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Romancelandia hit by plagiarism

redzinger

redzinger

Literotica Guru
Joined
Feb 17, 2007
Posts
1,234
Some of the biggest names have discovered their work has been cut and pasted into Frankennovels.

#CopyPasteCris if you want to check it out. The plagiarist claims she bought the writing off Fiverr. She's managed to make herself a USAT bestselling novelist, and had a novel entered for a RITA.

Also, Girlonthenet is also having her blogs scraped wholesale as soon as she publishes. Even the warning that if it's being published anywhere but her own website, then it's plagiarised.
 
Yeah I have read reports from a huge romance author. Absolutely disgusting. You would think maybe an awards can do their damn homework. But no, guess not.
 
redzinger said:
#CopyPasteCris if you want to check it out. The plagiarist claims she bought the writing off Fiverr. She's managed to make herself a USAT bestselling novelist, and had a novel entered for a RITA.
Click to expand...

It's a creative excuse, I'll give her that. "I didn't steal your work, I paid somebody else a pittance to write my books for me and was SHOCKED to discover that they stole your work!"

Before producing the ghost-writer excuse, she also tweeted "I love your books, @TessaDare and I am a lawyer. I'd never do such a thing." So I guess she didn't even read the ghost-written material to notice that it copied large chunks of text verbatim from the books she loved?
 
For me, the most surprising things about #CopyPasteCris is that she appears to be using her real name to do this, & that she hasn't deactivated her accounts to keep a low profile.

Well, and how outraged everyone is considering it's been going on here for years and years.
 
Well, it seems Faleena Hopkins of #cockygate infamy is no longer the most despised “writer” of romances in the America’s.
 
I've read about this 'boxed set' scam before.

You get together with other authors and pay to be in a release to get onto the USA Today bestseller list.

To me, that's vanity publishing. And a scam.

All these iffy authors and iffy doings have joined in with this kind of stuff.

http://www.courtneymilan.com/rambli...ger-a-plagiarist-and-an-idiot/comment-page-1/

There's a few people in the comments who admit to knowing her through that.
 
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The plot thickens. A couple of Serruya's ghostwriters have come forth - looks like she may have plagiarised scenes and then passed them to ghostwriters to "expand" in the hope that they'd rewrite enough to hide her footprints.

And then she stiffed at least one of the ghostwriters. Great way to ensure they stay quiet.
 
Bramblethorn said:
The plot thickens. A couple of Serruya's ghostwriters have come forth - looks like she may have plagiarised scenes and then passed them to ghostwriters to "expand" in the hope that they'd rewrite enough to hide her footprints.

And then she stiffed at least one of the ghostwriters. Great way to ensure they stay quiet.
Click to expand...
From the original author's analysis, it seems pretty obvious to me that serruya or a ghost-writer has done a basic attempt to "rewrite" the original content with different filler, but just gets lazy and gives the game away.

Charming bunch, these romance writers. They make us smut writers seem almost... respectable.
 
electricblue66 said:
Charming bunch, these romance writers. They make us smut writers seem almost... respectable.
Click to expand...

There's a lot of money in 'bestselling' romances.

There's apparently groups on Facebook where all they talk about is how to do the latest scam. Groups where they say you must be able to release a book a month, and any form of editing is optional. (Quality and plot be damned.)

Also, groups who organise the multiple-author scams.

Many think it's a victimless crime. And Amazon doesn't give a damn. :rolleyes:
 
redzinger said:
There's a lot of money in 'bestselling' romances.

There's apparently groups on Facebook where all they talk about is how to do the latest scam. Groups where they say you must be able to release a book a month, and any form of editing is optional. (Quality and plot be damned.)

Also, groups who organise the multiple-author scams.

Many think it's a victimless crime. And Amazon doesn't give a damn. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

IMHO Amazon is actually more to blame for a lot of this than anyone. They provide the platform for these unethical practices to flourish in and take no responsibility for the results.
 
ChloeTzang said:
IMHO Amazon is actually more to blame for a lot of this than anyone. They provide the platform for these unethical practices to flourish in and take no responsibility for the results.
Click to expand...

And Amazon are the ones who could most easily catch this kind of plagiarism, if they cared to do so.
 
Bramblethorn said:
And Amazon are the ones who could most easily catch this kind of plagiarism, if they cared to do so.
Click to expand...

electricblue66 said:
Money comes before ethics, it seems. Still, if people keep mindlessly buying this junk, are they victims or just stupid?
Click to expand...

I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere in the past, but since I haven't seen it I'll ask; Has Literotica.com ever considered selling content? It seems ironic that so much of the free content on here gets pirated away for a profit somewhere else.

I never buy e-books, so I'm pretty naive when it comes to all this.
 
yukonnights said:
I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere in the past, but since I haven't seen it I'll ask; Has Literotica.com ever considered selling content? It seems ironic that so much of the free content on here gets pirated away for a profit somewhere else.

I never buy e-books, so I'm pretty naive when it comes to all this.
Click to expand...
A couple of anthologies exist, but they're ancient history.

https://www.literotica.com/book/
 
electricblue66 said:
Money comes before ethics, it seems. Still, if people keep mindlessly buying this junk, are they victims or just stupid?
Click to expand...

People buy based on the multiple, gushing, fabricated reviews. If a book is bad, many just stop reading. Few leave reviews or ask for a refund.

Most readers are unaware of the scams and how they work. When I came across book stuffing, I had no idea what it was or how it damaged other authors, even as an author myself.

The thing is, non-stuffing authors were the victims of stuffing as it sent them down the bestseller lists, reducing visibility & sales, & massively reducing their share of the KU pot.

Readers were only victims in that finding good books was made drastically more difficult, and many left KU.
 
electricblue66 said:
Money comes before ethics, it seems. Still, if people keep mindlessly buying this junk, are they victims or just stupid?
Click to expand...

I don't think there will be a lot of people buying Serruya's work from here. Romance fans have a strong sense of community and they don't take kindly to this sort of thing.

The icing on the cake is that one of the authors she stole from (Courtney Milan) is a former law professor, so this is likely to get expensive for her.
 
Bramblethorn said:
I don't think there will be a lot of people buying Serruya's work from here. Romance fans have a strong sense of community and they don't take kindly to this sort of thing.

The icing on the cake is that one of the authors she stole from (Courtney Milan) is a former law professor, so this is likely to get expensive for her.
Click to expand...

Yep, plus Harlequin and another big-name publisher. They've identified over 26 books so far.

The RWA will have 'her' real details too - it's a condition of membership apparently.
 
Bramblethorn said:
I don't think there will be a lot of people buying Serruya's work from here. Romance fans have a strong sense of community and they don't take kindly to this sort of thing.
Click to expand...

True, and she was foolish enough to do it under her real name, so she's basically shot herself down there. There's not much of a comeback from this and a lot of other writers knew her and it seems like she plagiarized from a lot of them.

I've strayed across a few other authors who that's happened to, and it's sad to see but I think Serruya at least is toast and quickly too.

redzinger said:
Yep, plus Harlequin and another big-name publisher. They've identified over 26 books so far.
Click to expand...

Wowee zowee. :eek: I bet Faleena Hopkins is feeling the weight lifting from her no longer cocky shoulders!
 
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