PENGUIN PUBLISHING PLAGIARISED ROMANCE NOVELS

[girlyswot]

In the last couple of days, a story has emerged concerning a series of books published by Penguin, authored by Cassie Edwards. Ms. Edwards is a successful romance novelist with sales of over 10,000,000 books featuring Native American romance.It has come to light that many passages in Ms. Edwards’ books have been copied verbatim from a number of old reference books. The evidence is overwhelming and can be found here:

Cassie Edwards Extravaganza
Cassie Edwards Extravaganza 2
We Report, You Decide
Another report
But wait, there's more

The evidence so far gathered suggests that Ms. Edwards has restricted herself to plagiarising books that are in the public domain and so it seems unlikely that any legal action can be taken.

Nonetheless there are some serious ethical and literary concerns regarding her actions, and the negligence on the part of her editors. You will see from the examples above that the prose quality of the quoted sections is easily distinguished from Ms. Edwards’ own style, yet apparently no editor ever questioned this, nor thought to run the simple Google check that uncovered the plagiarism. Nor should the publishers be content to defraud the public in this manner, passing off books as the work of one author, when in fact large sections of text were written by someone else. This is a serious matter, and that it concerns one of the most well-known and well-regarded publishing houses in the industry makes it even more alarming. How widespread is this practice, and how much are editors expected to condone this intellectual theft?

I have never read one of Ms. Edwards' books, nor do the cited extracts give me any wish to do so. But this story makes me cross for a number of reasons:

1. Because there is no likelihood of legal action, it seems the ethical issues have been ignored. Just because there is no copyright theft does not mean there has been no plagiarism.


2. Because Ms. Edwards is writing in a particular genre, it seems that rights of her readers to expect original (and good quality) prose are ignored.


3. Even if Ms. Edwards had been unaware that her plagiarism is a problem, her editors should not have been. A 5 minute Google was all it took to uncover the problem. They are without excuse.

Comments

[kinderjedi.livejournal.com]

Penguin should at least terminate her contract. Of course, if I were with Penguin I'd also want to have a long chat with her editors about the fact that none of them ever caught on.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I almost think that the editors are more to blame. She may have thought she was just doing legitimate 'research'.

[kelleypen.livejournal.com]

So what is to stop an unscrupulous author like her from plagiarizing stories from LJs?

This is very disturbing

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Quite. It seems to me that the 'Google Test' should be a bare minimum standard for publishers to check the originality of the work they're putting out.

[kelleypen.livejournal.com]

Exactly. If I google test my students' papers and catch plagiarizers, surely a publisher can do as much. Heck, they can hire me and I'll teach them how to use google.

[girlspell.livejournal.com]

You see cases like this in genre novels like romance (bodice rippers)etc. and some chick lit. Some low brow techno thrillers too. The problem with genre books, is that addicted readers like them written a certain way. You know, change the Indian chief to a Pirate captain leering down over the heaving breats of his captive. I guess you can thow in some hard boiled detective and cozies mystery books.

There was a case a few years ago concerning a so called chick lit. These type of books have become very popular since the mid 1990s. One author copied small sections of an earlier book from another author.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Yes, although here she hasn't plagiarised from other fictional books. She's copied chunks from non-fiction works, quite bizarrely, giving her readers little lectures on the mating habits of sage grouse, the lives of ferrets, and various features of native American life.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Well, when I say 'hasn't plagiarised from other fictional books', what I mean is, 'there's no evidence yet that she's plagiarised from other fictional books.'

[amamama.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, now that's more than just a wee bit disturbing. What are they playing at? Where's the editor? Didn't they care, since it was texts in the public domain, or didn't they notice? One thing's for sure - they didn't do their job, and how they managed to become editors is a puzzle to me. I thought editors were quality control, scrubbing and polishing (and sometimes beating) texts into 'edible' format. Actually, I'm quite shocked. *shakes head*

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

My guess would be 'didn't care' rather than 'didn't notice'.

[stmargarets.livejournal.com]

I'm fascinated with how the romance industry has real elements of the HP fandom now that the internet has come to play a role. It's always been fan-driven - but now there are places to go for people to talk about the books (and the authors) and to start taking notes . . .

I think editors are like the middle-level managers at Wall-mart at some of these publishing houses - they have very little time to read the submissions, deal with agents, contracts, etc, nevermind double-check the facts. Cassie Edwards has been writing for a very long time - so I'm sure they gave her a "pass" as far as scrutinizing her text. As for the author - she has to crank out so many books a year - she has a flimsy story and needs something to pad it - so in goes the kewl research she's done on the net. None of this is right, mind you, but I do see how cost-cutting and bottom-line mentality would allow such a thing to happen.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

You're right. HP fandom is the way it is in large part because of the internet, and that same influence shapes a whole lot of other areas too.

And I expect you're right about the editors too, re. time and money. Someone on the Smart Bitches blog said it would be interesting to see if she did this stuff in her earlier books, when Google wasn't around. I'd guess she started off with a little bit more integrity in her work and she's got sloppier as the editors have become more complacent about her. She sells, so who cares?

[dogstar101.livejournal.com]

*wonders if it's something about people called Cassie (http://wiki.fandomwank.com/index.php/Cassie_Claire)*

I haven't read the full story yet, but how embarrassing for Penguin. Or it should be, but I wonder how much they care. Perhaps the writer doesn't care either, now she's made her money. Unscrupulous people, eh?

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I had the exact same thought about Cassie!!

It seems to me that the only hope for this kind of thing to be stopped is if Penguin are embarrassed. But I don't know that they will be, now that the money's made and there's no real threat of legal action.

[daksian.livejournal.com]

Heh, for a moment, that was who I thought was being talked about!

(my icon choice is to honour this mention of CC, btw! :P)

[daksian.livejournal.com]

Not to be a sheep or anything, but I completely agree with your points. I loathe plagiarism, and I too could not care less what medium it is done in, it is still wrong. And yeah, as a person who has thoughts of becoming an editor some day, I'm baffled that they failed the Google test. I can only assume they are amazingly old school, who prefer their authors to use a typewriter rather than a computer.

*shakes head*

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I think stmargarets is probably closer the mark when she points out that editors are probably just overworked and looking for an easier life.