# Plagiarism strikes again #CopyPasteCris



## IreneP (Jun 19, 2012)

Someone was stupid enough to plagiarize Courtney Milan and a bunch of other well-known romance authors.

Courtney's blog
www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2019/02/18/cristiane-serruya-is-a-copyright-infringer-a-plagiarist-and-an-idiot/

The discussion
https://twitter.com/hashtag/CopyPasteCris?src=hash

I'm with the peeps who are wondering how much effort it took to cut/paste passages from so many sources. Harder than just writing the darn thing imo.


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## Anna_ (Jan 18, 2015)

I saw this a few hours ago. It's an ugly situation.


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## Guest (Feb 19, 2019)

IreneP said:


> I'm with the peeps who are wondering how much effort it took to cut/paste passages from so many sources. Harder than just writing the darn thing imo.


That's what I thought! LOL

I see she has responded to say she uses ghostwriters from Fiverr and one of them did it. It certainly highlights the very real risks involved of using cheap ghostwriters. 
Certainly a ballsey move to enter a ghost written book into the RITAs, I would have thought the fact she didn't write it would have made it ineligible?


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

IreneP said:


> I'm with the peeps who are wondering how much effort it took to cut/paste passages from so many sources. Harder than just writing the darn thing imo.


I've always thought this. Whether it's plagiarism, or other scamming methods.... they sound like just as much work as actually writing. And not nearly as fun, I'm sure.


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

I ran into this as a reader. I found a book that stole from a movie scene by scene. Worst of all, the author totally butchered the story to where things didn't make sense and completely killed what made the movie so good (if a bit cheesy).



Jena H said:


> I've always thought this. Whether it's plagiarism, or other scamming methods.... they sound like just as much work as actually writing. And not nearly as fun, I'm sure.


I believe that people who have to copy cannot create themselves. So this probably was a time saver on the part of whoever wrote it (ghostwriter or the author).


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

It's very difficult to piecemeal the actual story here.

So a romance author uses ghostwriters, and one of the ghostwriters took bits and pieces of what she ghost-wrote, and put it into a book of her own?

Very interesting.


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

jb1111 said:


> It's very difficult to piecemeal the actual story here.
> 
> So a romance author uses ghostwriters, and one of the ghostwriters took bits and pieces of what she ghost-wrote, and put it into a book of her own?
> 
> Very interesting.


No. An author published a book that lifted several passages from multiple authors. When it was discovered, the author blamed the ghostwriter. The lifted sources came from authors who aren't likely to utilize ghostwriters.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

Milan is asking the content miller to keep track of the accounting on the offending books, and for "similarly situated" authors to get in touch.

Heh.


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

jb1111 said:


> It's very difficult to piecemeal the actual story here.
> 
> So a romance author uses ghostwriters, and one of the ghostwriters took bits and pieces of what she ghost-wrote, and put it into a book of her own?
> 
> Very interesting.


No. A foreign writer hired ghostwriters from Fiverr who stole passages from famous romance writers and created new manuscripts for the foreign writer. The foreign writer said that they were unaware that their ghostwriter plagiarized well-known American writers, and they have taken steps to remove the content. However, this foreign writer follows several of these authors through her Bookbub account, so it's questionable as to how ignorant she was of the content being stolen.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

Moist_Tissue said:


> No. A foreign writer hired ghostwriters from Fiverr who stole passages from famous romance writers and created new manuscripts for the foreign writer. The foreign writer said that they were unaware that their ghostwriter plagiarized well-known American writers, and they have taken steps to remove the content. However, this foreign writer follows several of these authors through her Bookbub account, so it's questionable as to how ignorant she was of the content being stolen.


Courtney Milan said two people contacted her claiming to have worked with the content miller. The miller allegedly gives the writers scenes to make into a book.

If true, the miller knows very well that it's plagiarism.

At least one of the writers claimed the miller gave a sob story about not being able to pay the writer.

Don't believe anything this content miller is saying.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

https://twitter.com/harmony_writes/status/1097996108561895424

Third person claiming content miller's MO is to give ghostwriters a bunch of scenes. The ghostwriter says she is glad she didn't take the job.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Thanks for the clarifications.

Trying to gather a story through bizarrely twisting Twitter feeds is a bit confusing at times.


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## mike h (Dec 6, 2017)

For those shocked souls who think this is rarely occurring innocent plagiarism, I know some princes in Nigeria who want to talk to you about getting their millions of dollars out of the country. Book piracy, plagiarism, etc. It lives and breathes every day. Every book ever given away on Bookfunnel and Prolific works probably has a home on some foreign piracy site. Once books went digital, they became no different than music. Download any book and you have a digital file that can be resold or copy pasted. The big shocker is that so few seem to get busted for it.


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## LD (Aug 29, 2018)

Ava Glass said:


> https://twitter.com/harmony_writes/status/1097996108561895424
> 
> Third person claiming content miller's MO is to give ghostwriters a bunch of scenes. The ghostwriter says she is glad she didn't take the job.


That is so strange. What's the point of hiring a ghostwriter then if she's already doing all the "work"?


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## Lady Runa (May 27, 2012)

LD said:


> That is so strange. What's the point of hiring a ghostwriter then if she's already doing all the "work"?


The scenes that, quote, "she needed help with". You'd think she was talking about a mess that had to be turned into something readable. Only in this case, it must have been a bunch of non-related excerpts (probably complete with different names for characters) to be "streamlined" into a single story.

Really, I agree, writing the whole thing from scratch would have been waaay easier!

I'm surprised her Goodreads profile is still up.


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## LD (Aug 29, 2018)

Lady Runa said:


> The scenes that, quote, "she needed help with". You'd think she was talking about a mess that had to be turned into something readable. Only in this case, it must have been a bunch of non-related excerpts (probably complete with different names for characters) to be "streamlined" into a single story.
> 
> Really, I agree, writing the whole thing from scratch would have been waaay easier!
> 
> I'm surprised her Goodreads profile is still up.


As a slow writer, I can see how it would be easier to plagiarize, but if she's going to all that trouble to set it up, she might as well have saved herself the money of hiring ghostwriters. Of course, I'm not condoning plagiarism, just saying it's weird the way she went about doing it.


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## readingril (Oct 29, 2010)

I'm not a writer, just an interested romance reader following this. It's criminal the number of authors she's plagiarized - it keeps rising!


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I too am a romance reader following this. It is disgusting. What kind of [person] thinks they can get away with this. Romance readers have really good memories. Many of us read a lot and yet we can remember scenes from books we read 20 years ago. Especially with those type of authors that were plagiarized.

When I looked that [ ] book packager up on goodreads I noted all those rah rah 5 star reviews from these review companies like Hidden Gem and others I keep seeing advertised here and authors using. And a lot of those wanna be blogs that are very rampant in romance. I said it before. I do not trust any of the current arc reviews. Anytime there is any connection between reviewer and author its untrustworthy. This just proves that to me again. Lots of "got free from author" "got free from this and that" on those books by this thief. Only time I listen if its a reader I trust like on our reader threads here and one of the handful of romance blogs that been around for a long time and have a trusted track record.

Now how much more of this garbage is out there.

_Two one-word changes, at the brackets. Drop me a PM if you have any questions. - Becca_


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## PhoenixFromTheAshes (Oct 1, 2018)

Allow me to note that the "author" in question -- going by reviews, alsobots and other 'tells' -- appears to have been following the advice of the 'mastermind' group, and was likely involved in their newsletter swaps. In addition, one of the books with plagiarized text, Damaged Love, in 2017 was part of a 20-book box run via a Pronoun account affiliated with a bad actor whose KDP account was terminated for cause. That box hit the USAT list, "earning" this "author" letters. The "author" also filed a DMCA with Google to have that box and her singles removed from site search results for...copyright infringements.

(Citations at

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1097945390945579008)

One of the books with plagiarized text was also entered into the Rita Awards, the romance genre's most prestigious competition.

Something like 29 books and 23 authors have been uncovered so far as being targets of infringement, including some really big names with big pubs with deep pockets. Also worth a read by all indies for insight as to why filing copyrights in the US might be a good thing: https://twitter.com/courtneymilan/status/1098226647222743040

The kicker: The "author" appears to actually be a lawyer in Brazil as her bio touts. Seems we've been seeing a lot of lawyers go darkside lately. Sad.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

People who say "it's easier to just write the book" are forgetting that different people have different skills. It may be easier for you and me to write that book, but for someone with effective organizational skills (not saying they are good, merely effective) it may well be easier to organize others to create the "book," rather like a good factory manager could probably organize people and machines to assemble anything from cars to toys.

This is little different from the concept of creating low-quality knockoffs of high-end products, except in digital form. Any time there's money to be scammed from consumers, someone will try.


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## readingril (Oct 29, 2010)

I am assuming this is The Nora Roberts on Courtney Milan's blog:


I am assuming this is The Nora Roberts on Courtney Milan's blog:


Nora Roberts says:	
February 20, 2019 at 7:57 am

Apparently, at least two of my books were plagiarized by this person. Having dealt with this before, I won’t play nice. First, I’ll speak to my agent this morning and engage a lawyer. I strongly recommend you, Courtney, and anyone else she stole from do the same. It won’t be easy, it won’t be pretty, but we have to stand up for our work. In this case, you aren’t alone. Feel free to email me if you want to discuss, or just need some emotional support.


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## Joseph Malik (Jul 12, 2016)

readingril said:


> Nora Roberts says:
> February 20, 2019 at 7:57 am
> 
> Apparently, at least two of my books were plagiarized by this person. Having dealt with this before, I won't play nice. First, I'll speak to my agent this morning and engage a lawyer. I strongly recommend you, Courtney, and anyone else she stole from do the same. It won't be easy, it won't be pretty, but we have to stand up for our work. In this case, you aren't alone. Feel free to email me if you want to discuss, or just need some emotional support.


And thus did it begin in accordance with the prophecy.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Looks like Eve is gonna kick some butt.   (character of the JD Robb series by Lady Nora)


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

The silver lining of this is that it will now be elevated in priority above the "Rebecca Ann Nunes level" and into the stratosphere of the big established authors and publishers.

https://rachelannnunes.com/my-novel-has-been-plagiarized/

Sometimes, the pain and ugliness has to rise beyond what we would consider outrageous to get noticed.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

In addition to hoping that the authors can get restitution and justice, I hope this sparks conversations about using ghostwriters.


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## readingril (Oct 29, 2010)

Atunah said:


> Looks like Eve is gonna kick some butt.  (character of the JD Robb series by Lady Nora)


Yeah.... somewhere I saw in my reading yesterday a tweet that La Nora created a character with the surname Dailey in one of the In Death books and wasn't very nice to the character. Can't find it now with the hundreds that rolled by me. 

found them:

@CorrinaLawson

"I you steal from me, I will shove my hand down your throat and pull your heart out." Nora Roberts, at an RT panel, abt being plagiarized by Janet Dailey. #CopyPasteCris Seemed relevant today.

Corrina Lawson
‏ @CorrinaLawson
Feb 19

Note: NR once created a villain for Eve Dallas called J Daily for an In Death bk and had Dallas beat the crap out of her at the end.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

David VanDyke said:


> People who say "it's easier to just write the book" are forgetting that different people have different skills. It may be easier for you and me to write that book, but for someone with effective organizational skills (not saying they are good, merely effective) it may well be easier to organize others to create the "book," rather like a good factory manager could probably organize people and machines to assemble anything from cars to toys.
> 
> This is little different from the concept of creating low-quality knockoffs of high-end products, except in digital form. Any time there's money to be scammed from consumers, someone will try.


It's not necessarily easier to write the book. But it's easier to ask a ghostwriter to write a new book vs. copying and pasting random snippets. (You can literally do nothing after you give the GW instructions). I can't even understand what logic would compel someone to copy and paste snippets of books. I get swiping a plot line, a cover, a title, but every third sentence? What?

It's not stealing to break down the structure of a book, write an outline with new characters, hand the outline to a ghostwriter. So long as you change the relevant details, you're creating a completely new story. It's all in the execution.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

PhoenixFromTheAshes said:


> One of the books with plagiarized text was also entered into the Rita Awards, the romance genre's most prestigious competition.


So, it looks as if this offending author has been doing this for some time, and only now it got noticed?

That's a bit strange. I mean, I get the idea that romance readers and writers are fairly close-knit -- at least, that's the impression I got from reading some of the comments on the blog post quoted in this thread, as well as the Twitter thread. If she had been ripping off stuff all along, wouldn't someone have noticed earlier on?


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

jb1111 said:


> So, it looks as if this offending author has been doing this for some time, and only now it got noticed?
> 
> That's a bit strange. I mean, I get the idea that romance readers and writers are fairly close-knit -- at least, that's the impression I got from reading some of the comments on the blog post quoted in this thread, as well as the Twitter thread. If she had been ripping off stuff all along, wouldn't someone have noticed earlier on?


Not necessarily. Most authors inherently trust other authors and almost every instance where an author discovers their work has been plagiarized, it's because a reader sends them an email. They don't go looking for this stuff. So unless a reader catches it and notifies the original author, no one is the wiser.

This is pretty egregious. From what I've pieced together (btw, she also was a Kindle Scout winner), the claim of 30 plus books by 27 different authors isn't for one book, but several books. It might have been a case where she got away with similarities and just got lazier with later books. Or it might have been something else entirely. Someone share some anecdotal information about another author/publisher CS was working with and maybe she took advice that wasn't the most sound.

Regardless, there are some big names who got lifted (Nora Roberts is one and now Hallmark, who optioned the book for a movie), it honestly gets worse and worse with each passing hour.


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## LD (Aug 29, 2018)

readingril said:


> I am assuming this is The Nora Roberts on Courtney Milan's blog:
> 
> I am assuming this is The Nora Roberts on Courtney Milan's blog:
> 
> ...


Oh, boy, things are about to get real ugly for this person. [ ] The others plagiarized would have been scary, but this, the publisher's definitely gonna protect Nora, on top of Nora's own money and name. Though I wonder how that person being from Brazil affects things.

_One sentence removed for profanity. Drop me a PM if you have any questions. - Becca_

I specifically didn't spell the word out. It was not profanity.


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

I can't believe anyone would plagiarize Nora Roberts. She is only the most famous writer in the universe. Some people are really dumb.


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## Morgan Worth (May 6, 2017)

Rose Andrews said:


> I can't believe anyone would plagiarize Nora Roberts. She is only the most famous writer in the universe. Some people are really dumb.


Maybe this person isn't a book lover or reader at all and had no idea how well-known these authors are? No clue that they have thousands upon thousands of superfans? That would explain a lot. But then, presumably she did some market research in order to make her little business venture a "success," so she had to have an idea how many books they'd sold. Clearly, she underestimated readers and the book community in general.

Maybe she's just one of those people who always thinks she's smarter than everyone else and can get away with anything. And she happened to try to get away with "writing" best-selling books.


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

Morgan Worth said:


> Maybe this person isn't a book lover or reader at all and had no idea how well-known these authors are? No clue that they have thousands upon thousands of superfans? That would explain a lot. But then, presumably she did some market research in order to make her little business venture a "success," so she had to have an idea how many books they'd sold. Clearly, she underestimated readers and the book community in general.
> 
> Maybe she's just one of those people who always thinks she's smarter than everyone else and can get away with anything. And she happened to try to get away with "writing" best-selling books.


Yes, I agree. It's just surprising that anyone wanting to "make it" in romance wouldn't know that Courtney Milan and Nora Roberts are authors who basically rule the roost. Just...wow. You want to be a romance writer but can't do it yourself, even with help? Again, such little respect for literature and the romance genre in general. What a disappointment.


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## Anka (Jan 25, 2019)

My heart really goes out to all the authors that #copypastecris stole from. I can't imagine how anger-inducing and violating it must feel to see lines you poured yourself into lifted and resold. I think we all know that it takes an unbelievable amount of time and work to get prose just how you want them. And if the ghosts who are coming forward are speaking the truth, Cris just stole a bunch of passages she liked and told them to stitch it together.

It's all around awful. Calling the situation "unethical" doesn't even scratch the surface.


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## ImaWriter (Aug 12, 2015)

From Goodreads. The irony is killing me.


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## IreneP (Jun 19, 2012)

ImaWriter said:


> From Goodreads. The irony is killing me.


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## LD (Aug 29, 2018)

Morgan Worth said:


> Maybe this person isn't a book lover or reader at all and had no idea how well-known these authors are? No clue that they have thousands upon thousands of superfans? That would explain a lot. But then, presumably she did some market research in order to make her little business venture a "success," so she had to have an idea how many books they'd sold. Clearly, she underestimated readers and the book community in general.
> 
> Maybe she's just one of those people who always thinks she's smarter than everyone else and can get away with anything. And she happened to try to get away with "writing" best-selling books.


She'd have to live under a rock to not know who Nora Roberts was. I don't read fantasy, but I know who JK Rowlings is. Lots of other authors I've never read, but they're big enough names that I've heard of them -- Stephen King, Brandon Sanderson, Ken Follett, Neil Gaiman, etc. And she (the plagiarizer) wrote romance. She had to have known who Nora Roberts was. No, she knew who Nora Roberts was--it was why she was targeted. This person specifically plagiarized well-known authors, from the names I've seen so far.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

I think this exposes a real risk facing authors who use ghostwriters, tbh. I appreciate that the particulars of this case may not end up being pertinent to the question but: an author hiring a ghostwriter could very well be getting plagiarized writing in return, and not know it. There's little incentive for the prepaid ghostwriter who isn't putting their name on the book in the first place to NOT do this, if it makes it go faster.


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

GeneDoucette said:


> I think this exposes a real risk facing authors who use ghostwriters, tbh. I appreciate that the particulars of this case may not end up being pertinent to the question but: an author hiring a ghostwriter could very well be getting plagiarized writing in return, and not know it. There's little incentive for the prepaid ghostwriter who isn't putting their name on the book in the first place to NOT do this, if it makes it go faster.


The plagiarism has absolutely nothing to do with any ghostwriters.

Regardless of your feeling toward them, in this specific case, the "author" copy and pasted passages into a document, sent them to a ghostwriter asking them to help clean it up, ghostwriter sent it back (and at least one never got paid for their work). There is literally no incentive for a ghostwriter to plagiarize and it's disingenuous to imply ghostwriters have motivation to plagiarize more than any other person making a living by writing.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

RPatton said:


> The plagiarism has absolutely nothing to do with any ghostwriters.
> 
> Regardless of your feeling toward them, in this specific case, the "author" copy and pasted passages into a document, sent them to a ghostwriter asking them to help clean it up, ghostwriter sent it back (and at least one never got paid for their work). There is literally no incentive for a ghostwriter to plagiarize and it's disingenuous to imply ghostwriters have motivation to plagiarize more than any other person making a living by writing.


Literally no incentive except the faster they work the more they get paid, and their names aren't on the finished product, and they get paid before the book is released.

But sure.


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## Morgan Worth (May 6, 2017)

LD said:


> She'd have to live under a rock to not know who Nora Roberts was. I don't read fantasy, but I know who JK Rowlings is. Lots of other authors I've never read, but they're big enough names that I've heard of them -- Stephen King, Brandon Sanderson, Ken Follett, Neil Gaiman, etc. And she (the plagiarizer) wrote romance. She had to have known who Nora Roberts was. No, she knew who Nora Roberts was--it was why she was targeted. This person specifically plagiarized well-known authors, from the names I've seen so far.


Are we sure she wrote romance, though? Maybe it was all ghost-written or stolen. She's either so full of herself that she thinks she can get away with anything, or she doesn't understand the world of BOOKS, in any genre.


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## LD (Aug 29, 2018)

Morgan Worth said:


> Are we sure she wrote romance, though? Maybe it was all ghost-written or stolen. She's either so full of herself that she thinks she can get away with anything, or she doesn't understand the world of BOOKS, in any genre.


Or at least that's how she was marketing herself as doing. She got all the way to earning letters and also submitted her book for a RITA, so she had to have been in it at least knee deep to understand the world enough. It's definitely not a lack of awareness. Is she a victim or a perpetrator? That's all that's left to answer, but from the facts coming in, it looks more like the latter.


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## Lady Runa (May 27, 2012)

Crystal_ said:


> It's not necessarily easier to write the book. But it's easier to ask a ghostwriter to write a new book vs. copying and pasting random snippets. (You can literally do nothing after you give the GW instructions). I can't even understand what logic would compel someone to copy and paste snippets of books. I get swiping a plot line, a cover, a title, but every third sentence? What?
> 
> It's not stealing to break down the structure of a book, write an outline with new characters, hand the outline to a ghostwriter. So long as you change the relevant details, you're creating a completely new story. It's all in the execution.


Exactly what I meant. Just the sheer drudgery of copying and pasting snippets of sentences here and there is overwhelming. You need to be a masochist to do this for a living.


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## Max N. (Jun 14, 2018)

I ghostwrite. I've had my fair share of good and toxic clients. One guy ran off with my money (about $1400, and it's tough getting it back) another suddenly quit on me claiming I copy pasted the work from somewhere, when it was one book (and a stepbrother romance at that - I heard these were being banned on Amazon) after I did 43 for her (and some of those were in serial form, so 5 parts) and there were no other issues. This really hurt for me to hear, because, for every book she sent me, I started from scratch. Even when I received a plot and the plots seemed to be the same with little details like names and settings changed but the general tone remains the same. More than ten of them had the same ending (can't blame this on her plots, since it's romance; we have the happy ending with a wedding and/or baby on the way/being born.) But even then, I didn't go back to old scenes, I wrote every single one from the beginning, and even if they turned out somewhat similar (can't help that, it's the same scene just written over and over) there's no way it's copypasted. 

I sent her all the proofs that I did everything myself, including notes and documents I spread the plot into before turning it into a story, and in the end, she took it all back and is in the middle of paying me all she owes me, but we're done. I was churning out 40k words every 1-2 weeks for this author, got carpal tunnel for it, and she insulted me so much, that even if she threw work at me, I'd rather not take it. I still have clients I met back in 2016 when I started for short and full-length stories, and I still get new jobs as long as I advertise my services. I don't think I'm the best writer, but if I can write 40+ books for more than one person and they still want more, then it's at least good. It's not a lie that there are people, even ghostwriters, who would plagiarize for the easy cash, but not every ghostwriter is like that. I'm just trying to make a living like any writer, and ghostwriting was a fast way to make money I can use on my own books, since I have 3 series I'm working on with between 5-15 books each, not to mention several WIPs, and 15 books sent to a publisher.


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

Nora Roberts has made an official statement, and it's a doozy. Well worth reading.

https://fallintothestory.com/plagiarism-then-and-now/


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

GeneDoucette said:


> I think this exposes a real risk facing authors who use ghostwriters, tbh. I appreciate that the particulars of this case may not end up being pertinent to the question but: an author hiring a ghostwriter could very well be getting plagiarized writing in return, and not know it. There's little incentive for the prepaid ghostwriter who isn't putting their name on the book in the first place to NOT do this, if it makes it go faster.


You could say the same thing about cover artists. It's not true though. The real money for contractors is in long term relationships. If a GW delivers plagiarized content, they might get paid once. But if they're discovered, they've burned that bridge and damaged their reputation. Now, they aren't getting any more work from that publisher or that publisher's contacts.

Think about your latest cover designer. Did you recommend them to friends after you got a great cover back? Did you get a rec from friends? Did you decide to work with them again? Or did you find them too difficult and work with someone else? I've done all of those things, based on the quality of the work, the originality of the work, and the ease of booking/working with the designer.

A lot of writers are anti-ghostwriter or anti-publisher who uses ghostwriters. That knee-jerk reaction has a lot of people overlooking the nature of a ghostwriter/publisher relationship. There's nothing wrong with ghostwriting or using ghostwriters as long as the ghostwriter is well paid and writing original content. I have friends who ghostwrite and they're hard workers who do their best to produce great content.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Crystal_ said:


> A lot of writers are anti-ghostwriter or anti-publisher who uses ghostwriters. That knee-jerk reaction has a lot of people overlooking the nature of a ghostwriter/publisher relationship. There's nothing wrong with ghostwriting or using ghostwriters as long as the ghostwriter is well paid and writing original content. I have friends who ghostwrite and they're hard workers who do their best to produce great content.


To me, ghostwriting fiction without proper disclosure/attribution is dishonest. I'm not against book doctors or people helping others write a book, just be honest and upfront with readers about it.

Nora Roberts said it well:

_"I personally don't believe fiction writers should use ghosts. Celebrity auto-biographies and such, that's the job. If a fiction writer uses a ghost to help flesh out a book, or hires a book doctor to whip a book into shape, I strongly believe that person should be acknowledged--on the book.

The reader deserves honesty. The reader's entitled to know she's buying the author's--the one whose name's on the book--work, not somebody that writer hired for speed or convenience. And I'll state here as I have before. If a book has my name on it, I wrote it. Every word of it."_


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## PermaStudent (Apr 21, 2015)

RPatton said:


> Nora Roberts has made an official statement, and it's a doozy. Well worth reading.
> 
> https://fallintothestory.com/plagiarism-then-and-now/


I love Nora Roberts, and I love this statement.

It's not really about the ghostwriters. It's about how they were used by this plagiarist, and recent trends in publishing that have created massive potential (and even incentive) for abuse.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Monique said:


> To me, ghostwriting fiction without proper disclosure/attribution is dishonest. I'm not against book doctors or people helping others write a book, just be honest and upfront with readers about it.
> 
> Nora Roberts said it well:
> 
> ...


I don't see how this has any relevance to the discussion of whether or not a GW would plagiarize or not.

I don't really care whether or not someone uses GW. As long as they're publishing high quality books, I don't care how they put them out there or who wrote them. Readers are entitled to a good, consistent book, but they aren't entitled to details about an author/publisher's life and process.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Crystal_ said:


> I don't see how this has any relevance to the discussion of whether or not a GW would plagiarize or not.
> 
> I don't really care whether or not someone uses GW. As long as they're publishing high quality books, I don't care how they put them out there or who wrote them. Readers are entitled to a good, consistent book, but they aren't entitled to details about an author/publisher's life and process.


My post was in response to your post about ghostwriting in general--a topic worthy of discussion, imo. You expressed that you don't care if people use ghosts. I posted a differing opinion with a quote from another author who summed up my feelings pretty well. Isn't that what discussion boards are for?

It should be carved out of this so it's not lost, though.


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

Monique said:


> To me, ghostwriting fiction without proper disclosure/attribution is dishonest. I'm not against book doctors or people helping others write a book, just be honest and upfront with readers about it.
> 
> Nora Roberts said it well:
> 
> ...


As a former ghostwriter, I fully agree with this. The moral quandry is why I stopped even though the money was good. There are books out there probably doing better than mine that I wrote but am not getting the credit for. J/s.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

No one said anything remotely related to suffering for art. That feels a lot like a straw man. 

Nora explained well by it feels dishonest in fiction (note that's not the same as celeb auto-biographies and the like). A pen name is still you. That's the difference. A ghost is not a persona but an entirely different person that the author is claiming is their work. Not disclosing that is, imo, deceptive. Choosing money above transparency is at the heart of the debate.

eta: I think you can maintain a brand and still be up front about who wrote the book.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Monique said:


> No one said anything remotely related to suffering for art. That feels a lot like a straw man.
> 
> Nora explained well by it feels dishonest in fiction (note that's not the same as celeb auto-biographies and the like). A pen name is still you. That's the difference. A ghost is not a persona but an entirely different person that the author is claiming is their work. Not disclosing that is, imo, deceptive. Choosing money above transparency is at the heart of the debate.
> 
> eta: I think you can maintain a brand and still be up front about who wrote the book.


Actually, a lot of responses to this scandal have had a very "I suffer for my art" vibe.

I don't know anything about Nora Roberts except that she's a very successful romance and suspense author. This is the first thing of hers I've ever read and I liked some of it, but I find other parts... I don't like them.

Why we draw the lines at author? Why's it okay for a celebrity memoir to use a GW and not okay for an author? In anything, a memoir is a much bigger promise of access to an individual's thoughts/work.

I don't feel right about using GW for my name, because my pen name is personal. That doesn't mean it's me. Mostly it is, but it's a carefully curated version of me. It's a persona. A persona that's very close to who I am, but still a persona. Four dollars does not entitle readers to my life/thought/process/business. If I want to share those things, I will. But I don't owe anyone anything (except a good book).

If someone wants to create a big GW brand, good for them. Readers like the books. The publishers made bank. Win/win.

Maybe using GWs isn't telling the full truth, but we never really offer readers the full truth. All of us let readers make assumptions. It's not like any GW pens' bios say "my name is X and I write all my books myself, honest." That's an assumption readers are making. (Though I maintain that most don't care, so long as they enjoy the books).

Why should we draw the line where you or I or Nora Roberts says it is?

This kind of collaboration is common with movies and pop music. Why should books be held to a different standard?


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

The main question for me is why not be upfront about the collaboration? 

Other people do it isn't a great rationale for, well, anything, frankly.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Monique said:


> The main question for me is why not be upfront about the collaboration?
> 
> Other people do it isn't a great rationale for, well, anything, frankly.


Because it's not their business. Do you tell readers how much you pay cover designers and editors? They don't want to know how the sausage is made.


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

Crystal_ said:


> Because it's not their business. Do you tell readers how much you pay cover designers and editors? They don't want to know how the sausage is made.


I do want to know the sausage tastes like sausage though and not pineapple which is what you often get when an author uses several different ghostwriters and doesn't bother trying to put their unifying voice on the various books. I'm buying that author because I liked a book by them and expect other books by them to have that certain style within reason.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

C. Gold said:


> I do want to know the sausage tastes like sausage though and not pineapple which is what you often get when an author uses several different ghostwriters and doesn't bother trying to put their unifying voice on the various books. I'm buying that author because I liked a book by them and expect other books by them to have that certain style within reason.


Of course. The quality and consistency of books is the reader's business. A good publisher makes sure they're putting out great books with similar tones. That's an issue whether you write every book yourself or hire out every book.

At the end of the day, readers vote with their dollars. If they keep buying GW stuff, publishers will help putting out GW stuff. If the quality or desirability falls to where readers no longer buy it, ghost written machines will lose business and eventually fail.

Same for authors who write their books themselves. Many authors have dropped quality in favor of speed, time off, etc.

These things are not exclusive to GW.


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## Matt.Banks (May 5, 2016)

But aren't there plenty of examples of traditional publishers "owning" a specific pen name and hiring various writers for each book? Or even what starts off as one writer morphs into including ghostwriters down the line. I don't think it's disingenuous in those situations, how is it different with self-publishing?

As for the plagiarism, that is wrong, full stop. Obviously, no writer should copy and paste someone else's work and claim it as their own. It's harder to draw the line when it comes to "inspiration" or "homage" or even being influenced by the same source material but even then there should be enough different that it's not a rip off.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Crystal_ said:


> A lot of writers are anti-ghostwriter or anti-publisher who uses ghostwriters. That knee-jerk reaction has a lot of people overlooking the nature of a ghostwriter/publisher relationship. There's nothing wrong with ghostwriting or using ghostwriters as long as the ghostwriter is well paid and writing original content. I have friends who ghostwrite and they're hard workers who do their best to produce great content.


I dunno. I have co-writers who've written 70%+ of the books. Their names are on my covers as the junior author, since I'm the publisher with the bigger name and the books were written into my worlds, but their names are on there, even if I payed a flat fee.

But when we talk about ghostwriters, we're by definition talking about unacknowledged writers.

As with many arenas of life, transparency yields big benefits. More and more, I'm becoming anti-ghost--when by ghostwriter I mean secret, unacknowledged writers rather than co-writers.

If an author wants to pay a writer to write for them, I'm more and more feeling like they should put their name on the cover.


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## BGArcher (Jun 14, 2014)

David VanDyke said:


> I dunno. I have co-writers who've written 70%+ of the books. Their names are on my covers as the junior author, since I'm the publisher with the bigger name and the books were written into my worlds, but their names are on there, even if I payed a flat fee.
> 
> But when we talk about ghostwriters, we're by definition talking about unacknowledged writers.
> 
> ...


Writer's owe the reader one thing. A book they want to read. That's it. If I did higher ghost writers for a brand, I would never disclose, and telling me that it's unethical if I don't... well that's cute. I won't deliver a bad book to readers, but that's between me and them.


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## liveswithbirds (Jun 14, 2016)

Crystal_ said:


> Because it's not their business. Do you tell readers how much you pay cover designers and editors? They don't want to know how the sausage is made.


No, but very often authors will CREDIT their cover designers and editors.


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## liveswithbirds (Jun 14, 2016)

Crystal_ said:


> You could say the same thing about cover artists. It's not true though. The real money for contractors is in long term relationships. If a GW delivers plagiarized content, they might get paid once. But if they're discovered, they've burned that bridge and damaged their reputation. Now, they aren't getting any more work from that publisher or that publisher's contacts.


That may be, but I think assuming or expecting people to operate on the honor system is very naieve thinking. Not with all the scammers and bottom feeders in the indie publishing waters looking to make a quick buck.

I have never ghost-written nor hired a ghost, and regardless of the debate over whether it's ethical/deceptive/dishonest/whatever to use them, I would think both parties --assuming they're both on the level -- would protect their interests and work with some sort of written agreement in place. I would never, for instance, hire an editor without a contract. It's a big, red flag to me about someone's level of professionalism. Likewise, with a cover designer. Every one I've ever worked with has their terms clearly communicated on their site to protect their own interests. And usually they require a deposit/partial payment before any work begins. It's a sign of professionalism.

If you're hiring a GW, why on earth would you NOT check for possible plagiarism? If you are a GW, why on earth would you write a single word without some payment up front?

KKR has a blog post up this week about this scandal, including the contract angle. Worth reading: https://kriswrites.com/2019/02/20/business-musings-ghostwriting-plagiarism-and-the-latest-scandal/


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

In Germany, the ghost writer is credited in the fine print even with celebrity memoirs and the like. And I for one am completely okay with that, just as I am with crediting co-writers, like James Patterson, Janet Evanovich and many other do. But passing off a book as one author's work, whether it's a house name or an actually existing author, when it's not, is not okay IMO. I know that it's common practice in the US publishing industry, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. And if I ever find out a book by a favourite author is ghostwritten, I won't buy their books anymore. 

But let's not forget that in this case, the ghostwriters seem to have been blameless, based on statements of people who ghostwrote for Christiane Serruya. CopyPasteChris is at fault, not the ghostwriters.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

BGArcher said:


> Writer's owe the reader one thing. A book they want to read. That's it. If I did higher ghost writers for a brand, I would never disclose, and telling me that it's unethical if I don't... well that's cute. I won't deliver a bad book to readers, but that's between me and them.


Please show me when I ever said it was unethical.

Please show me where I ever told you what to do.

Please don't publicly read your inferences into something I did not say and accuse me of something I did not do. That, actually, is what's unethical.

I merely stated my own informed feelings about the matter.

Something that is not unethical can still be sub-optimal. I'm suggesting that more transparency is better, and would minimize situations that can lead to sub-optimal results.

Saying that A is better than B is not saying B is evil--just not as good as A.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

CoraBuhlert said:


> In Germany, the ghost writer is credited in the fine print even with celebrity memoirs and the like. And I for one am completely okay with that, just as I am with crediting co-writers, like James Patterson, Janet Evanovich and many other do. But passing off a book as one author's work, whether it's a house name or an actually existing author, when it's not, is not okay IMO. I know that it's common practice in the US publishing industry, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. And if I ever find out a book by a favourite author is ghostwritten, I won't buy their books anymore.
> 
> But let's not forget that in this case, the ghostwriters seem to have been blameless, based on statements of people who ghostwrote for Christiane Serruya. CopyPasteChris is at fault, not the ghostwriters.


Exactly. And having the ghost/co-writers credited would have at least provided some transparency and make this situation a little more unlikely, just like discovery and disclosure in court helps reveal the truth.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

liveswithbirds said:


> That may be, but I think assuming or expecting people to operate on the honor system is very naieve thinking. Not with all the scammers and bottom feeders in the indie publishing waters looking to make a quick buck.


Of course. Trust, but verify. I get references when I use a new cover designer or editor. You never know how good someone's work will be until you actually work with them.

If I have an expensive project, like audio, I get a contract. When you publish a book, you're a publisher. You need to act like it. I'm not saying go around hiring anyone who's nice. I'm saying it's bad strategy for a contractor to turn in obviously copied work. Some people do have bad strategies though.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

A lot could be said here, about ghostwriting, plagiarism, etc.

But really, it comes down to what a friend's grandpa used to always say:

"Where there's money, there's cheatin'."


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

This reader begs to differ. I don't consider this GW business to be any part of the sausage making. To me as a reader it is a breach in trust. Romance is a very emotional genre by design. To me its deception. I do not want to read such books. Its like why is someone hiding that they didn't write it. I don't trust GW in general to put out a quality product I want to read. As there might be a few rare ones that actually know the genre and write well, the majority of this stuff as we keep finding out is written by folks on fiver. Fiver for crying out load. Cheap garbage. 

I don't need to know all the sausage making details, but as a life long bavarian sausage eater, there better be the ingredients inside that are listed on the darn label. 

How can I make sure I don't come across GW stuff? Pretend authors? I stick with well known names. And yes, I can guarantee you guys that romance readers can tell when their beloved author suddenly reads very different. There is a reason why readers were able to pick out all those stolen passages from other books. Sometimes not more than a sentence. 

When I think of ghost written books, I think of diamond bros pretending to be a female writer and communicating about "their writing" in newsletters and forums. Its just as icky if a female packager buys those ghosts and then passes it off as their own in all the marketing, emails, etc. The deception doesn't stop at the cover in today's world. Every thing after that is a lie after lie after lie. If its a good book, it can stand on it honestly. Put the other name on the cover. There is no reason other than deception not to do that in fiction, especially romance. It has nothing to do with readers needing to know your bank account number. 

To bring this circle back about this particular case. It has opened a lot of readers eyes and many are going to be much more careful who they are reading. And if there are others doing the same or similar thing? They will be found out, now that folks are looking for it. 

There are some of my beloved authors that have been ripped off like this and I care. Its disgusting. What I am wondering though, how is some packager that buys these books from GW going to know if that GW stole part of romance books. Many of those packagers don't read romance. They don't write it. They have to trust the advertising of the GW when they say they write ghost written romance. This particular specimen here obviously doesn't read romance. Probably doesn't care any more about the genre than watching the money coming in. Otherwise she/he would have known that readers would pick up easily on well known passages from well known authors. They thought romance readers are just dumb money cows. 

Yeah, I am a bit salty. And now I am going to read the latest Lisa Kleypas, who I know every time I read a book by that she writes them. That is the trust I have. Thankfully I had never even heard of the plagiarizer. I hope that is a indicator how good my vetting is.


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## Guest (Feb 23, 2019)

A new blog post from Nora Roberts. It's NOT the first one that's been widely disseminated here and elsewhere. It's a follow-up posted today (23rd) and it's a doozy! &#128079;&#127995;&#127881;&#128077;

http://fallintothestory.com/not-a-rant-but-a-promise/


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Luke Everhart said:


> A new blog post from Nora Roberts. It's NOT the first one that's been widely disseminated here and elsewhere. It's a follow-up posted today (23rd) and it's a doozy! &#128079;&#127995;&#127881;&#128077;
> 
> http://fallintothestory.com/not-a-rant-but-a-promise/


There this false equivalence that using GW = shady MM stuff. And that's not fair to the shady MMs, who deserve every bit of scorn in the world.

Putting out good books that are GW is a far cry from flat out cheating and scamming.

GW is not the same as plagarism. That isn't fair to plagarism, which is a horrible, inexcusable action with well-deserved legal consequences.

I don't like that GW pen names can put out 10x the books I can, but that doesn't make them wrong. If the GW is really that inferior, readers will move on to authors who write quality stuff. If it's not, and they don't, well, the market has spoken. At the end of the day, everything is up to readers. If they buy X, more people put out X. If they say they hate Y, but they buy it anyway, more people put out Y. If they say they want Z, but they don't buy it... You get my point.


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## ImaWriter (Aug 12, 2015)

I foresee it becoming more difficult to get a BookBub.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Luke Everhart said:


> A new blog post from Nora Roberts. It's NOT the first one that's been widely disseminated here and elsewhere. It's a follow-up posted today (23rd) and it's a doozy! &#128079;&#127995;&#127881;&#128077;
> 
> http://fallintothestory.com/not-a-rant-but-a-promise/


Despite its title, Roberts's blog post comes across to me like a rant.

I see nothing wrong with someone hiring a ghostwriter to write a book, and then taking credit for the book.

From Roberts's blog post:



> There are black hat teams, working together, who routinely hire ghosts on the cheap, have them throw books together, push them out - many and fast - to make money, to smother out competition from those self-pubbed writers who do their own work. Those who do their own work can't possibly keep up with the volume these teams produce by these fraudulent tactics.
> 
> They tutor others how to scam the system.


Describing this process as fraudulent and a scam discredits Roberts in my eyes. Ghostwriting without credit has been an accepted practice for longer than any of us have been alive.

Oh, but the problem is that the current crop of ghostwriters are being hired to produce a lot of books quickly? Then it's not a matter of principle. It's a matter of magnitude.

If that's the case, how many published books per year under a single brand is acceptable to avoid being called fraudulent and a scam? Forty? Twenty? Twelve?

Who gets to choose the number, and why?


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

ImaWriter said:


> I foresee it becoming more difficult to get a BookBub.


This is my issues with Roberts's posts. She has a lot of sway over readers because of the size of her audience, but she isn't giving people accurate information. To say readers shouldn't buy .99 books because she thinks it's somehow a shady price point... That's typical tradpub ignorance/snobbery.


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## Guest (Feb 23, 2019)

Crystal_ said:


> To say readers shouldn't buy .99 books because she thinks it's somehow a shady price point... That's typical tradpub ignorance/snobbery.


I agree on this point &#128070;&#127995;(that is, I disagree with Nora's take on .99 books)
Her post is imo a mixed bag of compelling points I can cheer and a few that I very much can't. (the balance for me is more pro than con however) This one does seem like a bit of the tradpub snobbery I think.


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## Glis Moriarty (Jun 20, 2018)

Crystal_ said:


> If the GW is really that inferior, readers will move on to authors who write quality stuff. If it's not, and they don't, well, the market has spoken.


This is fair enough if I'm reading a new writer - I know there's a risk I won't like it.
But it's not fair enough if I buy a book by a writer I like and it turns out to be a poor book that they didn't write.

I got caught out a few times when I read 'co-authored' books; I learned that they were usually bad, but I hadn't realised at the time that the author whose name attracted me to buy hadn't done much of the writing, if any.

If it says Heniz beans on the can, I have a right to Heinz beans in the can.

I'm not opposed to GW - but I like to know they wrote the book before I buy. And I prefer to know who they are.


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## Glis Moriarty (Jun 20, 2018)

Crystal_ said:


> To say readers shouldn't buy .99 books because she thinks it's somehow a shady price point... That's typical tradpub ignorance/snobbery.


I'd actually agree with Nora on this. The problem with 0.99 is that it's not a sustainable price point for a professional writer unless they are selling in huge numbers. And the ubiquity of 0.00 and 0.99 has dragged pricing down in general which makes readers less keen to pay a full price that's much higher.
I know people see these prices as a marketing strategy, but that only works if it enables sales of other books at higher prices.


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## Guest (Feb 23, 2019)

Glis Moriarty said:


> This is fair enough if I'm reading a new writer - I know there's a risk I won't like it.
> But it's not fair enough if I buy a book by a writer I like and it turns out to be a poor book that they didn't write.
> 
> I got caught out a few times when I read 'co-authored' books; I learned that they were usually bad, but I hadn't realised at the time that the author whose name attracted me to buy hadn't done much of the writing, if any.
> ...


As a reader, I pretty much agree.
I'm completely cool with people using GWs but I think that:
If you do a majority of the writing but use a GW to flesh out the book in any significant degree at least list the GW inside the front matter, as you most likely do your editors, etc. It needn't be the cover but a nod in the front matter.
If you actually collaborate with the ghostwriter then James Patterson has it right: list the GW as co-author on the cover. 
If the ghostwriter does ALL the writing and you simply package & market then set yourself up as a micropublisher & claim publisher not author status because that's what you are -- not an author, by definition.
Basically, be honest and don't pervert definitions (like literally using a GW for all the writing and yet claiming authorship, that's publishing not authoring)
The longstanding and accepted, if not respected, use of GWs in memoirs, biographies, and other celebrity/public figure books is different than its use in fiction for a host of reasons.


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## CassieL (Aug 29, 2013)

For me with the ghostwriting aspect it's about reader expectation and consistency and not lying to the reader. I just did a long blog post about this, but in essence:

If you want to create a name, like they did with the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and then hire people to write under that name and you can ensure a consistent reader expectation, cool with me. Don't have someone interact with readers pretending to be that author, because that's deceptive. But if you can deliver a same-quality product over and over again doing that, I'm fine with it. That's a long-established practice. If a writer wants credit for their work, don't do that kind of work.

Where I don't like it as a reader is where the goal is to churn and burn and no effort is made to be consistent across books or where Author A writes 5 books and then farms the rest out to ghostwriters A, B, and C with no eye to a satisfying product and without letting readers know.

Or worse where they interact with readers pretending to be someone they're not. (We had that long creepy thread last year I think it was with the man pretending to be a female romance writer asking about people's sexual fantasies and talking about "her" book boyfriends. Just no.)


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Yeah, it seems like NR is conflating criminal action with the content mills, two separate things.

This is a matter of the production of goods, whether digital or physical. 

A trademark-infringing knockoff is a "plagiarized" physical good, an illegal item. A cheap, similar, but differently branded item is a "content milled" physical good--like an Acer (crappy brand IMO) vs. an Asus (very good brand IMO) computer. There's an element of caveat emptor in the latter, non-illegal example. The items may be cheap and cheesy, but it's up to the consumer to discern, and get sick of buying cheap stuff.


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

CassieL said:


> For me with the ghostwriting aspect it's about reader expectation and consistency and not lying to the reader. I just did a long blog post about this, but in essence:
> 
> If you want to create a name, like they did with the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and then hire people to write under that name and you can ensure a consistent reader expectation, cool with me. Don't have someone interact with readers pretending to be that author, because that's deceptive. But if you can deliver a same-quality product over and over again doing that, I'm fine with it. That's a long-established practice. If a writer wants credit for their work, don't do that kind of work.
> 
> ...


I had this exact conversation and this was basically my feelings. My feeling is there is a huge difference between a syndicate creating a pseudonym and branding it (Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys) and creating a pen name with a persona who interacts with readers as the persona, including discussing the writing process. A syndicate doesn't announce the pseudonym to the world, but neither do they throw the ghostwriters under the bus when accused of wrong-doing.

An additional issue I have, one not really discussed, is that CS submitted the plagiarized (ghostwritten) book to the Ritas. How can a ghostwritten book receive an award, or even be considered for an award, for the name on the cover when the name on the cover didn't write the book?

The issue isn't ghostwriters and never has been. The issue is the way ghostwriters are being utilized. And in some cases, some authors hide they are using ghosts from other authors. Why? If there is nothing wrong with their tactics (and I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with ghosts), why go to such extremes to hide it?


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

RPatton said:


> The issue isn't ghostwriters and never has been.


Many on this very thread apparently do see this as an issue.



RPatton said:


> Why? If there is nothing wrong with their tactics (and I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with ghosts), why go to such extremes to hide it?


Judging by many of the comments on this thread and on twitter, and the extreme anger I'm reading, I can definitely understand why they'd hide it.

The atmosphere certainly isn't supportive of disclosure. Anytime it comes up, it evokes such extreme backlash. This rhetoric is making a lot of honest writers nervous. How can they protect themselves against the accusations of an angry reader who is pissed their most recent book wasn't up to scratch and so the reader decides it must be a ghostwritten book?


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Most of the frustration is because of the failure to disclose. Why not just be upfront about who does what? Readers wouldn't have to wonder if the information was provided.


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

Will it stop at the "this is a ghostwritten book" disclosure? Or will there be  a demand to know more? What else have they written? Who else is a fake author? Will the insinuations that it's unethical, immoral or even illegal stop or will the accusers double down and not only tear apart the publisher but then the provider of the content? We can't know what the outcome will be on that. It's opening a box that can't be closed and it's exposing people that have a very real need for privacy.

If I was a ghostwriter, I wouldn't want my information given out. I would have a very specific reason why I'm ghostwriting. I would have no interest in cover attribution. It's why I would sign an NDA.

All this talk about putting the ghostwriter on the cover of the book is giving me anxiety and I don't even ghostwrite.

It's still giving me anxiety because I can never know when the accusation of using ghostwriters will be leveled at me if I have an off month in writing.

Honestly, it's no one's business who I am, how fast I write, how often I publish and whether I'm using a ghostwriter or not. 

This whole thing is starting to smack of trying to control how writers write and publishing frequency, how much is expected to be disclosed to the readers, and it's making me very uncomfortable.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

It's like any relationship. You don't tell strangers your business right away. Different people have different levels of comfort with sharing.

A publisher shouldn't represent themselves as an author if they use GWs exclusively. But they don't need to disclose it if they're commenting on unrelated stuff.

I.e. if you ask someone to swap or rec a cover artist, they don't need to say "BTW, I use GWs." If you're talking about writing speed or craft, then, yeah, they should mention they use GW or stay out of the conversation. (Though I'm sure publishers could contribute to such a conversation without pretending they write their own books).


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

I'll just throw two words out there for people to compare situations and audience/fan reaction and consequences:

Milli Vanilli


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## PermaStudent (Apr 21, 2015)

emory said:


> Many on this very thread apparently do see this as an issue.
> 
> Judging by many of the comments on this thread and on twitter, and the extreme anger I'm reading, I can definitely understand why they'd hide it.
> 
> The atmosphere certainly isn't supportive of disclosure. Anytime it comes up, it evokes such extreme backlash. This rhetoric is making a lot of honest writers nervous. How can they protect themselves against the accusations of an angry reader who is p*ssed their most recent book wasn't up to scratch and so the reader decides it must be a ghostwritten book?


Speaking only for myself...

I have no problem with ghostwriters. I don't use them, but I have no problem with anyone who does. Per the Nancy Drew example, they've been around a long time and aren't shady in and of themselves.

What I find questionable is when they are used full-on Cyrano style, where an individual creates a false persona using the ghostwritten works as part of the facade, and then interacts with readers under the guise of that false persona. This becomes increasingly shady as the level of intimacy in interaction between the reader/false persona deepens. (And that's about the way the "author" behaves, not the ghostwriters.)

Social media has made this easy to do. The anonymity of the internet makes it feel consequence-free. And the way indie authors use social media to build and manage their following makes it feel like a brand is at a disadvantage if "the author" isn't interacting with readers on a personal level to garner those algorithm-goosing launch day sales...

But really. There are authors and brands who don't do the social media circus and are still killing it. This behavior isn't necessary.

Some readers may laugh it off. Others will feel deeply betrayed. To me (and I get that not everyone is me: at the end of the day, you live with your own choices), it's not okay to treat readers that way, especially in genres where people are seeking emotional connection with the story. That goes far beyond romance genre, too.

I have no problem with pen names, either. I use one, and I use it to shield certain aspects of my private life from readers. I'm not catfishing anyone, but I don't want people looking up my personal address.

ETA: I just read Nora's second post, and I still love her.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

I don't see the big deal about a reader suffering a bad book. It's very easy to return a book you don't like. I've disliked lots of books by authors I liked previously.

If an author's books go downhill, readers can stop reading. It's a bummer for those readers, but it's not a grave injustice.

There's no reason to engage with a fake persona. And, honestly, any time spent on social media is better spent on other parts of a business. Authors, especially in romance, are expected to be so available and that's BS, but it's another conversation.


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## felicity (Nov 28, 2012)

Anarchist said:


> Despite its title, Roberts's blog post comes across to me like a rant.
> 
> I see nothing wrong with someone hiring a ghostwriter to write a book, and then taking credit for the book.
> 
> ...


^^ This.

Some comments are indicating that releasing weekly/monthly is wrong and Nora is agreeing. Slippery slope in my opinion.


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## PhoenixFromTheAshes (Oct 1, 2018)

So, for people who are concerned about ghost writers being outed by acknowledging their hand in a book, there's one solution that's pretty simple: the GW could use a pen name(s). In fact, an acknowledged pen name could become an asset as they develop their own followers and build their portfolio.



Crystal_ said:


> There this false equivalence that using GW = shady MM stuff. And that's not fair to the shady MMs, who deserve every bit of scorn in the world.
> 
> Putting out good books that are GW is a far cry from flat out cheating and scamming.
> 
> ...


Amazon's ecosystem doesn't really put the reader in charge of the market when shady MMs are able to control it. And while ghost writing can be legit, it's getting a bad rep because of how those MMs or author content mills (ACMs) are abusing them.

ACMs putting out mass quantities by using GWs are not growing or changing the market organically. The statement "If the quality of the writing isn't good, then readers won't buy" isn't necessarily true in this case because many (not all) of the ACMs are also creating a false market and a perception of quality using shady tactics we're all familiar with: a mix-and-match of incentivized reviews, gifting, incentivized purchases/borrows/page reads, and old-school bots. These ACMs have a core audience incentivized to review and buy/borrow/flip through pages. Good ranks coupled with incentivized rah-rah teams with their glowing reviews and praise for the authors lure others to purchase and read. Some of those lured in will be actual fans of the genre and fall in happily with that GW's work. But others won't be fans, and by the time they read and respond with a review -- if they even do -- that book is already old news and the ACM's new book is the darling with the rank and reviews needed to lure in more readers, or else the ACM has moved on to a new pen name with their stable of GWs.

So the churn is making it appear the ACMs are popular, but it's all inorganic smoke and mirrors.

New authors or authors looking for new genres to move into see that a certain kind of romance or UF or harem/reverse harem or whatever book seems to be selling well, so they write to that market too. But if those markets are being inflated by ACMs who are creating and maintaining those markets by their massive amount of ghosted output plus shady marketing, then that's bad and misleading business intelligence for authors writing either for the love or the money. Unless the for-money authors follow the same business practices as the ACMs, which then perpetuates the cycle. It becomes an echo chamber led not by reader behavior but by ACM behavior.


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## blubarry (Feb 27, 2015)

emory said:


> It's still giving me anxiety because I can never know when the accusation of using ghostwriters will be leveled at me if I have an off month in writing.


I've had this happen in reviews before with commenters remarking on how frequent I release. I'm prolific, but I write everything myself. Some stories require a different voice.

As a reader, I prefer to know if something is co-authored or even ghosted, but I wouldn't feel cheated and am sure I've read something ghostwritten but didn't know it. I hate this has gotten into denigrating ghostwriters. This is about scamming and plagiarism. There are plenty of ethical ghostwriters who are simply writing for pay. I hope Nora gets back to the plagiarism and stops harassing the ghosts.


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## blubarry (Feb 27, 2015)

ImaWriter said:


> I foresee it becoming more difficult to get a BookBub.


But what about getting a BoobBub?


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

For starters, Nora Roberts is the victim here, one of many. And it's not the first time she has been the victim of plagiarism. There was also the Janet Dailey case in the 1990s, which she talks about in her first post. 

Furthermore, a few months ago a very clueless debut YA author accused Nora Roberts of stealing her title (a very common type of title), because some words were similar. Oh yes, and both books had feathers on the cover. Never mind that a) titles cannot be copyrighted, b) the Nora Roberts book was part 2 of a trilogy and had been contracted and probably written before the other book came out and c) Nora Roberts doesn't write YA and hence probably wasn't even aware of the YA author. But the YA author was very plugged into social media, where she whined about her "stolen" title and sicced her followers onto Nora Roberts who basically had no idea what was happening.

As for why Nora Roberts reacts very allergic to the concept of ghostwriting, she has been repeatedly accused of using ghostwriters herself, because she's very prolific by trad publishing standards. Until a few years ago, Nora Roberts published six books per year, two as J.D. Robb and four as herself. And because of this high publishing frequency, she has been accused of using ghostwriters, even though it's pretty obvious to anybody who's ever read her work that they're all written by the same person. So yes, Nora Roberts knows a thing or two about being prolific.

So given all that background, it's understandable why Nora Roberts is furious. She also has every right to be.

As for her comments on indie publishing, Nora Roberts is a traditionally published author. She's not plugged into the indie world and doesn't really know how Amazon operates, how the algorithms work, what tactics people use, etc... because as one of the bestselling authors in the world, she never had to worry about this. She's been plagiarised and she only just found out about content mills and click farms and book stuffers and KU scammers and all the other crap that we indie writers have been dealing with for years. And yes, she's wrong e.g. on 99 cent books. Because this isn't the part of the industry she usually deals with.

Besides, she goes out of her way to point out that she isn't talking about honest indie writers. She's talking about the scammers, the content mills, the plagiarisers, the book stuffers, the diamond lottery runners, etc... , i.e. the same people we have been complaining about for years. 

So if you're not a scammer, content mill publisher, plagiariser, book stuffer, etc..., Nora Roberts is not talking about you. And if you feel attacked by her post, then ask yourself why.


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## bobfrost (Sep 29, 2013)

enough was said


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

I've never used a ghostwriter, but if somebody else uses a ghostwriter and the product is good, and sells, why is that any of my business? It shouldn't be.

Writing fiction, after all, is a business. There are different business models. Using ghostwriters is one of those models. It's probably as old as the pen name. And with every business model, there are ethical and legal ways to use it, and also unethical and illegal ways.

I read Nora Roberts' blog posts linked here. The second one seemed to go just a little off.

She knocks _readers_ for wanting lower priced books. I get it -- she thinks that every author deserves to make a living. But for many, if not most of us, that's not the real world. The real world is one where there is mass competition, and readers (consumers) have the power to decide whether they want to buy a $1.99 book or a $10.99 book -- or a permafree.

Granted, she feels hurt and is angry about being ripped off. I get that. But readers wanting cheap reads goes back to pulp fiction days, and probably even before that. It's as old as mass paperback publishing itself. It's part of the fiction writing and publishing business model that has been around forever, and is not going away.


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## bobfrost (Sep 29, 2013)

“If other publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.”

- George Orwell, speaking out against inexpensive paperback novels hitting the market in the wake of Penguin Publishing back in the 1930s.

I wonder what kind of authors benefitted from inexpensive paperbacks being universally available to the masses at a lower price than what came before. Perhaps if we looked at the book market, we could identify types of authors who have built massive successful careers selling cheap paperbacks that George Orwell hated so much.

History rhymes. If you don’t like selling books for 99 cents, don’t sell your books for 99 cents. As Bezos would say, your profit margin is my opportunity.

Will that build me a successful career?

So far, it has.


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## AlecHutson (Sep 26, 2016)

Hm. It looks like a real spectrum of opinions on ghostwriting. I guess, for me, if I buy a book with an author's name on the cover I expect that author (or the person behind the pen name, whatever) to have written the book. To me, it seems like false advertising if they did not. 

If I read a book by author X (that they actually wrote), and then they get popular and pay author Y to write a sequel, but author X's name is still the one on the cover (and no mention of author Y) and I buy that book and find out that it was ghostwritten I'd ask for my money back. Writing is an art, and I'm paying for the talent and craft of author X, which has satisfied me in the past. If GRRM publishes a prequel to Game of Thrones and his name is on the cover but it turns out it was ghostwritten to grab all the monies I'd be pretty angry. I find it bizarre that these 'non-writers' take the game so far that they pretend they did actually write the books they paid to have written for them, and interact with fans like they really created the content, and submit their ghostwritten books for awards. Sorry, yuck.  

Will this be what we see in the future? Rich investors with capital paying a team of ghostwriters to create content in a hot genre, with clickable covers (boobs / abs / dragons, whatever), then dumping loads of money into advertising and getting visible and getting sales, which I think most of us know is a self-reinforcing cycle? How does a regular author who publishes their first book get any sort of traction if these content mills come to dominate a pay-to-play system? 

Some of these popular series I see on Amazon at least put both writers on the cover, and I suppose as long as it's obvious that popular writer X didn't actually write the book it doesn't bother me.


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## LD (Aug 29, 2018)

Crystal_ said:


> This is my issues with Roberts's posts. She has a lot of sway over readers because of the size of her audience, but she isn't giving people accurate information. To say readers shouldn't buy .99 books because she thinks it's somehow a shady price point... That's typical tradpub ignorance/snobbery.


I only read the first post (sounds like there are more?), but it also sounded like she was being fed a lot of the information and not making her own deductions. For instance, she mentioned KU causing a lot of this bad business and the reason behind CS doing this. As a traditionally published author, how would she know?  It didn't sound like she knew much about KU to begin with. Aside from that, CS was mostly wide. So CS had no reason to be using those KU bad practices. It was commenters who were bringing in the subject of KU. So why would she have made that connection in the first place unless someone was feeding it to her or she was just parroting what she was reading?


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## writerlygal (Jul 23, 2017)

Um, yeah, wow. Nora's posts sound very uninformed & like she's parroting information from indie authors who are using her tragedy as their gain, to try to take down indie publishers they think release too quickly, use ghostwriters, or whatever their beef is w/ them. She is being used as a puppet to do their bidding, without really knowing how indie publishing & KU work.

Most of the things they have beefs w/ (rapid release publishing, using ghostwriters, pricing at 99 cents, using a pen name & not being a real author struggling for their art while being on social media showing off their personal life every other second) is "scamming" except maybe by some of their own made-up definitions or interpretations of what scamming should be considered. Certainly none of these perceived evils is on par with the plagiarism that happened to her & other authors by CS. The rapid release, 99 cents in KU, ghostwritten brand strategies are just market forces at work, capitalism at its "finest". Nora & the indie authors who are mad that Amazon rewards rapid release publishing & the more more more!!! content faster faster faster!!! mindset should save their ire for Amazon. NOT get out their pitchforks & try to play gatekeeper against other indie authors. 

And then she had to go and blame readers too?  I guess I'll chalk this up to a rage-induced rant as I do feel bad that she was plagiarized. I am thinking she must not be writing her blog posts w/ the clearest mind.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

AlecHutson said:


> Will this be what we see in the future? Rich investors with capital paying a team of ghostwriters to create content in a hot genre, with clickable covers (boobs / abs / dragons, whatever), then dumping loads of money into advertising and getting visible and getting sales, which I think most of us know is a self-reinforcing cycle? How does a regular author who publishes their first book get any sort of traction if these content mills come to dominate a pay-to-play system?


Well, it's already happening, and some regular authors who publish their own books are still somehow getting traction. The 'future' you mention is already here. You just do the best you can.

Instead of concentrating on what others do, I just try to get my own books out there and garner sales.

The content mills are already a reality. There is nothing that can be done to change that. It will only change if their own books stop selling.


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

CoraBuhlert said:


> And if you feel attacked by her post, then ask yourself why.


Wow. WOW. Apparently you've never had someone have a go at you for something they perceive you're guilty of but never did.

Even if it's proven you're innocent, you will rarely get an apology. Those absolutely convinced you're guilty will double down on it, even in the face of proof otherwise.

Ask me how I know. I've been around a decade or two, since almost the infancy of the WWW.

The internet is a savage place. Fellow authors are not proving out to be any different.

I feel 'attacked' because the ravenous attitude of many in places like twitter and on nora's blog comments are scratching at everything. I have lost count of the comments on kboards itself over the months I've been here and years I've been lurking, on how using pen names, except in a few nebulously defined ways that seem to shift from person to person and conversation to conversation, is scamming behavior.

In fact, I've watched the shifting definition of scamming behavior as it rushes to include anything that smacks of success. And I've watched people here tear at each other as they defend themselves against such attacks, only to be told 'well, if you're defending them, you must be one of them.'

People who think rapid release schedules are, by definition, using ghostwriters and scamming. They're scum and unethical and immoral and I've even seen a few people accuse them of being illegal. Go figure.

People who manage to find the right moment to release and hit it big are, by definition, using click farms. They obviously are because of their ability to hit the pulse of the reader and give them what they want. And that scummy and unethical and immoral and oh-my-god illegal, too!

The thing is, some authors are guilty of those nefarious things. They are. I'm not denying it nor is anyone else. So, because a few are, everyone is?

And if those of us who are alarmed at the amount of vitriolic rhetoric who are watching this from afar and going holy crap...that means it's okay to imply we're guilty of it?

I can't even.


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

The plagiarism is a separate issue from the GW/fast release conversation. I will say, however, that I do believe the content mills misuse ghostwriters and make it very difficult for peons like me to gain traction. But you know what? That's life. There will always be someone bigger and badder and better. Survival of the fittest.


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## felicity (Nov 28, 2012)

Plagiarism and ghostwriting/rapid publishing are two entirely different situations. Combining the two is disingenuous. The former is wrong and illegal while the latter isn't.

As long as the content mills are not doing anything nefarious/illegal, what makes it wrong for them to use ghostwriters and publish rapidly?  

Aren't trad publishers content mills?
- They publish many, many books a month by multiple authors (we think we know all these authors are real people - but we don't know. Many could be ghost written with publisher assigned pen names associated with them)
- They use all kinds of marketing strategies
- They throw a lot of money at publicizing their books
- The publisher with the most money has the most prominent shelf space in bookstores
- Everything else that an above the board content mill does, a trad publisher does.

It looks like some indies are saying that being an indie publisher is wrong. That their way is the only way - that if one does not suffer for supposed art then one does not deserve to make money. That they are owed something because they spent time putting words to paper.

Why do indie authors whose books currently don't sell, think that if the content mills go away their books will suddenly sell? They won't. 

This is one of those be careful what you wish for situations.


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

felicity said:


> Why do indie authors whose books currently don't sell, think that if the content mills go away their books will suddenly sell? They won't.


This is a misrepresentation of the point, I believe. Authors who have limited time to produce work and small budgets to work with can't compete against the content mills. That's reality. No one said anything about their books selling more if content mills go away.


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## felicity (Nov 28, 2012)

Rose Andrews said:


> This is a misrepresentation of the point, I believe. Authors who have limited time to produce work and small budgets to work with can't compete against the content mills. That's reality. No one said anything about their books selling more if content mills go away.


Even if content mills go away they won't be able to compete against other authors/trad publishing houses that have bigger budgets. So are we now saying that folks who work this as a business should be on the same footing as those with have limited time and small budgets? It doesn't work that way in any other business, why should this be any different?


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

felicity said:


> Even if content mills go away they won't be able to compete against other authors/trad publishing houses that have bigger budgets. So are we now saying that folks who work this as a business should be on the same footing as those with have limited time and small budgets? It doesn't work that way in any other business, why should this be any different?


Not sure why you're arguing this point because I'm pretty sure that's not what anyone here was insinuating from what I've read. But whatever.


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## bobfrost (Sep 29, 2013)

edit: done arguing for now


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

bobfrost said:


> There are always going to be people out there trying to find some angle they can exploit, but the vast majority of the marketplace are honest authors and publishers trying to make an honest living.
> 
> Nothing is stopping you from making that living. Not scammers, not content mills, and hopefully, not some big name trad pub who would directly benefit if we all went away.


Well, yes. This is what my previous posts state, too. I have a career I love in animal medicine but work really hard on my books as well. Over the few years I have been publishing, I have slowly gained traction, but there definitely has not been a hurry for anything on my end. The market is mature and there's a lot of competition. It's unrealistic to think that a book can soar without proper help. So... not sure why all of a sudden the conversation seems to have shifted to some authors wanting to put in gatekeepers. I don't think anyone is saying that on this thread and even NB's post is more of a rant than anything.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Monique said:


> Most of the frustration is because of the failure to disclose. Why not just be upfront about who does what? Readers wouldn't have to wonder if the information was provided.


If you see the reader backlash in 2012 when Wilbur Smith and his publisher announced that his books would be 'co-authored' you can understand why there would be a reluctance to disclose. 

Nora Roberts is not against ghost writers, just black hat ghost writers.

_You've got bills to pay? Guess what, so do the writers you're helping to ruin. So do the writers who have to deal with the turmoil of having their work stolen. *And you're dragging legitimate ghost writers and the whole damn profession down with you.*_


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

I glanced back at the Roberts blog to doublecheck on her statements about cheap books, and how they affect the publishing world...

And she has a new blog post dedicated mostly to just that subject.

http://fallintothestory.com/let-me-address-this/

PS -- she seems to dislike permafrees. Or perhaps I'm reading it wrong.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

PhoenixFromTheAshes said:


> Amazon's ecosystem doesn't really put the reader in charge of the market when shady MMs are able to control it. And while ghost writing can be legit, it's getting a bad rep because of how those MMs or author content mills (ACMs) are abusing them.
> 
> ACMs putting out mass quantities by using GWs are not growing or changing the market organically. The statement "If the quality of the writing isn't good, then readers won't buy" isn't necessarily true in this case because many (not all) of the ACMs are also creating a false market and a perception of quality using shady tactics we're all familiar with: a mix-and-match of incentivized reviews, gifting, incentivized purchases/borrows/page reads, and old-school bots. These ACMs have a core audience incentivized to review and buy/borrow/flip through pages. Good ranks coupled with incentivized rah-rah teams with their glowing reviews and praise for the authors lure others to purchase and read. Some of those lured in will be actual fans of the genre and fall in happily with that GW's work. But others won't be fans, and by the time they read and respond with a review -- if they even do -- that book is already old news and the ACM's new book is the darling with the rank and reviews needed to lure in more readers, or else the ACM has moved on to a new pen name with their stable of GWs.
> 
> So the churn is making it appear the ACMs are popular, but it's all inorganic smoke and mirrors.


Yes, but readers aren't actually buying those books. And, again, we're equating using a GW with MM tactics. Most MMs use GWs, but it's their other blackhat techniques that cause problems. They're literally scamming and cheating.


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## Anna Rose (Jan 13, 2019)

CoraBuhlert said:


> For starters, Nora Roberts is the victim here, one of many. And it's not the first time she has been the victim of plagiarism. There was also the Janet Dailey case in the 1990s, which she talks about in her first post.
> 
> Furthermore, a few months ago a very clueless debut YA author accused Nora Roberts of stealing her title (a very common type of title), because some words were similar. Oh yes, and both books had feathers on the cover. Never mind that a) titles cannot be copyrighted, b) the Nora Roberts book was part 2 of a trilogy and had been contracted and probably written before the other book came out and c) Nora Roberts doesn't write YA and hence probably wasn't even aware of the YA author. But the YA author was very plugged into social media, where she whined about her "stolen" title and sicced her followers onto Nora Roberts who basically had no idea what was happening.
> 
> ...


Whatever happens, Nora Roberts has a lot of followers.


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## writerlygal (Jul 23, 2017)

Nora's latest post now equates permafree to scamming. I bet a lot of wide authors would take issue with that assessment!

This is what I have been thinking is the problem with Nora's posts. She is not an indie author & doesn't understand the methods indie authors use to get visibility & sales. She is conflating issues & blaming ghostwriters & indie publishers who use them, 99 cent KU authors, permafree wide authors, & even readers for the problem she experienced with plagiarism or for the frustration of indie authors that have everything to do with the realities of the publishing industry, Amazon & capitalism. These are completely separate things & while sometimes there is an overlap, it doesn't mean that most of the techniques other than plagiarism that are being screamed about on social media are bad in & of themselves. Some people may disagree w/ them or think they make it harder for 'real authors' but like many here have said, there is nothing wrong with indie content mills, ghostwritten brands, several pen names, etc. None of this is illegal or against Amazon TOS & much of it is accepted tradition in trad publishing & now has become quite the norm in indie publishing too, like it or not.

Nora has said that it's okay when the Hardy Boys & other trad pub brands do it but not when indies do it? I feel that the little guy should be able to do what trad pub does. KDP is for indie PUBLISHERS, not just authors, & nowhere in Amazon's TOS does it say that someone has to be a 'real writer' suffering for their art & posting on social media to prove they're real, etc., in order to publish their books. Nora & much of the indie cult following her & David Gaughran on social media [such as very established indie authors who got their start years ago & go by their real names & faces etc., or 'true artists' bleeding for their craft & thinking that the only book that deserves to be on Amazon is one that took a ton of time to lovingly write & prepare - not that there is anything wrong w/ those books but sometimes I read them & think they are no better than the pulp stuff quickly churned out for fast reading entertainment, but like everything else, my opinion is subjective] obviously disagree.

I have seen posts saying that authors should have to prove their real identity & that they actually wrote the book etc. I'm not sure how this would be enforceable but I also disagree w/ the premise. There are authors using pen names for very valid reasons, especially in erotic romance. Imagine being from a strict religious family such as Muslim or evangelical Christian & writing what you love & knowing that you could be disowned by your family or in some countries even put to death for writing gay romance etc. Imagine being the child or spouse of a conservative [or any kind, really] politician. Imagine being a teacher or wrestling coach. Nora herself writes under multiple pen names in multiple genres, so she or her publishers know the value of having different writing names or personas even just for different genres. It is unfair to people to be taking the plagiarism scandal & saying that now indie authors shouldn't have the same rights as trad pub authors - yet unevening the playing field for indie publishers even more.

The fact that people are taking this bad thing that happened & twisting it to say that no one should be able to have online personas & everyone should have to prove they are real & even that KDP should be closed off to new writers SICKENS me. It reeks of gatekeeping & privilege & a fundamental misunderstanding of what being an indie author or publisher is all about. I know that it's not Nora herself saying a lot of these things but I have been shocked at the fundamental misinformation she is spreading as well as her blog comment responding to a reader by calling her 'petty.' [My marketing 101 knowledge tells me that the reader/client is always right & that the best thing to do is not engage w/ readers if I feel they are being petty. I think this is relevant because Nora has the power & money to not care what readers think of her but we indies do a constant dance to make sure our readers are happy- & she just straight up insults them on her blog!] Therefore she & I & the people who are hailing her as their savior have a fundamental difference of opinion on most of this stuff [other than the fact that plagiarism & other outright theft such as click bots, but I haven't seen any evidence suggesting that Christiane or any other authors being discussed are doing this, being wrong, bad, & punishable by law & the court of public opinion, if proven & not just wild accusations- in CS's case it seems pretty darn black & white that the plagiarism happened] & I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Thank you Kboarders who are rational!


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## CassieL (Aug 29, 2013)

jb1111 said:


> PS -- she seems to dislike permafrees. Or perhaps I'm reading it wrong.


I don't think that's what she was saying. I think she's calling out the fact that there are so many 99 cent and free titles out there now that some readers have come to demand that all books be offered at that price point. And that if all authors did that only the ones producing at an extremely fast rate would be able to live on that 35 cent per sale royalty.

Per the post: "I am NOT saying all books at a bargain price are scams, I am NOT saying readers should never scoop up a bargain or download a free book. I AM saying if you're a reader who pushes for fast and cheap, who buys books simply because they're under a buck, who hounds authors for free (and yeah, you know who you are, too) as I'm often hounded, this is a problem."

I'm not a big name at all, but I've even been messaged by a reader asking why I charge what I do. In my case, they were basically fishing for me to send them paperbacks for free. I suggested they contact their library.


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## writerlygal (Jul 23, 2017)

I know I'm typing too much today but also, it really bothers me that Nora is going after readers & trying to tell them what to do. For one thing, it's not going to help anything at all. Where there are free books, 99 cent books & KU books, there will be plenty of readers willing to scoop them up despite what Nora posts on her blog. But more importantly, it is not her place, or at least it isn't IMO. A reader's only job is to pay the price I set for my book [or download it for free/in KU if that's the case] & to read it. I HOPE they enjoy it, appreciate it, that it makes them think or brings them entertainment or distraction etc. Maybe I'm in the minority w/ this & I don't expect most authors to feel this way b/c I'm a big hippy, but if I was independently wealthy, lived on some commune or had another source of income plus the ability to still write a decent amount, I would [& used to, before I started doing this full time] give away my writing for free, just because I hope it brings joy to people & I want to share my stories that are inside my head w/ them. If I could afford to use & decently pay good ghostwriters to help me get more stories out, awesome- but, as some have pointed out, that is often more WORK than simply writing it myself, & it's expensive].

But b/c I do this for a living, yes, I am going to charge for what I write & also use any legal & non-TOS-breaking method that will get me paid as best as I can get paid. That is just common sense. Free books can be a viable strategy. But whether the reader gets my book for free or pays, I don't expect anything of them beyond that. Don't steal my books & that's it! We are often told we shouldn't respond to reader reviews b/c they're entitled to their opinion, & I agree. We're told not to demand that readers do stuff like leave ARC reviews or beta read for us or send us errors they find, & I agree. We're even told not to bug them by sending them too many newsletters & on that I think it depends on what the purpose of the newsletter is. If it's a chatty, 'this is my life & what I'm working on' type newsletter that readers are expecting when they sign up, then that's a different beast than newsletters used for advertising, like the literal dozens I get every day from Amazon itself & Old Navy & credit cards, etc. I treat indie publishing as a business & I don't think indie publishers should be prohibited from using [[or shamed by other indies into not using] any kind of advertising that other businesses benefit from, including newsletters. But, in any event, we're told not to pester them w/ 'spammy' newsletters & I get the reasoning behind it.

Yet it's okay for Nora Roberts to chastise readers for getting free or 99 cent books? Is she going to follow me around the bargain bins at my local B&N or indie bookstore & tut tut at me for taking advantage of the dollar sales or even free books the indie store near me gives away when it can't sell them? I get that she's trying to explain it as contributing to the system but that goes against what she's saying that it's the SYSTEM's problem. READERS are not the problem & cannot individually change anything - or even in groups, I doubt much would get changed since there would still be plenty of readers happy to download free books, & who could blame them?

I get crucified for this in these parts but I don't even think scammers are the problem & I think the word scammer has been overused for any type of business practice that helps indie authors make money. If you think about it, the true scammers, if they're not too busy scamming to actually pay attention to what other indie authors think, would probably be GLAD that self-appointed indie industry leaders or their followers come on Kboards or make comments on social media that say things like, don't use ghostwriters, don't work w/ other authors to cross promote too much or to write group pen names, don't release too quickly!!!, b/c all of these are scammy... b/c that is less competition. Now any group that teaches viable marketing strategies, or the marketing strategies themselves, such as permafree or rapid release, can be villified as 'scammy' & it's almost as if some indie authors don't want others to make any money. They like to be self-appointed experts on who is a 'real' author who deserves to make money, & who is a 'scammy' indie publisher. Then we have a trad pub author wading in to educate readers on the 'fact' that permanently free books are scammy & not to buy them? Umm, thanks for driving away potential customers from indies' wide series, Nora. 

I think that in these attempts to get rid of bad practices like plagiarism, which sadly will always exist but which Amazon COULD do more about if it wanted to... but it clearly doesn't want to... people are going after the craziest stuff & using this fiasco as a chance to get up on their soap box to preach against whatever practice they think is scammy, & making sweeping declarations such as 'publishing quickly w/ ghostwriters & starting new & multiple pen names to do it is SCAMMY & these people should have their accounts terminated by Amazon b/c they must obviously be scammers!' One of the people on Twitter that is part of the getloud movement is calling for a publisher to be banned simply b/c they publish multiple pen names & use GWs & send newsletters to her [which she acknowledges that she willingly signed up for & remains subscribed to] & people are cheering her on, as if it's such a sin to own a publishing company on KDP. [I have looked hard for allegations of plagiarsim or clickbotting or anything that this publisher is actually doing wrong, & to my knowledge, they don't exist- just screams about how dare this publisher publish multiple pen names on Amazon under a known GROUP publishing company & have the audacity to email me when I sign up for their emails!!!!! Okay, I think this is where we reach the tipping point of people using something bad that happens to go after whatever issue or person they don't like for some particular reason.]

I also think that this issue is old as time for authors & other artists. It's a long-held trope that artists don't make any money. Those that do manage to do it, do it by utilizing the methods of capitalism that make them the most money, i.e., breaking down their longer books into short parts published in magazines when that pays, or making longer articles that are paid per word when that pays, or cranking out pulp fiction when that pays, etc. [Just some examples of ways that authors in capitalist countries have made money by using the capitalist system in their favor- I suppose I could also use the example or artists painting church ceilings or sculpting famous figures when commissioned to do so by those w/ money & power.]

I'm not sure why we would expect KDP to be any different. In fact, it's worse b/c it's owned by the most successful 'capitalist' [some might use other words for him, & I think monopolistic practices should play a role in any discussion that we have involving KDP or KU or Amazon in general]. Capitalism & Amazon are to blame & for those like me who have some issues w/ not only unfettered capitalism but actually corporate welfare & government/corporation oligarchies, it's a systemic problem that is NOT going to be fixed by blaming other indie authors, readers, ghostwriters, or even people who illegally read stories on ePub or whatever. The problem is way bigger than any of this- the problem is that poor people are getting poorer & rich people are getting richer & trying to appease the poor people & take what little money they have by throwing unlimited entertainment in their direction, in exchange for getting all their personal information, enslaving them w/ credit card debt, enticing them to buy toilet paper & other necessaries from the General Store in the Cloud (probably trademarked by South Park but you get my point) or whatever reason they're doing it.

It saddens me to see authors blaming each other & even readers for issues that can't be changed that way, if they can be changed at all. I think a better attitude is one that has been displayed by people a few posts above me. Realize & accept that capitalism has never looked favorably upon artists. Art does not make money. Mass produced entertainment, marketed well to the masses, CAN be a 'form' of art that makes money but even then, there is still a lot of luck involved. Try to bring some business skills into your indie publishing. Realize that the opportunity for a regular Joe Schmo w/ a KDP account to make any kind of decent money writing or publishing is very rare, as is the opportunity to make big money in traditional publishing. Some on top, such as Nora & the big name indies on Twitter leading this charge, get lucky [I don't mean they're not talented or hard working! I mean that there're also a lot of luck & timing & market forces involved in their success or else everyone who was talented & hard working, which I know most of us are, would have the same kind of success, but most of us who are talented & work hard working CAN & do achieve some degree of success at this & that's great- but not Nora Roberts or Courtney Milan level, & that is also fine.]

The opportunity to be little publishing houses on our own if we want to be is, IMO, the only silver lining to the otherwise disastrous effects of Amazon's desire to provide people who don't have a lot of money w/ a ton of subscription content in order to make it more likely that they'll buy a big electronic item or all their household goods, etc., from Amazon as well. THAT is what all of this is truly about- NOT permafree pricing schemes or readers who like free books. It seems to me that some established authors are trying to take that right away, or demonize anyone who uses a different marketing strategy than they think is acceptable, & that they are trying to use Nora to help them in that cause. I think a better reaction is to support our fellow authors & explore all viable ways of making money from our craft. To get back to my original point, talking down to readers & blaming them for the problem is NOT a viable option unless we are big powerhouses like Nora, & it bothers me that she displays such an attitude towards readers while also trying to tell indie authors what are acceptable ways of winning readers/sales/making money.


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## writerlygal (Jul 23, 2017)

CassieL said:


> I don't think that's what she was saying. I think she's calling out the fact that there are so many 99 cent and free titles out there now that some readers have come to demand that all books be offered at that price point. And that if all authors did that only the ones producing at an extremely fast rate would be able to live on that 35 cent per sale royalty.
> 
> Per the post: "I am NOT saying all books at a bargain price are scams, I am NOT saying readers should never scoop up a bargain or download a free book. I AM saying if you're a reader who pushes for fast and cheap, who buys books simply because they're under a buck, who hounds authors for free (and yeah, you know who you are, too) as I'm often hounded, this is a problem."
> 
> I'm not a big name at all, but I've even been messaged by a reader asking why I charge what I do. In my case, they were basically fishing for me to send them paperbacks for free. I suggested they contact their library.


But this is just what happens in any industry, anywhere any product is sold. People always want free samples, free stuff, etc., & businesses often give it to them to make them happy or drive interest to what they're selling. Two examples from my own life as a consumer:

- Recently our cable company sent us an email inviting us to attend an early screening of a movie, for free - & the tickets even included free popcorn & soda for everyone in our family! I'm assuming they worked w/ the movie theater to make this happen & that part of it was advertising for the movie theater or movie in addition to the cable company. The one 'catch' was more free stuff. It was a kids' movie and kids were given lunch boxes w/ the name of the movie & w/ our cable company's name on them. Guess what happens when the kids take the awesome amazing movie-themed lunch boxes to school & talk about the awesome amazing movie they saw? Yep, advertisement that is a write off for the company, so essentially, due to loopholes in the corporate tax system, 'free' advertisement by giving away free stuff. I'm sure if it was a movie for adults they'd be giving away tshirts or phone cases or whatever w/ that stuff on it so it would get people talking about it like I am right now - same idea - & when we were there, there was a long line full of people who were there not for OUR screening but for a free adult/horror movie that a radio station was giving away, so it was clearly a common practice.

- I posted on social media that I liked a certain food product & wished I could enjoy it but I couldn't because I was on a diet. A company contacted me & offered to send me a free coupon for their product that was the same as the one I was craving, but in a sugar free, low carb, diet-friendly or whatever version. I hated to break the news to them that w/out all the yummy stuff, I wouldn't enjoy the product! But I accepted their offer & I did try their product w/ the free coupon & I guess it was an okay substitute for the real thing I was craving. Obviously they hope that if I want that product again, I'd buy it from them, & I guess I would, if I liked it enough w/out the good bits, but I didn't. And of course they hope I talk about it & tell people how generous they are, but if I don't, I'm still allowed to use the free product b/c a free gift is a free gift w/ no strings attached. But it's just a marketing strategy companies use & consumers have come to expect.

I'm not the type to actively seek out these freebies or even coupons. But a lot of people are. They bug the companies for free products to try & they even try to make fun 'lifestyle' social media accounts so they're given free stuff to advertise. They enter contests & giveaways non-stop. Many people in my life seem to be extreme coupon finders, to the extent that they end up getting products for free or near free. They subscribe to sites like SlickDeals & they are always asking me if I have a coupon to some place I want to go to for lunch. No, I don't think that way - I would rather pay for what I want NOW than spend the time & effort trying to find a coupon or free deal on something I probably wouldn't have wanted anyway if it was full price. But I have honestly come to think that I'm not the norm- that most people do seek freebies & deals to some extent & some are quite extreme about it. I understand why, too, b/c things are expensive & most people don't have the means to buy what they want when they want it so they look for deals & freebies & coupons.

So it doesn't surprise me when readers write to ask for free stuff. I guess they figure they might as well try. Sometimes I give a reader a free book when they tell me a sad story about their husband being in the hospital & unable to work. Could I be being scammed? Maybe. Does that really happen to a lot of people & could have likely happened to them? Yes. So I do it if I have the time & energy & hope I gain a fan, which I often do, or if they keep pestering me for free stuff I finally say, sorry, no more to give, & get ready for a bad review, b/c if they are THAT type of reader, then that's what's going to happen.  But just like I don't want the bad actions of some indie publishers to influence how I feel about the industry in general or to be used as an excuse to close off opportunities currently available to indie authors, I also don't want the bad actions of some readers to influence how I feel about all readers, & many readers are very grateful for anything I have to give them for free, & some do go on to buy other books from me when they can afford it, & they write & tell me about it, so, to me it all evens out in the end. I do what is best for me & what I feel like w/in the realms of the law & the TOS, & I don't care what a big name trad pub author has to say about it- to the reader seeking freebies or to me. [As an example, I'd give the reader a free non-KU book or a free ARC copy of a KU book but I wouldn't give them a free book that's in KU b/c TOS prohibit it. These are nuances that I don't think Nora understands & she just paints 'permafree' in general as a bad thing or people who give away free books as scammers who glut up the system on purpose, etc., instead of looking at the details of what an author is doing to promote themselves & whether it goes against any law or TOS, whether she or some indie authors like the practice or not.

I understand that freebie-seeking behavior from readers bothers a lot of authors & that they don't want to give out things for free, & that's fine. But to shame other authors who DO take advantage of ways to give things away for free w/ the hope of a benefit to them, just like big companies do, & to say we are the reason that the system is broken, is bad. Plus, to expect a practice very common in capitalism to stop just b/c Nora scolds her readers about it is rather silly. This is just the way things work & we would have to not only change KU but the entire system of capitalism in order to stop it. Even then, I'm pretty sure that most people would still like free stuff. But what I'm saying is that it's fine to use these methods to help us, just like my cable company & yucky sugar-free product supplier did, if we want, & for readers to take advantage of them b/c that's the whole reason we're doing it!, & Nora shouldn't try to guilt us b/c of that. To me, when people scold people about things like that, it just shows ignorance as to what indie authors do to get interest in our books, as well as probably some ignorance about basic capitalism & human nature & how to operate a business w/ different marketing & promotion strategies. Things a trad pub author doesn't have to worry about, or at least shouldn't have to worry about but it seems to me that we indies are better marketers than many publishing companies, so maybe more trad pub authors should worry about it, but not Nora, she's fine b/c she's a money-maker for trad pub and that's awesome for her.  But to try to apply what she knows about publishing w/ the realities of indie publishing is probably not going to work out that well & I hope that if she keeps doing it, she at least stops calling practices that she knows nothing about 'scamming.' Okay, I'm off to type some fiction now, although this real life battle between indies that started off as a battle against a plagiarist is getting stranger than fiction to me.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

It's publishers' job to set prices. It's readers' job to pay those prices or not.

Readers shouldn't complain directly to authors or publishers about their prices and authors shouldn't complain that readers won't pay XYZ.

Complaining about pricing is a really bad look for authors. It's also pointless. Readers are willing to pay or they're not. The effort/cost/process of your books is not their business or their problem.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Plagiarism and ghostwriting are not always entirely separate.

The can be, but sometimes they are linked by the user's desire to deliver fast, cheap (in resources committed) content. Both can be routes to that fast, cheap content.

Obviously, in this particular case, the plagiarizer wasn't satisfied with the speed and cheapness of the content she was getting, and she stepped over the line into plagiarism.

While there are plenty of users of ghostwriters who never cross that line (or other lines), it's easy to see the temptation. And it's easy to condemn all ghostwriters for the actions of a few. 

That's one reason I think acknowledging ghostwriters/cowriters will add transparency and improve the whole environment.


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## DCRWrites (Jan 20, 2014)

I've done ghostwriting-- I was paid for the work and my name is nowhere near it and that's fine. Another client hired me as a book doctor and did put my name on the book.

I've never hired a ghostwriter or book doctor myself, but I would be hypocritical to say that others shouldn't (that and I don't want to return the money).

If some writer wants to sell ghostwritten books under their own name, that's their decision and they can sink or swim based on how well they pull it off. Ghost-pasters deserve all the opprobrium we can throw at them, but that's for the plagiarism, not the ghosting.


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## bobfrost (Sep 29, 2013)

enough was said


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

nail file said:


> Wow. WOW. Apparently you've never had someone have a go at you for something they perceive you're guilty of but never did.
> 
> Even if it's proven you're innocent, you will rarely get an apology. Those absolutely convinced you're guilty will double down on it, even in the face of proof otherwise.
> 
> ...


I never said any of this. I have done rapid release myself and so has Nora Roberts or rather her publisher with a trilogy a couple of years ago.

I'll say it gain. If you haven't done anything wrong, she wasn't talking about you.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

felicity said:


> Plagiarism and ghostwriting/rapid publishing are two entirely different situations. Combining the two is disingenuous. The former is wrong and illegal while the latter isn't.
> 
> As long as the content mills are not doing anything nefarious/illegal, what makes it wrong for them to use ghostwriters and publish rapidly?
> 
> ...


Once again, nobody said this.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

CoraBuhlert said:


> I never said any of this. I have done rapid release myself and so has Nora Roberts or rather her publisher with a trilogy a couple of years ago.
> 
> I'll say it gain. If you haven't done anything wrong, she wasn't talking about you.


Because her rant is so convoluted -- going from plagiarism, to ghostwriting, to cheap books, to cheap readers, to permafrees, to how KU and Amazon wrecked everything ("Amazon's--IMO--deeply flawed system, incentivizes the fast and more"), to content mills, to plagiarism, to cheap books, to backtracking (_not everyone that does this is bad_), to admitting that she really doesn't understand the economics of indie publishing -- it's hard to tell exactly what she truly is saying.

Except the plagiarism complaint. That part of it is definitely clear.

In her latest blog post I linked, Roberts states _"I am NOT saying all books at a bargain price are scams, I am NOT saying readers should never scoop up a bargain or download a free book. I AM saying if you're a reader who pushes for fast and cheap, who buys books simply because they're under a buck, who hounds authors for free (and yeah, you know who you are, too) as I'm often hounded, this is a problem. This just plays into a broken system."_

Complaining about readers who buy books that are 99 cents? What if that's all they can afford? Is someone who shops for a loaf of bread at Walmart for a buck instead of paying $7 a loaf at the expensive grocer down the street any less valid a customer? Those "fast and cheap" readers are consumers, with some money to spend. Why should she care if they buy cheap books? Perhaps the alternative would be that they buy no books. Would that be preferable?


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## PermaStudent (Apr 21, 2015)

jb1111 said:


> Because her rant is so convoluted -- going from plagiarism, to ghostwriting, to cheap books, to cheap readers, to permafrees, to how KU and Amazon wrecked everything ("Amazon's--IMO--deeply flawed system, incentivizes the fast and more"), to content mills, to plagiarism, to cheap books, to backtracking (_not everyone that does this is bad_), to admitting that she really doesn't understand the economics of indie publishing -- it's hard to tell exactly what she truly is saying.
> 
> Except the plagiarism complaint. That part of it is definitely clear.
> 
> ...


Her posts are jumping around, and I think that's where some of the conflict in this thread is coming from. I interpreted what I read to mean she's upset about plagiarism, clickfarms, and individuals using methods to create false markets and manipulate rank (as Phoenix described above). The free/cheap book complaint, well... I have readers email me asking for free books, and I already offer several series starters. I received one last week stating she wanted me to send her my 7 book series because she would like to read them (not a reviewer, not "I can't afford them", just "send me your books"). And when I hadn't responded in 12 hours, because I tend to ignore emails with a rude tone, she sought out my Facebook page, demanded the series, and said in all caps she "expected a reply".

Those are the readers I was thinking of. Not the bargain shoppers, who I have no problem with.


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

https://www.creativindie.com/can-you-ever-forgive-me-fraud-and-plagiarism-in-the-publishing-industry/

Interesting take on the whole issue.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

nail file said:


> https://www.creativindie.com/can-you-ever-forgive-me-fraud-and-plagiarism-in-the-publishing-industry/
> 
> Interesting take on the whole issue.


Heroic.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

nail file said:


> https://www.creativindie.com/can-you-ever-forgive-me-fraud-and-plagiarism-in-the-publishing-industry/
> 
> Interesting take on the whole issue.


this is long, but very good.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

I get some of these freeloaders too--they write and ask for, even demand, free books, merely because they got one or two for free.

However, for every one of those, I have a dozen or more thank-yous from people grateful for the initial free book or two (we give away another one to entice them to sign up for the mailing list) and who go on to say they were happy to buy more because my prices are reasonable and give value for money.

Part of the black lining (the opposite of a silver lining) to the new democratized digital marketplace is that readers start going straight to the author with their requests--even when the author is clearly traditionally published, like NR, and probably doesn't even have the right, by contract, to give away digital copies of her work without publisher permission. And they hold the author responsible for things out of their control, such as a bad Kindle download, or a vendor billing problem, or a POD book with a bad cover cut.


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## royalmilktea (Nov 29, 2018)

Apparently we here at Kboards are a den of villainy and scamming now. If you're arguing against Nora Roberts in this thread, you're a scammer!


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## CassieL (Aug 29, 2013)

royalmilktea said:


> Apparently we here at Kboards are a den of villainy and scamming now. If you're arguing against Nora Roberts in this thread, you're a scammer!


All I could find was one comment from JA Huss saying the only people against Nora's comments were the "cheaters and scammers" on Kboards. Nora Roberts certainly didn't say anything about Kboards that I could find and I assume she's capable of reading the comments here herself and seeing that many people supported a lot of what she was saying. Why JA Huss said what she said? No idea. I saw many comments on the Nora thread from people who post here who I most definitely do not consider cheaters and scammers (Sela, Rosalind, etc.), but whatever.


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## royalmilktea (Nov 29, 2018)

CassieL said:


> All I could find was one comment from JA Huss saying the only people against Nora's comments were the "cheaters and scammers" on Kboards. Nora Roberts certainly didn't say anything about Kboards that I could find and I assume she's capable of reading the comments here herself and seeing that many people supported a lot of what she was saying. Why JA Huss said what she said? No idea. I saw many comments on the Nora thread from people who post here who I most definitely do not consider cheaters and scammers (Sela, Rosalind, etc.), but whatever.


I never said that Nora Roberts called us a den of villainy, just that we were being called that by JA Huss, who's thrown her chips into KU after being wide forever and ever.


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## bobfrost (Sep 29, 2013)

edit: enough was said...


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

I decided to read down the comment thread on Nora Roberts' "Let Me Address This" blog post, and I see a ton of comments from people saying that thanks to Roberts' posts, they'll never buy another 99 cent standalone book again, they're all crap, etc. etc.

More comments about "cheap books" than actual plagiarism.

I suppose one can take away from it what they will.

Also, I think Roberts is missing the boat when it comes to the real reasons that authors often price low. In her latest post, she appears to blame it on scammers:
_"Free or cheap books. I explained my thoughts on this as best I could. The reason so many self-pubbed must give away or sell their honest work so cheap is BECAUSE the scammers exploit a weak, flawed system. A readership now accustomed to fast and cheap demand it. And many of those readers don't understand an actual writer can't produce a book a week."_

However, the reason many authors price low isn't scammers -- it's the _massive amount of competition_ that causes many authors, especially newer ones, to price low.

It's called supply and demand, and there even is a term taught in Econ 101 that probably applies: Price Elasticity of Demand.

It's just plain economics. Do scammers take advantage of it? Sure, I guess they do. But do "cheap books" themselves actually cause plagiarism? I don't see it.

There was plagiarism before cheap books. Nora Roberts' first blog post on this recent plagiarism case mentions an _earlier_ case (in 1996) where someone plagiarized her long before KDP and KU were even in existence. The book that apparently had plagiarized material in it was in hardcover.

I just wish that the fire and ire were aimed in a more appropriate direction. Cheap books might be used by scammers, but cheap books aren't the problem. If the official floor for eBooks were $5.99, the scammers would undoubtedly be using that price floor the way they apparently use 99 cents (or whatever price they are charging) now.

In fact, if you follow one of the links Roberts posted on her blog, there are further links from there to pics of two books that are labelled or categorized as 'scam' books that sell for $3.99 and $2.99. Is that cheap?


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## CassieL (Aug 29, 2013)

BGArcher said:


> No, but the mods let her comment through (along with plenty who are actually calling for witch hunting over there) while others I know who have calmly refuted Nora with, you know, facts, comments are mysteriously not showing up on her page ... I wonder why that is?


That could just be a matter of who posted when. My first post on one of those threads took about sixteen hours to be approved because I'd never posted on her site before. My second went through immediately. I have post moderation for first-time posters set up on all of my websites as well.


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## LD (Aug 29, 2018)

PermaStudent said:


> Her posts are jumping around, and I think that's where some of the conflict in this thread is coming from. I interpreted what I read to mean she's upset about plagiarism, clickfarms, and individuals using methods to create false markets and manipulate rank (as Phoenix described above). The free/cheap book complaint, well... I have readers email me asking for free books, and I already offer several series starters. I received one last week stating she wanted me to send her my 7 book series because she would like to read them (not a reviewer, not "I can't afford them", just "send me your books"). And when I hadn't responded in 12 hours, because I tend to ignore emails with a rude tone, she sought out my Facebook page, demanded the series, and said in all caps she "expected a reply".
> 
> Those are the readers I was thinking of. Not the bargain shoppers, who I have no problem with.


 Oh, Lordy! haha 
Reply with: No problem! Then include the links to the sales pages.
The gall of some people!


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## LD (Aug 29, 2018)

BGArcher said:


> Sure, but she updated her latest post to link to a terrible human being who helped doxx a writer. This has snowballed into total garbage. Plagiarism is bad. Nobody is arguing against that. But she's creating a mob and siding with people that led a witch last summer, that did hurt honest authors. Being mad at the plagiarist, suing them, sure. You go girl with your net worth over 300 million. But then creating a mob of people who don't know nearly enough about the indie industry (and you yourself don't either,) and acting like judge jury and executioner and lashing out? Enough.


This is how I'm seeing it too, even if that was not her intention. NR is obviously writing her responses without understanding the full picture, but what she says is riling up all her followers, so this is getting dangerous. She's just putting everything into the same pot. I mean, come on, Bookbub is evil now? They have no skin in the game to scam people.


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

Now, Nora Roberts is in the same league as MLK.

Someone wake me when this insanity is over and the body count starts. Because if you don't think that real and honest authors aren't going to be hurt by this confusion _now_, you are sadly mistaken.


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## felicity (Nov 28, 2012)

CoraBuhlert said:


> Once again, nobody said this.


Yes they do in the comments on Nora's posts.

What started as a plagiarism case has now morphed into something encompassing a whole slew of valid business practices.


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## PermaStudent (Apr 21, 2015)

LD said:


> Oh, Lordy! haha
> Reply with: No problem! Then include the links to the sales pages.
> The gall of some people!


I told her to sign up for my email list because that's where I do (occasional) freebies. Then I purged her, blocked her, and hope she moves on in the interim. If she doesn't, I'll figure it out.

I'm still happy Nora Roberts is shedding light on the norms in indie publishing. A lot of readers aren't aware, and maybe (?) should be aware, of how things are going. Reading her responses when discovering some of the practices (some accepted as legit, some not, some sitting in a grey area) is thought-provoking. I'm having a mix of responses ranging from "brave new world" to "are we boiling frogs? how *did* authors start accepting this as the norm?"

We seem to have a perennial discussion on this board about how KU (or permafrees, low prices, treating books as widgets, etc.) is "killing the industry". But that's business, and business evolves, and you adapt or go under, and "I'm going to do what's right for my business", and "I can't really blame you for doing what's right for you", and "I can because this is bad for all of us", and "the real thing that needs fixing is KU (or whatever), but no one has the clout to make Amazon listen..." And aside of how people are dealing with the hand the industry has dealt us, there are scammers.

This is one drama of many to happen in the indie-sphere. I don't know if anything will change for better or worse in the long run, but I am glad for more people to be seeking more knowledge on the subject. And back to the flash point, I hope they get the plagiarist.

Thank you all for your discussion. I need to put my words toward my work now.


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## LD (Aug 29, 2018)

PermaStudent said:


> We seem to have a perennial discussion on this board about how KU (or permafrees, low prices, treating books as widgets, etc.) is "killing the industry". But that's business, and business evolves, and you adapt or go under, and "I'm going to do what's right for my business", and "I can't really blame you for doing what's right for you", and "I can because this is bad for all of us", and "the real thing that needs fixing is KU (or whatever), but no one has the clout to make Amazon listen..." And aside of how people are dealing with the hand the industry has dealt us, there are scammers.
> 
> This is one drama of many to happen in the indie-sphere. I don't know if anything will change for better or worse in the long run, but I am glad for more people to be seeking more knowledge on the subject. And back to the flash point, I hope they get the plagiarist.
> 
> Thank you all for your discussion. I need to put my words toward my work now.


I think KU is a deeply flawed system. And I am wide. But even then, it's worrisome some of the things she's saying, because she's taking a little piece of what she's heard and presenting it as the whole picture, skewing things and painting them in ways it's not. On top of that, some of the misinformation she's spouting is making it seem as if scamming is rampant in the entire indie industry, regardless of whether you're wide or in KU. She's traditionally published, and one of their major authors and one who came from an era that did things differently. She didn't need to understand the marketing side of it and doesn't realize that a lot of what she's condemning is actually practiced by the traditional side too. As one of the biggest authors, her words can make a huge impact, possibly detrimental, for her to be telling people things based on misinformation.


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## PermaStudent (Apr 21, 2015)

LD said:


> I think KU is a deeply flawed system. And I am wide. But even then, it's worrisome some of the things she's saying, because she's taking a little piece of what she's heard and presenting it as the whole picture, skewing things and painting them in ways it's not. On top of that, some of the misinformation she's spouting is making it seem as if scamming is rampant in the entire indie industry, regardless of whether you're wide or in KU. She's traditionally published, and one of their major authors and one who came from an era that did things differently. She didn't need to understand the marketing side of it and doesn't realize that a lot of what she's condemning is actually practiced by the traditional side too.


Last post, I swears it:

It is worrisome, but having followed Nora Roberts for a while, I know she's smart. If she decides to dedicate her time to these issues, she will learn the nuances, and (I hope) clarify her position on them. There's a lot of information to take in, let alone convey to others.

I think we all can agree that Nora is speaking from a position outside of the indie community and learning of these things for the first time. That alone makes her opinion uniquely interesting to me.


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## LD (Aug 29, 2018)

PermaStudent said:


> Last post, I swears it:
> 
> It is worrisome, but having followed Nora Roberts for a while, I know she's smart. If she decides to dedicate her time to these issues, she will learn the nuances, and (I hope) clarify her position on them. There's a lot of information to take in, let alone convey to others.
> 
> I think we all can agree that Nora is speaking from a position outside of the indie community and learning of these things for the first time. That alone makes her opinion uniquely interesting to me.


 Yes, she is smart and, yes, she is doing it from a good heart. But she really needs to just stop saying things and wait until she actually understands the full picture. Being such a big author, everything she says does influence many readers' opinions. "Bookbub is evil, I'm not going to get books from there anymore." "99-cent books are from scammers, I'm not going to read those anymore." Etc., etc.


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

When I talked with authors about social media and my concerns because I don't know how to social media well, and about using a pen name because using my real name would land me in trouble that could ruin me, I was told that you don't need a social media presence to write and publish and that pen names are fine.

After this, apparently that's not true any longer.


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## Guest (Feb 26, 2019)

LD said:


> Yes, she is smart and, yes, she is doing it from a good heart. But she really needs to just stop saying things and wait until she actually understands the full picture. Being such a big author, everything she says does influence many readers' opinions. "Bookbub is evil, I'm not going to get books from there anymore." "99-cent books are from scammers, I'm not going to read those anymore." Etc., etc.


Nora Roberts doesn't need bookbub and her books are not 99 cents. So she doesn't care. If self-publishing died tomorrow she would benefit.

Some of what she said in her posts was good (the stuff about plagiarism) but most of the other stuff was pure bunk. She needs to stay in her lane and not repeat second hand disinformation as fact.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

nail file said:


> When I talked with authors about social media and my concerns because I don't know how to social media well, and about using a pen name because using my real name would land me in trouble that could ruin me, I was told that you don't need a social media presence to write and publish and that pen names are fine.
> 
> After this, apparently that's not true any longer.


If you are referring to the concept put forward by some commenter on NR's blog comment thread, where it was suggested that an author may be a scammer if they have no website, ignore it.

Although it's probable that a lot of scammers have no website, a lot of _legit authors_ choose to not have a website, for various and thoroughly valid reasons.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

jb1111 said:


> If you are referring to the concept put forward by some commenter on NR's blog comment thread, where *it was suggested that an author may be a scammer if they have no website*, ignore it.
> 
> Although it's probable that a lot of scammers have no website, a lot of _legit authors_ choose to not have a website, for various and thoroughly valid reasons.


Um, _what??_ Not to derail the thread but... how does such an assertion even make sense?


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Jena H said:


> Um, _what??_ Not to derail the thread but... how does such an assertion even make sense?


The concept appears to be centered on the fact that some purported scammers have low social media presence and no websites. It's kind of like the 99 cent book = possible scammer concept which has already been discussed here on this thread. Probably based on a certain amount of reality, but a lot of legit stuff gets tarred in the process.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

jb1111 said:


> The concept appears to be centered on the fact that some purported scammers have low social media presence and no websites. It's kind of like the 99 cent book = possible scammer concept which has already been discussed here on this thread. Probably based on a certain amount of reality, but a lot of legit stuff gets tarred in the process.


Well, I was wondering because other than an author FB page, I have zero social media presence. No website, not even author photos anywhere (for privacy purposes). And I'm obviously 100% legit as a writer.


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