry you got caught

If the plagiarism call-and-response pattern holds, at some point there may be a flounce (which is always a boomerang because flounces are never one way) or maybe a vague, passive-voiced non-apology.

UPDATE: I was wrong! I was not expecting this response:

Screen shot of two tweets from Tessa Dare and Cris Serruya: Dare - I am literally 9% into ONE book by Cris Serruya, ROYAL LOVe, and have found text plagiarised from at least 5 authors Reply from Cris Serruya - Wow wow wow I jsut wake up to this how could I have been plagiarizing 5 authors I love your books and I am a lawyer. I'd never do such a thing.

She’s also reached out to Courtney Milan:

Replying to CM detailing that entire passages have been lifted, Serruya writes, Good morning, @courtneymilan I just woke up to this and I am astonished. I would have never, ever, done this. I am in this writing for a few years now and I am also a lawyer. Could we perhaps talk?

Oh, boy.

My theory, and purely a theory: ghost writers. Lots of ’em, grabbing passages left and right then selling the “manuscript.” ETA: I’m definitely not alone in that theory.

I know there’s a market for ghostwritten romance manuscripts (since romance is a perennial cash production machine according to some wisdom). I wonder if someone has developed software that takes pieces of books like a deck of cards and shuffles them into a new order.

Shuffle shuffle

Card shuffle gif on loop

Presto. A “book.” I wouldn’t be surprised if such a program exists, but again, a lot of work for something that will be discovered. Readers remember shit like this, and we recognize patterns, especially in books we love. Always.

This story will likely to continue to evolve and I’ll update as new information arrives. In the meantime, I wish everyone some sleep and a LOT of coffee. Really, really good coffee.

ETA: I’m setting a timer for 5 minutes and using the free preview to see what I can find. Ready, set, go.

Shaded Love, free preview.

screen shot of free preview of Shaded Love

Chapter One, All That’s Unspoken, Constance Phillips, screenshot via Scribd:

nearly identical text: The squeak of the barn door rolling down the metal rail cut through the silence of the night air. It wasn’t as heavy as Hailey remembered, but then again her fondest memories of the barn were from when she was a lot younger. Her cousin Rhonda laughed as she walked past her then went straight to the light switches, flipping them on.Quiet or we’re going to get caught.

Jeez. Ridiculous.

ETA: Well, gee golly gee whiz, it was indeed perhaps a ghostwriter:

Serruya tweet: I just woke up to distressing news that my work has plagiarism from other authors. I am taking down all the works I did with a ghostwriter on Fiverr--who btw has closed the account--until I have made certain this is solved.

ETA: Via Claire O’Dell: the Goodreads page for Royal Love has been edited to read “Plagiarised from Courtney Milan.”

Screen Shot of Roval Love with the words Plagiarised from Courtney Milan at the top of the description

ETA, 20 February:

Well, that’s been a lot.

Cristiane Serruya deleted her Twitter account (not surprising).

A person named Bee commented on Courtney Milan’s original post saying they had worked as a ghost writer for Cristiane Serruya (and who wasn’t paid, either):

Her work, when given to me, was a number of mishmashed scenes that needed “expanding”, as she said. I took for granted that these were her own words, and embellished as she requested, as this is how I work–I often help authors who are “too close” to their own book to get it in shape for publication. Now I can see that it’s very possible those were plagiarized scenes that she was hoping a ghostwriter would change enough to make unrecognizable.

Oy.

Courtney also revealed on Twitter that two additional ghostwriters have independently contacted her revealing the same details of Serruya’s approach.

And the list of plagiarized titles has lengthened to nearly 30 (I’m sure it’ll pass that number today).

CaffeinatedFae on Twitter (holy smokes I love that name!) has been keeping a running tally and posting them in a Twitter thread. And @JeannaLStars has also kept a Twitter list with US and UK buy links.

Added: CaffeinatedFae also has a lengthly list on her website (nice job!).

Titles link to the book in question.

*Indicates newly added titles.

When I saw “Nora Roberts” my first thought was, “Everybody, get underground NOW.”

Plus, there are the pheasant recipe from Field Magazine and a scone recipe from Jamie Oliver, as well as two articles:

And, this Tweet from @SalvagedBooks and KJ Charles made me snort coffee:

Brittney, Salvaged books, tweeted In romancelandia plagiarism based offenses are considered especially heinous. On Twitter the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious misdemeanors are members of an elite squad known as the - KJ Charles - Pterodactyl Vengeance Unit

ETA: 

Courtney Milan has also provided a detailed post of what to do next, including filing ethics complaints with RWA and reporting the books at Amazon, BN, and Apple. She’s also created a Yahoo Group for those affected. Details are at her site, of course. This community can be truly a gift.

ETA, 22 February: 

The editor who worked on Royal Love asked Courtney Milan to post a statement on her behalf :

I would like to personally apologize for my role in this situation. I edited Royal Love, Book 1. If I had any knowledge this book was plagiarized in any way, shape, or form, I would have sent her packing.

And per the incredible work done by CaffeinatedFae (wow I hope that caffeination is 200% real at this point) and others, the list is up to 36 books and 28 different authors. The list above has been updated.

Nora Roberts has written about this, and the Janet Dailey plagiarism from 1997, Plagiarism, Then and Now, wherein she writes about plagiarism, and how it’s always a reader who discovers it:

You don’t get over it, you get through it.

Since then, I’ve had a couple more less public and ugly cases which we dealt with firmly and quickly. Because I’ll never play nice with a plagiarist again.

That leads to now.

…it’s always a reader, and bless you every one.

 

Comments are Closed

  1. Anony Miss says:

    Insert headdesk and Michael-Jackson-popcorn gifs

  2. Jen says:

    I’m a biologist and a college professor. Plagiarism is a rampant issue in science publishing (I once peer-reviewed a paper where all but one paragraph of the introduction, and all of the results section, were lifted verbatim from a previously-published paper. It was easy to spot via Google due to obvious changes in writing styles.) My university subscribes to TurnItIn, to which students submit their work and it identifies blatant copying and less blatant paraphrasing without attribution. TurnItIn has a lot of faults (no software is perfect), but I’ve wondered why publishers (whether of academic journals or popular fiction) don’t use similar tools to at least identify the blatant examples?

  3. Pamala says:

    Let’s for five seconds, say that she did use some ghostwriter who used software to make the frankenbooks. I STILL don’t get her not at least reading them. And if she is, as she says, a fan of both Courtney and Tessa, then she would know and recognize WTFery with the books. I’m standing in the line where they’re calling bullshit.

  4. LauraL says:

    Of course, Cristiane Serruya would never do such a thing, but someone looking to make quick money on Fiverr would on her behalf. SMH

  5. LauraD says:

    Ok, if there is a ghostwriter AND plagiarism, how can she refer to it as “my work” with a straight face?

  6. this particular case is seemingly the result of a cynical depreciation of romance writing. i would bet every dime that serruya initially thought of romance as low-grade but realized there was a gravy train to be had. she shows no shame in admitting that she chose a ghostwriter to pen her “tales” and then showed a dismissive contempt in not even reading over the work submitted to her (or, as a supposed fan of romance, even recognizing one purloined sentence). i would expect more non-romance readers (lawyers included) to shamelessly hire ghostwriters so they can get a chunk of that romance lucre. and expect more plagiarism in the process.

  7. Heather M says:

    She got a ghost writer on Fiverr.

    I just. I can’t. There’s so many can’ts I can’t even.

  8. ErinK says:

    This hole just keeps getting dug deeper.

  9. TheFormerAstronomer says:

    “It wasn’t me it was the ghostwriter” is really not a great look from any angle.

  10. hng23 says:

    So let me see if I’ve got this right: she paid a service to write ‘her’ books, didn’t bother to read them before she slapped her name on them, took readers’ money and now it’s not her fault. Even I (not a lawyer) am familiar with the concept of ‘read before you sign off’.

  11. I woke to this WTFuckery and took a peek at her Twitter account. At first glance, it looks like pure bots, no (if any) original content. I’m wondering if she’s even a real person? Has anyone ever met her?

  12. Lynnd says:

    She put her name on those books, she’s responsible for whatever is in them. No excuses.

  13. JJB says:

    I too am wondering if she’s a real person. And if she is, did she even READ the books that her name was going to be on? So much BS going on.

    Also, I really want to make the joke that her ghostwriter was the ghost of Cassandra Clare’s fanfiction, but tbh it still pisses me off that SHE got out of all that with an actual writing career…

  14. Anonymous says:

    Gawd! How awful. I know exactly how these authors feel, having their hard work stolen. It’s a gut-punching betrayal. I’ve never shared this publicly but something similar happened to me years ago, shortly after joined RWA and pitched to a NY publishing house editor who I never heard back from. About a year later I was at a book signing, supporting authors in my local RWA chapter, and happened to be chatting with one author who had one book out with the same editor, and asked what was next for her. Imagine my surprise when I heard it was my book (right down to the title–yes, i know titles aren’t protected) that was being released with NOT my name. I asked the advice of a trusted published friend and was told not to pursue the issue, as I was an unpublished nobody. I quit my Chapter and RWA. And writing. I returned to writing two years and earned RWA PRO status but i dont share my work with anyone other than one person I know I can trust explicitly, for fear that it will happen again. I wish this industry didn’t suck, and I hope all the authors who have been harmed toss the book at this #cutpastecris.

  15. Ren Benton says:

    Churn and burn, baby. Facebook and YouTube are lousy with DIY content mill tutorials. Self-publishing is easy money as long as you don’t actually write books.

    What she should have read, even if she wasn’t interested in the content of “her” books, is the contract she agreed to when she put box sets in KU while the individual books are still being sold at B&N and Kobo. That’s a clear violation of KU’s exclusivity terms, and Amazon accounts get terminated for things like that.

    It’s never one thing. They’re too smart for rules—until they get caught breaking one and the whole scam comes to light.

  16. Meg DesCamp says:

    I am a writer and an editor and also, for the last couple of years, a ghostwriter (non-fiction) and this pisses me off so badly. Like, I’m completely appalled and angry on behalf of the authors who were plagiarized, and I’m also super enraged for all of us hard-working, honest ghostwriters. Let’s not pussy-foot around this: Ghostwriters have such a horrible rep as it is and this will make it worse. This sucks so much. Excuse me, I’m going to go scream into the void for a few minutes and then find a cat to snuggle. I can’t imagine how Courtney Milan, Tessa Dare, etc are feeling right now.

  17. I follow Courtney Milan on Twitter and saw her thread about this last night. Bought books 2-4 of the Brothers Sinister series (I already owned The Duchess War) to show my support.

    And I was expecting updates this morning… but not “OHNOEZ it wasn’t me it was the ghostwriter!” O.O

  18. Lisa F says:

    I’ve been talking in other places about how much damage the death of the editor has done to romance at large, but I think this is the most cardinal example I’ve ever seen of how some self pubbing book millers are ruining it for honest self-pubbers who want to make Actually Good Books. What a disaster. If you want to brag about your integrity, maybe don’t Do This.

  19. Lisa F says:

    ETA: CS is promising to “prove her innocence” even though she admitted to plagiarism already which uh, what:

    https://twitter.com/CrisSerruya/status/1097903134108774403

  20. SusanE says:

    I wonder how a lawyer can expect to justify receiving stolen property and reselling it by using the old “I didn’t know it was stolen” excuse.

  21. Tee says:

    This is in addition to being morally bankrupt, someone who clearly isn’t very clever. I’ve been reading lots of people hinting she’s not the only one and I’d love to hear more about these tactics on the podcast maybe?

  22. Hope says:

    At the risk of straying too far from the topic, I’m wondering what a consumer can do to identify “self pubbing book millers” – to quote from Lisa F.

    I personally have become suspicious of authors who publish a book a month on the dot and have no author photo.

  23. Lisa F says:

    https://twitter.com/CrisSerruya/status/1097896775782989824

    According to the comments in this thread, she actually tried to rip off Nora Roberts.

  24. Lisa F says:

    @JJB – that’s what gets me about this situation – She paid (cheaply) for a ghostwriter and continues to think she has a reputation, and continues to be proud of work she didn’t do. “I’m not a plagiarist, I just didn’t write a word of a book I put my name on!”

  25. Emily C says:

    @Meg DesCamp- if you don’t mind, and it’s not getting into your business too much, can you help some of us who aren’t writers or publishers understand how ghostwriting works?
    As just a reader it feels like using a ghostwriter is maybe kinda putting your name to work you didn’t do and getting all the credit, but there’s clearly a legit business angle there.
    Plagiarism is stealing and clearly different, and anyone with integrity would not put their name on something stolen. Also if you have integrity you should be verifying anything put into the world with your name on it. I’m just curious how a valid and legit ghostwriter fits into the publishing cycle.

  26. Julia says:

    I get the distinct impression that English is her second language. The same can probably be said of her ghostwriters, which is why they resorted to plagiarism in the first place. I have to admit to using Fiverr as a source of inexpensive original cover art, but there’s a lot of shady and downright illegal services on offer – including fake book reviews.

  27. Jazzlet says:

    Emily C I’m not Meg DesCamp but the area I know of that often uses ghost writers is celebrity ‘autobiographies’ from say sports people who can’t write. The sports celeb tells the ghost writer the story of their life, the ghost writer turns what they are told into a well written tale.

  28. Lostshadows says:

    I’m side-eyeing that first response hard. How does plagiarizing five authors make it less believable?

  29. Alyssa says:

    Also noticed her book categories are suspect on Amazon. ROYAL AFFAIR is under nonfiction/politics and contemporary British literature. Several other books are also listed under contemporary British fiction. This is just a way to boost rank in the category, as she can say it’s #10 in its category. It’s not necessarily against the rules but it’s shady af to do it like that.

  30. Hope says:

    This has been running through my head on and off today and something I’m still wondering how this scheme worked technically. If I understand it correctly, one book has been found to contain whole passages from at least five other books/authors, right? How does one accomplish something like that? Do you put five books in a stack then flip through the pages and find what you want? Stringing passages together from five or more different books into a coherent narrative seems so unwieldy. Do you think the (actual) “author” created some kind of bot that he or she fed the text of these books into and it churned out the basic text for the first draft? It has to be something like this. Any other way would find someone working way too hard for his or her Fiverr money.

  31. Hope says:

    Okay, I see now that the concept of plagiarism software is in the original post – LOL

  32. […] happen to agree with the theory put forward on Smart Bitches and by Bree and by Alyssa Cole that Cris Serruya isn’t the only “author” […]

  33. Lynda X says:

    Am I the only one who suspects that Cristiane Serruya mentioned that she was a lawyer as an unspoken threat?

  34. quizzabella says:

    Hmm don’t have much of a problem with ghost writers (I’ve read “Swan” “written” by Naomi Campbell which is like several soap operas had a love child. There are goodness knows how many books out there by Jordan/Katie Price who is better known in the UK for getting her boobs out.
    This though is weird. Romance readers pick up on plagiarism very quickly especially when it comes to popular writers – hell the black footed ferrets got a boost in donations when Cassie Edwards stole passages from a book about them. Stealing from Milan, Dare and others whose works are probably on a lot of people’s keeper shelves is just baffling.It will and did take five minutes to call foul on a book that just lifted prose verbatim.

  35. Anonymous says:

    @Lynda X — Nope, me too.

  36. Lisa F says:

    @Lynda X – Nope, and she was foolish to do it because Courtney’s a lawyer too. No way she could win that battle.

    Even bigger revealtion by way of CM:
    https://twitter.com/courtneymilan/status/1097989151163506688
    http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2019/02/18/cristiane-serruya-is-a-copyright-infringer-a-plagiarist-and-an-idiot/comment-page-1/#comment-343766

    One of the ghostwriters has come out of the woodwork. It looks like CS gave two different ghost writers various scenes from various romances and told them that they ‘needed expanding’, perhaps as a ploy to get them to rewrite the plagiarized passages into a fresh, unrecognizable novel. Then she never paid them because ‘her daughter was sick’.

  37. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    “I am in this writing for a few years now.” One can’t help but wonder if her grasp of the law is as limited as her grasp of grammar.

  38. RebeccaA says:

    FYI I have been watching some PBS Digital Studios stuff and one was on Ghostwriting legitimately.

    Google: “Fear of GhostWriting (Feat. Lindsay Ellis) | It’s Lit! | PBS Digital Studios”

  39. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    Coincidentally, today (February 19) is Prevent Plagiarism Day:

    https://www.worldwideweirdholidays.com/february-19-prevent-plagiarism-day/

  40. Sadly, someone removed the “Plagiarised” message from the Goodreads entry. But the meltdown with ratings there and on Amazon is in full swing.

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