IWSG - The Backlash of Plagiarism

It’s the first Wednesday of the month.

Time for Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

And this month, I’m one of Alex’s minions and

will be visiting as many ISWG posts in my assigned section as I can.

Sooooo…I had all these good things I wanted to share regarding my progress on Amazon.  With the assistance of a well-liked promoter who’s helping me spread the word of a forthcoming event, I was able to reach the attention of a particularly influential book blogger who then subsequently posted her intention to read my book on both her Facebook page and my book’s Goodreads page.  

As a result, I enjoyed a profusion of GR TBRs and Amazon sales, and my rank dropped to its lowest level ever in the mid 4-digit arena.  That was an amazing moment for me.

But then this thing exploded on the Internet at about the same time and kind of sucked the wind from my sails. 

Seems there was a new contemporary romance released on Amazon and Barnes & Noble called Amazingly Broken.  It was all the rage and immediately became an Amazon bestseller.  Shortly thereafter, romance book blogger,  Jane Litte of Dear Author, noticed some passages in this new book that sounded eerily similar to two other books she’d read, reviewed, and loved—Tammara Webber’s Easy and Jamie McGuire’s Beautiful Disaster.

Of course, the online book blogging community went ape over this revelation, with good reason, I imagine, as they take a great deal of their time to read and review books for many indie and small press authors who otherwise get very little publicity.  The trouble was, these bloggers, especially Jane Litte, who felt somehow betrayed even though they’d received the books for free and enjoyed it enough to give it 5 stars, immediately became suspicious of all indie and small press authors and proceeded to conduct a witch hunt of sorts, calling out authors who use pen names or don’t use headshots for their avatars as probable fakes and plagiarists. Funny thing is, Jane Litte is a pen name, too.  

While I understand their anger at feeling duped and am just as outraged by this brazen incident as they are, the backlash their reactions are having on indie and small press authors is significant.  Many are now being frozen out, or made to prove who they are and that they actually wrote what they’re claiming is their book.  So now these bloggers, who proudly proclaim to support and promote indie authors, are lashing out at them.  And just as word and reaction to this event has spread like wildfire among the blogging community, so has the fear this backlash has created spread among us hard-working, honest, and legitimate authors.

Compliments of GR user Candace

As if it wasn’t already hard enough to find and convince a highly respected and heavily followed book blogger to consider reading, reviewing, and promoting our books, now we have to prove we are legitimate, all because one wannabe “writer” decided to take the lazy way and steal the work of others.  While I am highly irritated at those bloggers who lashed out so hatefully, especially Jane Litte who continues her march on this witch hunt, I also have an issue with this fake author, Jordin Williams, who's making it hard on the rest of us.  But that’s as much time and effort I’m willing to give these thieves and haters.  Okay, rant over.