I like to pretend I'm above gossip. I'm not. I really do like gossip. I'm not overly fond of participating in it, but I do love to hear it. And if you say you don't then you should probably check yourself. Do you lean in slightly when there's "talk" going around... of course you do. We all do. Believing falsehoods and spreading falsehoods is bad. Listening is just human nature. Don't tell me it isn't. It is. And if you think it's not, then why are you here reading this?
Marinate in that for a bit.
I've been and active and passive participant in this industry since Y2K. Before 2000 I didn't have a computer, didn't know what RWA was. Was trying to figure out how to get a book published by borrowing industry books from the library. I was not an active part of shit back then. Since 2K when I joined RWA and the local chapter of RWA I've considered myself actively working in this industry. It would be 2004 before I sold my first book, which would be published eleven months later. I found out I was pregnant with Aubrey in October of 2005 and spent the next four years maintaining a membership, but not actively writing because... baby... and three teens. I didn't have time, energy, or desire to write about other people having sex and falling in love when I was actively trying to raise a family almost entirely alone. I had no help. I had a husband who... well, let's just not discuss that... I went to one of those "training" schools for ten months hoping to get a job in a medical office, just ended up owing a ton of money in student loans that I'm currently still on the hook for. So yeah, those four years were passive. I tried to keep up. I really did.
The last time I saw my father we discussed the writing, until that point I thought he didn't give a shit. I'm still not sure he did. But I think he was the only person in my family who did notice that it was something important to me. We talked about why I wasn't writing. And back then it was all smut. Like now. Ellora's Cave dominated the ebook markets. This was before Kindle took off and Amazon took over. So, we talked about why I wouldn't write smut and if I could and I said yes. And he said if it makes money and you don't mind, why do you care what other people think?
So, I did. I wrote Sunny with a Chance, also for EC.
Daddy died the following July.
And I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote.
And I published everything I wrote after he died.
This was 2010.
And it's been nothing but drama for the last 14 and a half years.
Constant industry drama. Constant publishers ripping off every one. Constant authors behaving badly. RWA doesn't even exist in the same form it was in in 2010. And there's still drama.
My take is this, and I will not be convinced otherwise.
Publishing is a shit-show. All levels of it. It's all a shit-show. If you wade into this shit, you damn well better have some waist high waders like you see in the fishing movies, because you're going to need 'em.
What's going on now? You're wondering.
Y'all it's so much it's hard to even keep up with.
An editor for a big 5 tweeted that they'd just rejected a book that was a combo of this and this (I don't remember either this) because it sucked (I'm paraphrasing... but just a tad) now would somebody write them a combo of that and that.
I believe they got fired posthaste.
And now the plagiarism thing with an author claiming an agent datamined her books over the course of three years and fed the entire concept, and actual passages of her books to another author who took the books to the NYT bestseller lists.
Y'ALL!
YYYYY'''''AAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!
I watched the first one happen in real time. I know it was real. I saw the tweet, I saw the blowback. The tweet disappeared, the follow-up was they were gone, from twitter (I will deadname that site until I die) from their agency, from everywhere.
Do I believe the second?
If the one hadn't just happened in real time, I would say no, that it's just a case of sour grapes and that if it's not word for word it's not plagiarism... but, from the indepth takes I've seen on it, combined with knowing that the one thing the publishing industry swears never happens, just happened live for the world to see... I'm kinda inclinded to give it some benefit of truth.
And it's not like the publisher who the agent/editor was associated with hasn't already been in hot water for deceptive practices.
No I am not naming names.
But the point is, I had a publisher who behaved the same way. I found bits of The 51st Thursday used in a book by a popular author while I was still with the same publisher. I confronted them. Pulled all of the passages, the descriptions, the name of the character they took, and the description of the clothing and why they were at the bar that night down to the letter, but nothing came of it. They played it off. Nothing definitive. The plagiarized passages were changed to not be word for word, but... I had no recourse and I won't give that author the time of day.
Do people steal your work? Yes. Your work is stolen. Your work can be plagiarized, and if you are lucky you'll have someone in your corner who has your back. I've never had that. Do I know plagiarizers? Absolutely. I was once, I won't say friends, but unfortunately I was in their circle for a while, who stole whole books and renamed and re-gendered characters. She was dealt with. Will it happen to you? Hopefully not. Hopefully with the new shit going on, the publishing industry will get it's shit together, but it's been 24 years since I stepped into this muck, so I've been around long enough, watching from the sidelines, to say it'll get better for a while, then they'll go back to doing exactly what they do. And now with all the AI written books out there... it's a fucking free-for-all.
Do what you have to do to protect yourself. Trust nobody. And if they pull out the "we're family" line... RUN!
Or do what I did... just get the hell out of it.
Join me tomorrow for more this shit sucks, why am I still here... content.
Peace,
Mercy
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