Okay, so this happened a week or two ago. It’s lousy and it sucks and the bloggers who actually spoke out are getting hate mail, and they are getting bullied.
The really beautiful thing is that it was a YA blogger who was the plagiagist. A very prominent one. I’ll be honest. A YA blogger is going to have lots of YA…lots of teens flocking to her blog. I’d hold a YA blogger to a higher standard. I’ve got a teen in my house and anybody who might have my teen in her audience? I’d rather you not be a thief and a liar.
Yes…I discussed it with my teen and this blogger was kinda marked off the list of sites my kid will visit. Kid was rather disgusted with the blogger. But she’s also a budding writer, the child of a writer…she knows the value of words, and she understands the work that goes into them.
I also hope the blogger never really spoke out against bullying…if she did? The message didn’t take, because many of her loyal followers are attacking those who spoke out against. That’s another really disgusting part. It’s more blame the victim stuff.
I spoke my mind about this over at the Smart Bitches blog and I think I said everything i wanted to say there, so I’ll just paste my comment here…
People…writing is hard. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a book, writing a blog, writing a review, etc. Writing is hard. You’re pulling the words from inside you and they mean something.
I’ve had my words stolen and it sucks.
If you haven’t been there, then you don’t have much ground to stand on when you’re pulling the… UR A BITCH and UR JEALOUS and SHE’S IS AWESOME AND AUTHORS LOOK UP TO HER… (FYI, I’m an author and I don’t.) She’s also a blogger who is forever off the list of blogs my kid will be allowed to visit.
It’s that old… WALK A MILE IN THEIR SHOES. If you can’t do that, all you’re throwing around is empty words. You’re also setting yourself up for karma in the worst way, because everything comes back on you. If you treat people fair, you tend to get fair treatment. If you ride them down, you get ridden down. And…well, in the case of the Story Siren…she treated people like waste when she stole from them. This is the consequence. When you lash out in her defense and get ugly over it, you’re setting yourself for future consequence yourself.
here’s my suggestion…
Think of something you worked really, really hard on. Something you put a lot of time into… whatever it may be. Maybe it was a school assignment. Maybe it was some sort of artistic creation. I don’t know… but you worked HARD, and you accomplished something and you ARE PROUD OF IT. Hell, maybe it’s a relationship. You’ve got a great boyfriend and you two are wonderfully happy and it’s awesome.
And then somebody comes in and claims that work as their own. Or some tramp comes in and steals your boyfriend, or at least makes a play for him that just leaves you feeling sucker-punched.
They don’t credit you. They don’t thank you. They take your hard work, claim it as their own and just walk on. It’s a betrayal.
It’s wrong. It’s theft. It’s cheating.
And the bottom line, if you can’t see that… it means you’ve never invested that much of yourself in something. Which really… well, it’s kinda sad.
To all the bloggers who stand up against this, you have my appreciation.
Now… I dunno if it will happen, but if by chance any of those defenders show up here…I have a policy against those who can’t keep a civil tongue…or tone. Want to argue with me? Fine. But do it with a civil tone…my blog is for my readers and they don’t need to read nastiness. You can argue without spewing hatred. I do it all the time. Get ugly or nasty and the posts do get deleted… or at least modified. That’s the blog policy and it’s been made clear up front.
Want to email me hate mail? That’s cool, too. The contact button is right up there at the top, but don’t expect a response. I don’t waste my time with UR A BITCH or UR JUST JEALOUS.
I don’t have a reason to be jealous of a plagiarist and I already tell people I’m a bitch, so there’s not much to respond to there, anyway.
Okay. Two cents spoken.
Well said. I am an amateur blogger. I’m a stay-at-home mom, that reads when I have free time. My blog consist of a few reviews and some of the crazy stuff that goes on in our lives. I don’t pretend to be great at it and I would never take someone elses words and try to make them my own. If I found a review of a book that I was getting ready to review, and my thoughts were the same or I couldn’t say it better myself, I’d put a link on my blog pointing people over to it. I often have a hard time putting my thoughts into words so, I give my short honest opinions and make sure to leave visitors to my blog plenty of information to find what they may need, whether it be links to another blog, links to author website or links to excerpts.
I felt the same way about her being a YA blogger and her reader base being teens and this is not teaching them a good lesson, especially when there hasn’t been much accountability. If this was a college student they would have been through out of school for this. I commented regarding this same issue at dark faerie tales but no one else seemed to have brought out this specific issue, so I am glad someone else finds the YA aspect even worse. Thanks for this post especially as you are an author.
-Amanda P
Paranormal Romance
The absolutely worst part of this whole mess is that there were people angry that the theif was exposed NOT that the crime was committed. That people would lash out at the victims and that anyone would defend The Story Siren because she is quote “so nice” or “so cute”.
As I stated on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books the best way to show our support is by supporting the artists affected. I have been buying your books since you were published by Ellora’s Cave. I had no idea that you had been plagiarized. You have no idea how angry this makes me on your behalf and I’m sure it is only a tiny fraction of the rage you feel of having your hard work stolen. This makes me doubly more determined to ensure that your work remains on my autobuy list.
If all of us remain firm not to buy, read, subscribe or click on to the work of plagiarist they won’t be able to profit from the work of others. It’s as easy, and as hard as that.
@juiliane, it was last summer and it was the weirdest damn thing. It also happened while I was LITERALLY on the road, driving out west on vacation and have you any idea how hard it is to do all those nice legal-eze take down things on a fricking iphone?
She’d taken some of my Grimm stories from samhain and mashed them up so miserably, like Ella, (Cinderella), she called her Cindy…this French lady is who lethal and elegant…Cindy. It was just crazy. I got all of the work down pretty fast, but then she sends me this very sad song and dance about how hard her life and if I tried to sue her, her kids would suffer and I wouldn’t get anything…
Ironically, I was more furious that she would try to make ME feel bad after she stole from me than anything else.
and I totally misspelled your name… I’m sorry. 🙁
Everyone misspells my name, I would if it wasn’t on my birth certificate. No worries. I am named for the Dutch Queen Julianna and how obscure is that? French version of a Flemish name.
So you were supposed to feel sorry for the person that stole your creative property and attempted to pass it off as her own? Would she have liked the keys to your car as well? Your house? Perhaps you could carry a child for her? No? The logic of people who
try to justify plagiarism astounds me. I thought the arguments of people who carelessly pirate books and music were self serving but this, this descend to the of total illogic
Ugh! I hate typing on this Kindle Fire when you go so far and it suddenly hides the last few lines you have typed and won’t scroll to them or let you correct or backtrack.
That last line should end with… descend to level of total illogical.
I’ll be quiet now.