Plagiarism For Idiots

For those who haven't heard, Little Brown recently recalled a book titled, Assassin Of Secrets once it was discovered that the author (who is using the pseudonym Q.R. Markham) plagiarized several passages from other published novels. Now whenever I hear cries of plagiarism I always approach the complaint with skepticism. For instance, if I wrote the sentence: "Her heart caught in her throat as she watched him walk away," and it was later discovered that an author (or several authors) had written that same sentence I could rightfully be accused of unoriginality but calling it plagiarism would be a step too far. Using clichés is never a great idea but it's not an act of theft. 


But this guy used sentences like this:

Then he saw her, behind the fountain, a small light, dim but growing to illuminate her as she stood naked but for a thin, translucent nightdress; her hair undone and falling to her waist—hair and the thin material moving and blowing as though caught in a silent zephyr.

Which just happens to be the exact same sentence used in a James Bond novel titled License Renewed penned by author John Gardner. It's hard to argue that's coincidence. "The thin material moving and blowing as though caught in a silent zephyr," just isn't a phrase people go around saying. 


When I heard this my first thought was not, How could Markham do this?! No, it was What an idiot. I mean, really? Not only are you going to plagiarize but you're going to plagiarize by lifting the most descriptive sentences you can find from a James Bond novel??? If he had plagiarized from a stand-alone backlist novel from a little known author that would have been bad and, thanks to the internet, he probably would have been caught but at least he wouldn't have been caught right away! Perhaps Markham is unaware of this but lots of people like James Bond! Particularly people who might buy a novel titled Assassin Of Secrets! He also plagiarized from bestselling author James Bamford. Once again, "Bestselling" is the key word here. In the incredibly unlikely case that some of you are as dim as Markham allow me to explain that, "bestselling" means that Bamford's books have been read by a lot of people. 


This is kind of like robbing a bank filled with security cameras without so much as a ski mask. You might be able to do it but you're obviously not going to get away with it.


And what's really sad is that Little Brown published 6,500 copies of Assassin Of Secrets. All that work stealing other people's words and it didn't even earn him a decent print run. 


There are so many lessons one could take away from this. Don't plagiarize, be honest, don't cut corners and so on.


But really, if you are only going to learn just one thing from this let it be this: Stupid people shouldn't commit crimes. It just works out badly for everyone. 


Kyra "Fashionista Fatale" Davis

PARADISE BY THE RIFLE SIGHTS is out!

Okay, so it's technically been out for a couple of weeks, but this was the first chance I got to say it on this blog. Paris Bombay's novella is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords! So buy it today!

Jana & Leslie's Excellent Adventure!

Jana and I had a great time in Florida at the Novelists, Inc. conference last month. We drank, ate, and learned some stuff. We had an awesome view from our Tropical Suite - which, while it did NOT, in fact, come with a toucan, had a toucan motif.

The food was good, the company better - and I took a notebook full of notes. Although I did feel a bit Amish using something as prehistoric as a pen and paper, when everyone else was clicking away on iPads around me. What? I like to doodle.

The speakers came from Penguin (not the bird, to my disappointment), TOR, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, among others. And the authors were smart, funny and not to be patronized - which is nice.

At the same time, in the same hotel, there was a mixed martial arts conference and an herbalist conference. The lobby reeked of testosterone and Patchoulli.

The biggest message was that this is the best time to be a writer. And seeing the post where Gemma says she sold half a million ebooks last year, I think they may be right.

So now that PARADISE is up, I'm going to get to work on another project - a collection of short stories featuring Bombay hits through history. I think that will be fun... almost as much fun as if we'd had a live toucan in our room. Maybe next year...

The Assassin

Welcome Guest Blogger Gina Robinson

Winners please contact me.. Mo and Krisgils, please contact me about receiving your prizes from the What's On My Kindle blog.

Okay...I have a special treat for you today. Gina Robinson is one funny lady. Gina's book, The Spy Who Left Me will make you laugh and sigh. And today she's offering a copy to one lucky person who leaves a comment. So make sure you post!! I'll announce the winner on top of this blog tomorrow morning, so make sure you check and send me your snail mail address to receive your prize.

CC

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Test Your Spy Romance Susceptibility

You Might Enjoy a Spy Romance if . . .

The thought of a hot, mysterious man driving an Aston Martin DB5 customized for a super spy with a rotating license plate, ejector seat, and tire-slasher excites you.

You think lipstick should be used to mark your man with your passion, and your lipstick case should conceal a single 4.5 mm bullet, just in case the enemy shows up.

You make your man pancakes on Saturday morning, and your pancake flipper is actually a scabbard containing a fighting knife.

You can name all fourteen Ian Fleming Bond novels, and you know exactly who you'd pick to play Bond in a remake of any of the movies, and which Bond Girl you'd most like to play.

You understand what Ninety-Nine sees in Max Smart. Even funny spies are sexy.

You wouldn't mind if Max came over and installed a super vacuum fireplace of your own. It beats shoveling ashes after a romantic night spent in front of the fire, or having to hire a chimney sweep.

You love exotic locales, martinis--shaken, not stirred, and danger.

You receive the following apparently random garbage in a text:

22IMT191EE12?49ENTT??<0427MO

E--1-[|}DAA029AA@048%TY$73^

and immediately decipher this simple code as a note from your lover--Meet me at ten today.

You gave the man in your life cufflinks equipped with miniature transmitters for his birthday.

You've wondered what it would be like to love and be loved by a spy. In fact, you think your secretive lover might be a spy.

You love alpha heroes.

You like your romance novels packed with intrigue, adventure, action, lying, deceit, passion, longing, lust, love, and yes, even humor.

The Spy Who Left Me from Visual Quill on Vimeo.

Or this review of my novel, The Spy Who Left Me, from Publishers Weekly piques your interest, "Punctuated with Bondworthy downhill car and bike chases and near-death surfing parties, Robinson’s clever concoction of lust and longing is a refreshing tropical cocktail.”

Have I whetted your appetite? Here's a blurb for The Spy Who Left Me.

THEY WERE UNDERCOVER LOVERS

If there’s one thing that can ruin a vacation, it’s running into your ex. Just ask Treflee Miller. If she’d only known that her husband Ty would be here in Hawaii—muscular, sun-bronzed, and infuriatingly gorgeous—she would have brought the divorce papers for him to sign. But life is full of surprises when you’re married to a world-class spy…

NOW THEY’RE STRANGERS IN PARADISE

Ty Miller can understand why his wife is tired of playing Mrs. James Bond. He’s never home, he’s always on a mission, and he’s usually surrounded by exotic informants. He has to admit that the perfect spy makes a pretty lousy husband. But for the sake of Ty’s security and Treflee’s safety, they can’t blow his cover. Not here. Not now. Not when his longing is so strong, her lips so tempting—and his enemies so close…

I'd love to hear to hear how you'd complete the topic sentence of this post. You might enjoy a spy romance if . . .

Have fun!

Gina Robinson has always been a storyteller. An avid book lover, she grew up reading romance, mysteries, and suspense novels, but majored in Electrical Engineering. Eventually Gina gave up the glamorous engineering life for the equally glamorous life of a stay-at-home mom. Her first published novels received rave reviews, establishing Gina as one of today’s most exciting new authors of romantic suspense. Her most recent novel, The Spy Who Left Me, is published by St. Martin's Press, November, 2011.

What if Rhett Butler HAD Given a Damn? by Diane Kelly

A while back, I wrote a manuscript that included some characters from Ireland. To get a feel for their language and culture, I loaded my Netflix queue with Irish movies and watched as many as possible. My family was patient for a week or two, then they tired of me hogging the DVD player. They rebelled and logged into the Netflix account, rearranging the queue to add some zombie, action/adventure, and chick flicks to the mix. Thus, my selection Rory O’Shea was Here, was pushed far down the list.

Slowly the movie worked its way back to the top, and last weekend it appeared in my mailbox. I’ve long since finished the manuscript with the Irish characters, but figured I’d go ahead and watch the movie anyway. It was here, so why not?

The movie was touching and poignant, even funny at times. The plot involves two disabled young men in their early twenties, both of whom are wheelchair bound. One has cerebral palsy, and the other, Rory O’Shea, suffers from muscular dystrophy. The two live in a home for the disabled. Rory has difficulty dealing with the loss of independence and strives to find a better life for himself and his new friend.

I don’t want to spoil the movie for anyone who might see it, so I won’t give specifics about the plot. But after I watched the movie, I noticed my TV screen displaying the option to watch an alternate ending. I clicked on it and watched.

The alternate ending was more uplifting and pulled the themes together more fully. But it also tied up everything very neatly and didn’t leave the viewer with as much to think about afterward as the original ending did. If given a choice, I'd have to say I preferred the alternate ending, though both endings had their own merits and were satisfying in their own ways.

Have you ever read a book or seen a movie that you wished had ended differently? How would you have ended the story? We’d love to hear about it!


Diane Kelly is the author of the humorous Death & Taxes romantic mystery series. Her debut novel, Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure is in stores now. Visit Diane at www.dianekelly.com

My Self-publishing Milestone

I wanted to share with you fabulous Killer readers that I’ve hit a milestone.  After looking at my sales numbers from August of this year, I realized that I have sold over 500,000  ebooks since I started self-publishing last year.  That’s half a million books sold!  :O  Color me shocked.  And happy!

To celebrate this milestone that I never would have dreamed I’d see when I first started writing, I thought I’d do a small series of posts on self-publishing.  A lot of authors I know lately are going the self-published/indie published route, and I noticed that I see a lot of the same questions being asked over and over again.  Very good questions, too, and ones that I had when I first started self-publishing.  I know some authors have published books like “the secret to my self-publishing success”, but I thought it would be a lot more fun (and more free!) to answer some question on this blog instead.  So, here are a few questions I get a lot, and some answers that I hope make sense:

1. Do I need an ISBN to self-publish?

That depends on where you’re selling.  If you publish through Barnes & Noble’s PubIt! or Amazon’s KDP  they will assign you a special internal number for your books, so you do not need an ISBN.  If you publish through Smashwords, you do not need an ISBN at some of their vendors.  But, if you want to have your books available in the iBookstore (either directly through Apple or through a distributor such as Smashwords), then you do need an ISBN. 

What I’ve done: I currently let Smashwords distribute my books to the iBookstore, and have used the free ISBN option that Smashwords provides.  I do not use this ISBN anywhere else but Smashwords.

2. How do I format my books?

My best advice is to look at the Smashwords style guide for formatting, becuase if you can get through Smashword’s system, your formatting will work just about everywhere else.  You can then convert your formatted word doc into a variety of digital file formats to upload to the different sites. 

What I’ve done: This may draw gasps of horror from my fellow self-pubbers, but I upload my word docs directly to Amazon, BN, and Smashwords.  I don’t bother with converting myself.  Then again, I’m not very picky about paragraph alignment or having it spaced *just* so.  As long as it looks readable and professional, I’m good. 

3. Where do I get my covers?

There are a ton of freelance cover artists doing self-published covers, so ask around.  Prices vary (as does quality!), so be sure to do a little browsing before choosing your artist.  Generally $100-300 is what I’ve heard of people paying at the moment for good covers. Or, you can always make them yourself.     

What I’ve done: I do all my covers myself, because I love playing with Photoshop.  I buy stock photos from Fotolia.com, which has a really great selection and very affordable pricing.  Then I do a little cutting and pasting – sometimes moving one model to another background, or adding small items in, like a gun or knife in her hand.  I try to work with large files, usually 300 dpi, so that they’re also good quality for print covers.    Generally, I tend to spend about 1-2 days on a cover and around $30.

4. Can I self-publish paperback books too?

Yes!  There are a few different places you can do this, though Createspace and Lulu are two of the leaders right now.  Both put out similar quality books and neither has high set up fees.  Createspace does have a premium option, which I would suggest purchasing (I’ve made my money back in the first month on every book), but there is not a lot of cost involved. 

Once the print books are up for sale, they distribute to Amazon and BN, so make sure that they link to your ebook versions in the systems.  One place you will not see them, however, is in physical bookstores.  Most booksellers will not stock print-on-demand books or self-published books.  They can special order them, though, so they are available to readers, just not on shelves.   

What I’ve done: I go through Createspace for my print books, and it’s been very easy and I’m very happy with the quality.  I honestly don’t sell a ton of print books – WAY fewer than ebooks – but I know there are some readers who only do print and really appreciate having that option. 

5. How do I market my self-published titles?

This is a personal choice and everyone’s mileage will vary.  The very best thing I have seen to increase sales is to have several books available.  So write fast!  ;)   Other than that, get word of mouth moving.  Research bloggers or reviewers that review self-published titles and send them all a copy.  Join indie writers’ groups and participate like heck.  Get a great website going and sign up for Facebook. 

What I’ve done:  You’re going to hate me but… nothing.  Okay, so I already had a website and this blog when I decided to jump into indie pubbing, so I had a bit of a presence and a handful of loyal readers already.  Which has helped.  But I have done nothing beyond that to market my books.  I just write more books. 

The one thing I have done is make sure I have slammin’ covers, interesting blurbs, and make sure I categorize and use search keywords that are in line with my target audience.    

6. What kind of sales can I expect to see?

This totally varies.  But, across the board, I see self-published books starting with small sales and building.  Unlike print books, they don’t have a short shelf life where you expect to see a big spike in sales in week one, then a slow decline over time.  Totally the opposite here.  The longer my books are up, the better my sales have grown.  So don’t be discouraged if they start out small, and it takes a few months to pick up to where you’d like to see them. 

What I’ve done:  I’m going to do a whole post later this month on my exact numbers, royalties, and what they’ve meant to me in terms of income (yes, I'm dishing it all, baby!) but just as a comparison… in my first month of self-publishing I sold more ebooks than I had sold print books (through a traditional publisher) that entire year.     

 Anyone else have other self-publishing questions?  Ask anything!

~Trigger Happy Halliday

Men and romance

Being a severe book addict/lover, I belong to several reader loops. They're great for recommendations and to make friends who don’t think you’re crazy for staying up all night to finish the latest JR Ward. I mean who really needs more than three hours of sleep anyway, right?

So you can imagine my surprise when a member outed her husband this week. It seems she’d been missing a copy of her favorite paranormal romance. She assumed she’d accidentally packed it in with her wad-o-books for the used bookstore. She resigned herself to the fact that it was gone forever…until she went into her husband’s dresser drawer a few weeks later.

She’d been looking for stamps and found her romance. Hmm…When confronted with the evidence, he admitted he wanted to see what the fuss was about and, well, he likes paranormal romance. She laughed. Very hard. In fact, everyone on the loop got a kick out of it. Why? Because there’s nothing wrong with a man liking romance. In fact, it’s pretty darned nice that he wants to read a great story about a couple who fall in love.

I’ve had several men at my signings, fantasy and sci fi fans mostly, who enjoy the paranormal elements in The Accidental Demon Slayer. Of course, most of them were quick to point out that they saw the book at the front of Barnes & Noble and didn’t realize it was a romance at the time.

But still, I have to question a stigma where an entire group of people are somehow forbidden to enjoy a good story. So what do you think? Do you know any men who read romance? And if not, I wonder what we can do to show them it really is okay.

The Good, The Bad, and The Disco

By Robin 'Red Hot' Kaye

I’ve been an avid collector of two things for as long as I can remember—books and music. I’ve kept them with me all my life though seven states, and over thirty-five moves.

When I was younger, I could name every move, in order, and I could have given you the street address too. I’m not sure I’d be able to remember my every move now, but when an old song comes on the radio, or the iPod, I can tell you where I lived when it was popular. It’s the same with books.

I know I lived in Mount Laurel, NJ the year Elton John’s Philadelphia Freedom was all the rage and read Judy Blume’s Forever and Louis Nizer’s Reflections Without Mirrors.

I lived in Reston, VA when a friend of my mother’s let me hang out at her apartment and read her prized collection of Wizard Of Oz books in exchange for walking her dog every day after school. That was the same year the songs Wildfire and Shannon brought tears to my eyes along with the book, Watership Downs.

I read JRR Tolkein’s The Hobbit and Jeffrey Archer’s Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less one of the summers I spent in Westhampton Beach, Long Island while tapping my foot to Billy Joel She’s always A Woman To Me.

I lived in Mountain Lakes NJ when I first heard Elvis Costello sing about Watching The Detectives, and read The Thorn Birds in one sitting. It was also about that time I got in trouble for reading The Carpetbaggers and A Stone For Danny Fisher during my Harold Robbins phase.

Keeping my favorite books and music close to me has always been so important because wherever they were was home.
A year ago, my DH (dear husband or damn husband depending on my mood) moved our storage from one room to another—this happens quite often when you’re restoring a hundred year old Victorian. Every time DH faces this task, everything I’ve loved and saved for years is in jeopardy of going the way of the dumpster. I became a victim of Get-rid-of-this-stuff-because-I-refuse-to-move-it-again syndrome. This time my entire record collection was placed on the chopping block. I refused to consider taking it to the big turntable in the sky and I’m so happy I’m more stubborn than he is.

During one of my weekly shopping jaunt to Costco, I spied something I haven’t seen in years. I swear I heard the angels sing—although it might have been Jim Morrison. There before me was a turntable! Yes, I wasn’t seeing things. It was a real, honest to God turntable that connects to a computer and plays, downloads/records (both 45’s and 33’s) to iTunes!

Last night, I opened my box of albums and found my family history. There was my grandparents’ operas and their Italian comedy album, Pepino the Italian Mouse. A BJ Thomas album that I’m sure was one of my parents’. The first Sesame Street Album that contained my favorite song on the show—Oscar the Grouch’s I Love Trash. I walked down memory lane through my southern rock phase, my hard rock phase, my jazz phase, and sadly, a short and very painful disco phase. I found everything from James Taylor to Tubular Bells, Bradford Marsalis to Gilbert and Sullivan. On my bookshelves and in that box of albums, I have a musical and reading history of my life—the good, the bad, and the disco. No matter where I was, I always had a book to read and good music to listen to. I’m a very lucky person.

What’s on your bookshelf and on your iPod?