AUTHOR RACHEL ANN NUNES WINS HER COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT LAWSUIT AGAINST AN AMAZON SCAMMER

Writer Beware posted this on the long battle by Rachel Ann Nunes against one of the nastiest plagiarists ever.

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

In 2014, author Rachel Ann Nunes learned that her 1998 novel, A Bid For Love, had been plagiarized in its entirety by someone calling themselves Sam Taylor Mullens. Re-titled The Auction Bid, the book was being sold on Amazon, and the “author” was not only promoting it, but sending copies to reviewers.

Unfortunately for the plagiarist, some of the reviewers had read Nunes’s book. Although the plagiarist had switched the narrative from third to first person, the similarities were unmistakable.

Read the whole post here.

Congratulations to Rachel Ann Nunes for a well-deserved and hard fought for win.

Plagiarism or Cannabalism?

Tez Miller pointed me over to Jenny Trout’s blog for this.

Stealing Books in the Age of Self-Publishing

Stopped by Rachel Ann Nunes’ GoFundMe and found an update with a link to the following article.

One day two years ago Rachel Ann Nunes, who writes Mormon fiction and romance novels, received an email from a reader asking a strange question: Had she collaborated with someone named Sam Taylor Mullens? Nunes had never heard the name before. But the reader went on to say she had noticed similarities between one of Nunes’s novels, A Bid for Love, and another self-published book by Mullens. When the reader confronted Mullens about the parallels, she was told the two authors were simply collaborators. If that was a lie, the reader said—and it was—then Nunes may have been the unwitting victim of plagiarism.

With that single exchange, Nunes found herself part of a trend affecting many professional authors in the age of self-publishing. An anonymous stranger seemed to have stolen her book, changed it superficially, and passed it off as her own work. First published in 1998, A Bid for Love did well enough to spawn two sequels before it eventually went out-of-print. Mullens’ book, titled The Auction Deal, looked like the same story with much of the same language. In Chapter 2, Nunes writes, “The dark brown curls were everywhere. They were a curse, and had been for twenty-eight of Cassi’s twenty-nine years.” Compare that to Chapter 2 of Mullen’s book, which begins, “Dark brunette curls were everywhere. They were a curse, and had been for the thirty-one years of my life.”

For more view original post.

The Real Book Thief

On March 29 I posted about a case of plagiarism involving author Ingrid Black and plagiarist Joanne Clancy. Yesterday Black tweeted to my friend John who has the blog, Illuminite Caliginosus, that she has written a novella about it. Released on 4/12/16 and for free at both Amazon and Amazon.uk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While you are there you might want to pick up The Dead.

 

 

Plagiarism Alert

Reblogged from TezMillerOz:

Many thanks to Has on Twitter for sharing the links.

 

In short: Two authors were former co-writers. They went their separate ways. One author published a book with only her name on the cover – but it was plagiarised from stuff her former co-writer had written.

 

From the publisher: https://www.facebook.com/blushingbooks/posts/1077241322314397 John tells me there might be trouble with the link so here is a screenshot.

 

From the victim (via her friend’s Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1099645193431519&id=100001581461541

 

May just be the one book, but in case it’s not, beware of solo books by this author.

Plagiarism Alert- Joanne Clancy

Tez Miller posted this today:  “If you read crime fiction set in Ireland, avoid anything by Joanne Clancy. At least some of “her” books, she plagiarised off Ingrid Black.”  Read the interview with Eilis O’Hanlon, one half of author Ingrid Black, here.

Kicking your career as a writer to the curb: Plagiarism.

Source: Kicking your career as a writer to the curb: Plagiarism.

Plagiarism Alert- Addison Scott updated

Author Cat Grant has been plagiarized. She found her book Once A Marine is listed as Addison Scott’s Coming Undone.  Marine on left, Undone on right.

Grant is not the only one,

Saving Michael on left, Under the Influence on right.

Looking through his titles on Barnes & Noble I found  Long Road Home which has essentially the same description as Donya Lynne’s Winter Fire. Fire on left, Home on right.

Busy little gonif that he is, here is Andrea Dalling’s Seducing Jordan on the left and Scott’s Friendly Persuasion on the right.

That’s 4 of the 11 books Scott has listed on Barnes & Noble in the last 12 weeks. I’ve sent an email to both Donya and Andrea but if anyone knows them please contact them.

Update: Just found this.

Update: All books plagiarized listed here.

WTFckery Or Not: Latest Plagiarism Accusation: Self-Published Author Missy Blue (D.C. Ruin) and The Tornado

[reblogged from Katiebabs Library of Books]

Welcome to this week’s WTFckery where unfortunately I have another alleged plagiarism scandal to talk about, yet again in the self-publishing community…

 

Last April I first heard about Missy Blue, a debut self-published author and her (or his) book, The Tornado. This self-published book is about a former ballerina heroine who has a romance with a MMA boxing fighting hero, and for fans of New Adult. The buzz for this book was big, so much so that The Tornado hit the top 100 in Romance, and I think overall fiction at Amazon. If that’s the case, The Tornado probably gave Missy thousands of dollars in sales. I reviewed the book, enjoyed it and even told others to read it. Now I’m kicking myself because it has come out that The Tornado is stolen. This Missy Blue, who has now vanished, stole a fan fiction of Warrior, a 2011 movie, titled, In The Land of Gods and Monsters by Wynter S. Komen. Also it looks like Missy Blue is D.C. Ruins, which this alleged plagiarist first published, with what would be The Tornado in 2014 under the title of Dances with Monsters.

Jane from Dear Author was the first to report this travesty on Twitter:

 

Comment on a review of The Tornado before Amazon took action and took off The Tornado off sale:

 

I’m pissed off again because this is yet another black stain on self-publishing. This thief, aka Missy Blue is a perfect example of everything wrong with self-publishing, because these debut self-published authors, who just appear one day with little or no social presence or website continue to prove it’s easy to steal fan fictions or other authors’ work and claim it as their own. Because this Missy Blue can just erase herself or himself and take his/her ill gotten gains (and laughing all the way to the bank), and not give restitution to the author or writer they stole from, it will  continue to happen again and again. That author or writer victim, who decides to take action, by spending their own money to find out who someone like Missy Blue is must appeal to Amazon and any other third party vendor to reveal the identity of the plagiarist. Only Amazon and other third party vendors have the information (plagiarist’s real identity, address and banking information) the victim needs for their case, in the hopes to receive the royalties these plagiarists stole.

 

The sad thing is I have to be very cautious when trying a new self-published author who doesn’t have any presence to speak of. Do I really have to investigate the authors I want to read or ask other authors who know these new debut self-published authors and ask for referrals because I don’t want to end up reading possible plagiarized content? Because of Missy Blue and Laura Harner, I’m very close to the point I won’t mention, review or praise any debut self-published authors and their books until I know they’re 100% authentic.

 

It’s already extremely hard for self-published authors to get reviewed or create word of mouth for their books. Whenever a self-published author plagiarizes another author or writer, they’re stealing from the entire self-publishing community who needs word of mouth and reviews to sell their books. Self publishing has made it so easy for unethical people to steal fan fiction and other works published or posted on-line, and sell it for a big profit. A sad WTFckery that continues to put self-publishing in a bad light.

Harner Plagiarism Summary

Last week a reader contacted Becky McGraw to say that a book she was reading was a plagiarized version of one of McGraw’s books. McGraw was understandably outraged and started looking for lawyer. Author Jenny Trout posted about it here and here when it was discovered that a six part serial story of Harner’s  was a rip off of a book by Opal Carew.

Harner’s twist on her plagiarism of two best selling m/f romance authors was to take their stories and change m/f to m/m. McGraw made her FB post on the 19th and Harner had just returned from GRL2015 in San Francisco where she had sat on panels and signed “her” books.

Now authors are scrutinizing Harner’s backlist, Jenny Trout reported that Harner pulled 10 books from retailers when word of her plagiarism first circulated, and the backlist is extensive. Add to that Harner has also co-written several books and at least one of these authors has now posted about her experience of writing with Harner. Another author posts about her rocky relationship with Harner here.

Through all this this is the only response Harner has made in public:

McGraw has posted this:

Harner is a thief. Just Harner, nobody else but those authors who so-wrote with her will suffer a financial loss because who wants to buy a book with Harner’s name on it? Same for those in the anthologies. Harner has stolen from a lot of authors and I suspect we haven’t heard from the last of them. She has stolen from other authors in her genre because readers who might have bought their books spent their money on books Harner had no right to sell.

Harner is a thief. She has stolen the trust of her readers and her fellow authors.

And Harner is stupid, she has thrown away something infinitely important- the woman her husband, her children, her family and friends thought she was for the price of a book. I wonder if today she thinks it was worth it?

We can all do something positive, we can buy a book by McGraw or Carew, or a book by any author she co-wrote with or are in an anthology with her.