"95% of vampire novels take place in Alaska, New Orleans, or Las Vegas"
January 8, 2025 2:59 PM Subscribe
Article by Katy Waldman in The New Yorker about an allegation of plagiarism in a romantasy series. Archive link. Unpublished novelist Lynne Freeman thinks that Tracy Wolff's Crave has used elements from Freeman's Blue Moon Rising, with involvement from her editor and publisher. Waldman discusses the difficulty of establishing plagiarism when the books are different in tone but have many similar details, particularly within a genre which uses tropes extensively. Via Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.
If you'd like a vampire novel that is NOT set in Alaska, New Orleans or Las Vegas, may I suggest the San Francisco-based Christopher Moore book, Bloodsucking Fiends?
Enjoy!
posted by Chuffy at 3:21 PM on January 8 [4 favorites]
Enjoy!
posted by Chuffy at 3:21 PM on January 8 [4 favorites]
I have quite a few thoughts about this, but what I really want to know is who on earth was advising Lynne Freeman. Did no one ever say, look, clearly they don't want your book, so self-publish the thing and move on to the next book? You never see anything in the New Yorker article--at least, maybe I missed it--about her writing anything else, while Wolff is plowing through words at a life-threatening rate of speed.
Why hold on to the book for years and years, hoping that someone will eventually publish it, when this industry has such a thriving self-published side that produces millionaires? Not saying Freeman herself would become a millionaire from it--it also produces plenty of poverty!--but at least the book would be in the hands of readers, some of whom would become fans, and whose love would help guide her next book.
posted by mittens at 3:48 PM on January 8 [16 favorites]
Why hold on to the book for years and years, hoping that someone will eventually publish it, when this industry has such a thriving self-published side that produces millionaires? Not saying Freeman herself would become a millionaire from it--it also produces plenty of poverty!--but at least the book would be in the hands of readers, some of whom would become fans, and whose love would help guide her next book.
posted by mittens at 3:48 PM on January 8 [16 favorites]
(There’s even a “cheese-shifter” paranormal romance, by the author Ellen Mint, in which characters can turn into different types of cheese.)
Mods, I think I'm going to need the image tag back so I can add an animate gif of a dog tilting it's head.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 4:07 PM on January 8 [21 favorites]
Mods, I think I'm going to need the image tag back so I can add an animate gif of a dog tilting it's head.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 4:07 PM on January 8 [21 favorites]
Reading about the rushed backstory behind Crave just makes this video all the better: I read the entire Crave series so you don't have to
posted by lock robster at 4:25 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by lock robster at 4:25 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
like, anímate cheese, or psychic cheese, or anthropomorphic cheese, or kawaii cheese, or… oh, fine, okay, I’ll look.
…huh. No. Sexy cheese shifters, plain and simple.
posted by clew at 5:01 PM on January 8 [3 favorites]
…huh. No. Sexy cheese shifters, plain and simple.
posted by clew at 5:01 PM on January 8 [3 favorites]
Interesting calling on Cassandra Clare, actual known plagiarist, to comment on the matter.
I've done a bit of work-for-hire writing, though romance is very outside of my wheelhouse. The tropes the article discusses makes the material completely impenetrable to people who don't read romance, and honestly hitting the right buttons is a very specific skill that I simply don't have. I'm not at all surprised that the author who started from a fantasy perspective got hit with a shopping list of tropes by their agent - though that's a very fucking involved agent. Pelletier is clearly doing editorial work to hit the marketing requirements.
It's laughable that Entangled claims they don't use tags to market - readers are often after specific emotional experiences and to avoid triggery material and things that they find squicky or that just given them 'the ick'. Tags market the book entirely these days and if you're writing romance you need to be able to hit those genre beats. It's less punitive than it sounds - all genres use tropes - and the majority of romance writers are romance readers and write what they want, anyway.
The market for freelancers who can drop 10k a week to spec is white hot, and I kind of wish I did have the chops for it. It's not going anywhere, and while the NY piece talks about the boom in the market, it's all boom. Romance as a genre has always had a brutally loyal following, and ebooks as a whole make it so much easier for folks who'd otherwise be coy about being spotted with a Fabio bedecked paperback read their books in private.
so self-publish the thing and move on to the next book?
Self publishing is a hell of a lot more productive these days than it was even a decade ago, but if you have only have one book it's like dropping a bead into a gravel pit in terms of readers finding your work. You can either hope that the tropes and tags carry you, or you can spend huge swathes to time trying to self promote in order to have any real readership at all. All that talk about pay-per-page and bot readers and the like is the tip of the iceberg for the fuckery self published authors have to deal with. On top of that, Amazon's ebook policy allowing returns after reading sometimes pushes authors into negative royalties, for example, and that's before you get to actual plagiarism, which can be as blatant as AI written ebooks published under a stolen name or flat out copy-paste of an existing book into a wholeass new title with a fake author. Amazon to their credit has been playing whack a mole with the bad actors for some time, but it's a losing battle. A 10k work AI produced novel with an AI cover can be bought on the freelance market for under a fiver, if you even want to invest that much in hiring, so the grifters can afford to throw out dozens of them. If one sticks, it'll pay for the rest.
I really feel for both of these authors. I suspect the editorial influence has a lot to do with the overlapping areas in the two books, as well as the genre expectations. I wouldn't be surprised if Pelletier just hit Wollf with a similar list of target tropes during production, and included whatever bits she liked from Freeman's work. A good editor is an absolute gift, but a bad one - especially one that isn't even willing to take responsibility and call themselves an editor - can wreck your work and your reputation, and it looks like that's what's happening here.
posted by Jilder at 5:11 PM on January 8 [28 favorites]
I've done a bit of work-for-hire writing, though romance is very outside of my wheelhouse. The tropes the article discusses makes the material completely impenetrable to people who don't read romance, and honestly hitting the right buttons is a very specific skill that I simply don't have. I'm not at all surprised that the author who started from a fantasy perspective got hit with a shopping list of tropes by their agent - though that's a very fucking involved agent. Pelletier is clearly doing editorial work to hit the marketing requirements.
It's laughable that Entangled claims they don't use tags to market - readers are often after specific emotional experiences and to avoid triggery material and things that they find squicky or that just given them 'the ick'. Tags market the book entirely these days and if you're writing romance you need to be able to hit those genre beats. It's less punitive than it sounds - all genres use tropes - and the majority of romance writers are romance readers and write what they want, anyway.
The market for freelancers who can drop 10k a week to spec is white hot, and I kind of wish I did have the chops for it. It's not going anywhere, and while the NY piece talks about the boom in the market, it's all boom. Romance as a genre has always had a brutally loyal following, and ebooks as a whole make it so much easier for folks who'd otherwise be coy about being spotted with a Fabio bedecked paperback read their books in private.
so self-publish the thing and move on to the next book?
Self publishing is a hell of a lot more productive these days than it was even a decade ago, but if you have only have one book it's like dropping a bead into a gravel pit in terms of readers finding your work. You can either hope that the tropes and tags carry you, or you can spend huge swathes to time trying to self promote in order to have any real readership at all. All that talk about pay-per-page and bot readers and the like is the tip of the iceberg for the fuckery self published authors have to deal with. On top of that, Amazon's ebook policy allowing returns after reading sometimes pushes authors into negative royalties, for example, and that's before you get to actual plagiarism, which can be as blatant as AI written ebooks published under a stolen name or flat out copy-paste of an existing book into a wholeass new title with a fake author. Amazon to their credit has been playing whack a mole with the bad actors for some time, but it's a losing battle. A 10k work AI produced novel with an AI cover can be bought on the freelance market for under a fiver, if you even want to invest that much in hiring, so the grifters can afford to throw out dozens of them. If one sticks, it'll pay for the rest.
I really feel for both of these authors. I suspect the editorial influence has a lot to do with the overlapping areas in the two books, as well as the genre expectations. I wouldn't be surprised if Pelletier just hit Wollf with a similar list of target tropes during production, and included whatever bits she liked from Freeman's work. A good editor is an absolute gift, but a bad one - especially one that isn't even willing to take responsibility and call themselves an editor - can wreck your work and your reputation, and it looks like that's what's happening here.
posted by Jilder at 5:11 PM on January 8 [28 favorites]
She lives with the only two relatives she believes she has left, both of whom are witches.
This is something from Sabrina the Teenage Witch and not a great example to prove your idea's uniqueness
posted by thecjm at 5:48 PM on January 8 [8 favorites]
This is something from Sabrina the Teenage Witch and not a great example to prove your idea's uniqueness
posted by thecjm at 5:48 PM on January 8 [8 favorites]
Annette Curtis Klause, as far as I know, is just enjoying her retirement (she's a friend of a friend and very cool woman).
I guess my point is that there are no new ideas. It's just how you use the ideas.
(Blood and Chocolate -- yes, named for the Elvis Costello album -- still remains one of the horniest books I've read. I only read it as an adult and I was like "how is any of this in a YA novel?" It's not explicit, really, but wow.)
posted by edencosmic at 5:55 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
I guess my point is that there are no new ideas. It's just how you use the ideas.
(Blood and Chocolate -- yes, named for the Elvis Costello album -- still remains one of the horniest books I've read. I only read it as an adult and I was like "how is any of this in a YA novel?" It's not explicit, really, but wow.)
posted by edencosmic at 5:55 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
Interesting calling on Cassandra Clare, actual known plagiarist, to comment on the matter.
And without mentioning the (multiple) controversies involving her work, which is what threw me.
To the extent that Freeman has a case, it sounds like it rests on the autobiographical bits, and not on genre conventions that govern plot beats, characterization, etc. I was reminded of Sherlock Holmes pastiches, where even the most outrageous and apparently unique plot twists have often been done more than once.
posted by thomas j wise at 5:56 PM on January 8 [5 favorites]
And without mentioning the (multiple) controversies involving her work, which is what threw me.
To the extent that Freeman has a case, it sounds like it rests on the autobiographical bits, and not on genre conventions that govern plot beats, characterization, etc. I was reminded of Sherlock Holmes pastiches, where even the most outrageous and apparently unique plot twists have often been done more than once.
posted by thomas j wise at 5:56 PM on January 8 [5 favorites]
The thing that makes me most suspicious here is the agent so heavily downplaying an editorial relationship that I would imagine the writer has receipts for.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:15 PM on January 8 [6 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 6:15 PM on January 8 [6 favorites]
But I would add that plagiarism is not copyright infringementso even if the plagiarism happened the infringement is a hell of a lot bigger burden to prove.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:17 PM on January 8
posted by jacquilynne at 6:17 PM on January 8
That’s it, I’m setting my next vampire romance novel the only sensible place for any creature averse to the sunlight. On a nuclear submarine on a desperate chase under the Arctic cap to get to an isolated polar Ice Station before the Soviets can get their agents there.
Call me, publishers.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:53 PM on January 8 [13 favorites]
Call me, publishers.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:53 PM on January 8 [13 favorites]
(catching up) Cassandra Clare lifted text from Pamela Dean? While the Dean book was out of print? Did it at least get a readership boost?
posted by clew at 7:08 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by clew at 7:08 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
It’s been nearly a quarter of a century since Cassie Claire was kicked off ff.net for plagiarism.
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!
posted by betweenthebars at 8:32 PM on January 8 [7 favorites]
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!
posted by betweenthebars at 8:32 PM on January 8 [7 favorites]
I've read lots of UKcentric vampire (or vampire+) stuff! But I've also lived in two of the US places mentioned as being most infested. Might explain a few things.
posted by taz at 3:29 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
posted by taz at 3:29 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
also, oddly, just within the past couple of days there is a book or maybe a "book," I am desperately trying to remember, because I literally don't know if I read it, or wrote it. I only write for myself, and this has tons of elements that are my thing, but it could be a book (series, actually) by someone else, and I haven't been able to figure it out. That seems crazy with all the possibilities for search on one's computer, but all book stuff / writing stuff on mine is a huge mess. Other stuff is a huge mess, too, but this one is super annoying.
posted by taz at 3:59 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
posted by taz at 3:59 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
I self-published a trashy murder mystery and "dropping a piece of gravel into a pit full of it" is absolutely on point. I haven't the time nor the spoons to endlessly self-promote and spam my social media with it, so it has predictably gone nowhere. When I paid more attention to what was going on, it became clear that readers differentiated only on price with respect to unfamiliar writers, and would buy books with spelling errors on the first page over carefully-honed prose if the crap was cheaper.
An acquaintance, one of those people that I don't know super well but we have like 50 social media friends in common and I'd see at parties,* wrote a series of workplace-romance novels, you know, "stuck together snowed in at a marketing conference, sparks fly!", and DID have the spoons and/or narcissistic self-regard to constantly promote her work, to the extent that a lot of our mutuals had to put her on mute for awhile. She did indeed get noticed, though it never translated into getting an actual publisher. After a couple of years, the self-promotion died down, and then I ran into her at a function, and she knew I'd self-published, so we got to talking about it, and she was like do you ever make any money from it, and I said about fifty bucks a month, total revenue, and she just shook her head and said that despite all that work she'd never cleared much more than a hundred bucks in any month.
I genuinely feel that outside of a few people and genres (of which "romantasy" is one, but I cannot make myself write it) the book industry has become like the music industry, where it's functionally impossible for anyone who's not a nepo baby to actually make a living at it: Chappell Roan is the exception that proves the rule, here.
* She's the only person I've ever known who became a single mother on purpose. Man, is that a story.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:35 AM on January 9 [7 favorites]
An acquaintance, one of those people that I don't know super well but we have like 50 social media friends in common and I'd see at parties,* wrote a series of workplace-romance novels, you know, "stuck together snowed in at a marketing conference, sparks fly!", and DID have the spoons and/or narcissistic self-regard to constantly promote her work, to the extent that a lot of our mutuals had to put her on mute for awhile. She did indeed get noticed, though it never translated into getting an actual publisher. After a couple of years, the self-promotion died down, and then I ran into her at a function, and she knew I'd self-published, so we got to talking about it, and she was like do you ever make any money from it, and I said about fifty bucks a month, total revenue, and she just shook her head and said that despite all that work she'd never cleared much more than a hundred bucks in any month.
I genuinely feel that outside of a few people and genres (of which "romantasy" is one, but I cannot make myself write it) the book industry has become like the music industry, where it's functionally impossible for anyone who's not a nepo baby to actually make a living at it: Chappell Roan is the exception that proves the rule, here.
* She's the only person I've ever known who became a single mother on purpose. Man, is that a story.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:35 AM on January 9 [7 favorites]
Can other people actually read this? The archive link gives me three paragraphs and then says I have reached my monthly limit. I tried clearing cookies but I get the same result.
posted by goatdog at 5:57 AM on January 9
posted by goatdog at 5:57 AM on January 9
To the extent that Freeman has a case, it sounds like it rests on the autobiographical bits, and not on genre conventions that govern plot beats, characterization, etc.
I think part of Freeman’s outrage is that some of the conventions *are* autobiographical for her, but also that she was specifically asked to do work by this editor and resubmit, and *then* the editor stole interesting pieces because of Freeman’s refusal to work within tropes. Like, Freeman’s book sounds interesting and I would read it, but it’s also interesting in a way only already popular romance writers get to be. Complicated family stuff and dislike of other women? That’s something Courtney Milan can get away with, because she’s already built a following, but it’s going to turn off a bunch of new readers. The “women help each other” is a common romance trope. *Some* women can be evil or unhelpful, but I’ve only rarely read a book without at least one “best friend” or “unlikely friend” woman who is key to moving along the plot.
posted by corb at 6:26 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]
I think part of Freeman’s outrage is that some of the conventions *are* autobiographical for her, but also that she was specifically asked to do work by this editor and resubmit, and *then* the editor stole interesting pieces because of Freeman’s refusal to work within tropes. Like, Freeman’s book sounds interesting and I would read it, but it’s also interesting in a way only already popular romance writers get to be. Complicated family stuff and dislike of other women? That’s something Courtney Milan can get away with, because she’s already built a following, but it’s going to turn off a bunch of new readers. The “women help each other” is a common romance trope. *Some* women can be evil or unhelpful, but I’ve only rarely read a book without at least one “best friend” or “unlikely friend” woman who is key to moving along the plot.
posted by corb at 6:26 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]
goatdog, try continuing to scroll down. I got that, but then it picked up later down ... much later down than expected.
posted by taz at 6:40 AM on January 9
posted by taz at 6:40 AM on January 9
Goatdog - i ended up having to open the archive link in an incognito window to read it
posted by thecjm at 7:44 AM on January 9
posted by thecjm at 7:44 AM on January 9
> ... San Francisco-based ... Bloodsucking Fiends?
Oh, so it's a true story about Silicon Valley?
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:54 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
Oh, so it's a true story about Silicon Valley?
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:54 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
If you'd like a vampire novel that is NOT set in Alaska, New Orleans or Las Vegas
Also Tanya Huff, who has written vampire novels set in Toronto and Vancouver - and an awesome witch-ish novel set in Kingston, Ontario! A+ for the snarky cat.
posted by jb at 9:00 AM on January 9 [6 favorites]
Also Tanya Huff, who has written vampire novels set in Toronto and Vancouver - and an awesome witch-ish novel set in Kingston, Ontario! A+ for the snarky cat.
posted by jb at 9:00 AM on January 9 [6 favorites]
(also on trying to read articles, I was using a very nice right click add-on in chrome, "Open in reading mode," which helped on so many sites, but recently read something about it being one of many Chrome add-ons that had been compromised, and I've been too cautious to use it since, though I'm sure it must have been repaired by now. It was really handy.😢 I've been meaning to post in Ask about this.)
posted by taz at 9:14 AM on January 9
posted by taz at 9:14 AM on January 9
"The question the age of slop prompts is whether there is any point in trying to create original work with care, attention, and intention? If we want to be writers, is the only option to jump on trends and gear our work toward hashtags while hoping that we can hide a bit of art in the muck? I do believe creativity still matters. That art matters. I probably need to believe that psychologically. But let me try to make the case." (Lincoln Michel, Art in the Age of Slop)
posted by mittens at 9:49 AM on January 9 [6 favorites]
posted by mittens at 9:49 AM on January 9 [6 favorites]
Cassandra Clare lifted text from Pamela Dean? While the Dean book was out of print? Did it at least get a readership boost?
It's been re-issued, so that's good.
posted by jb at 10:01 AM on January 9
It's been re-issued, so that's good.
posted by jb at 10:01 AM on January 9
Having now read the whole article: what's with this "romantasy" is a recent thing? Aside from the fact that Twilight is decades old, it was also pre-dated by those vampire romance novels by J.R. Ward - the ones I read because I couldn't believe how dumb they sounded (the heroes have names that are all misspelled words like Rhage, Zsadist, Vishous, and Phury - though the first few were actually not that bad).
Also, the unpublished novel sounds much, much better than the published one - though none sound as good as Pamela Dean's Tam Lin ("Goodbye, unicorns").
posted by jb at 10:15 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]
Also, the unpublished novel sounds much, much better than the published one - though none sound as good as Pamela Dean's Tam Lin ("Goodbye, unicorns").
posted by jb at 10:15 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]
Books that blend romance and fantasy have been around for a LONG time, but the "romantasy" sobriquet only came about in the past few years. And in some ways, it's a pretty narrow definition. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sara J. Maas is romantasy, but Legends and Lattes is not, despite being fantasy and having a strong romance plot. T. Kingfisher's Saint of Steel novels are sort of borderline - I've seen debate as to whether or not they are romantasy (when they are, people call them Light Romantasy). My sense is that, in a lot of romantasy, the heroine is a Chosen One. That is def. not the case with the Saint of Steel novels (in fact, the heroine is often a "how the heck did I land in the middle of this mess?")
J.R. Ward's series started back when a different new category emerged: paranormal romance (PNR for short). That covers your vampires, your witches, your shifters, etc. It is slightly different than romantasy, in part because most romantasy is in a fantasy world whereas PNR usually takes place in something approaching the real world. (Although I think Nalini Singh is characterized as PNR, and her work is sort of...dystopian future with shifters?) PNR tends to have one heroine per book, and if it's a long series the women from previous books fade into the background, whereas in romantasy there may be multiple books with the same heroine, and also other romantic relationships taking place in parallel. (Although Ward did start having some romantic relationships develop in the background over the course of a couple of novels, if I recall.)
I am happy to have someone debate me on any of the above points if they think I've got it wrong!
posted by rednikki at 10:34 AM on January 9 [6 favorites]
J.R. Ward's series started back when a different new category emerged: paranormal romance (PNR for short). That covers your vampires, your witches, your shifters, etc. It is slightly different than romantasy, in part because most romantasy is in a fantasy world whereas PNR usually takes place in something approaching the real world. (Although I think Nalini Singh is characterized as PNR, and her work is sort of...dystopian future with shifters?) PNR tends to have one heroine per book, and if it's a long series the women from previous books fade into the background, whereas in romantasy there may be multiple books with the same heroine, and also other romantic relationships taking place in parallel. (Although Ward did start having some romantic relationships develop in the background over the course of a couple of novels, if I recall.)
I am happy to have someone debate me on any of the above points if they think I've got it wrong!
posted by rednikki at 10:34 AM on January 9 [6 favorites]
Romantasy as a marketing term is relatively new. Before that were fantasy romance and romantic fantasy and the dividing line between the two was murky as hell and Romantasy gets rid of the line. But books that would, if they were written today, be called Romantasy, have existed for a long time.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:45 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 10:45 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]
My sense is that, in a lot of romantasy, the heroine is a Chosen One. That is def. not the case with the Saint of Steel novels (in fact, the heroine is often a "how the heck did I land in the middle of this mess?")
I haven't read much romance or urban fantasy since the Obama administration, but back then urban fantasy had a lot of Disgruntled Chosen Ones and romances had a lot of hapless "why am I here" heroines. I'm assuming romantasy has a spectrum. (My two cents: when they were still considered different genres, romance-with-fantasy-elements books were, as a rule, a lot funnier than fantasy-with-some-romance books.)
For the lawsuit, if someone is not plagiarizing text, I'm not very sympathetic. People re-tell stories! It might be embarrassing if someone tells yours better, or infuriating if they tell yours worse, but do we really want to go around litigating plot beats? I already think the songwriting plagiarism court cases have gone too far (and it's not like it'll get better now that music rights are an asset class).
posted by grandiloquiet at 11:29 AM on January 9
I haven't read much romance or urban fantasy since the Obama administration, but back then urban fantasy had a lot of Disgruntled Chosen Ones and romances had a lot of hapless "why am I here" heroines. I'm assuming romantasy has a spectrum. (My two cents: when they were still considered different genres, romance-with-fantasy-elements books were, as a rule, a lot funnier than fantasy-with-some-romance books.)
For the lawsuit, if someone is not plagiarizing text, I'm not very sympathetic. People re-tell stories! It might be embarrassing if someone tells yours better, or infuriating if they tell yours worse, but do we really want to go around litigating plot beats? I already think the songwriting plagiarism court cases have gone too far (and it's not like it'll get better now that music rights are an asset class).
posted by grandiloquiet at 11:29 AM on January 9
do we really want to go around litigating plot beats?
I think for me the issue that makes this unfair plagiarism is that they *didn’t* publish the first novel, just took what they considered the salable *non public* bits and gave them to someone else. I’d be much more sympathetic if Freeman had her book published and then the secondary work was created based off tropes.
posted by corb at 12:09 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
I think for me the issue that makes this unfair plagiarism is that they *didn’t* publish the first novel, just took what they considered the salable *non public* bits and gave them to someone else. I’d be much more sympathetic if Freeman had her book published and then the secondary work was created based off tropes.
posted by corb at 12:09 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
For the lawsuit, if someone is not plagiarizing text, I'm not very sympathetic.
I have huge sympathies for Freeman - but I don't think plagiarism took place, exactly. It was more like being scooped (as a reporter or as a researcher).
And she was definitely treated very shittily by that agent, and maybe there should be some kind of grounds to sue for stealing ideas rather than exact words. It's as if a journal reviewer rejected a paper and then went ahead and did the same study to publish on their own. It's not plagiarism, but it's definitely wrong.
posted by jb at 12:42 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
I have huge sympathies for Freeman - but I don't think plagiarism took place, exactly. It was more like being scooped (as a reporter or as a researcher).
And she was definitely treated very shittily by that agent, and maybe there should be some kind of grounds to sue for stealing ideas rather than exact words. It's as if a journal reviewer rejected a paper and then went ahead and did the same study to publish on their own. It's not plagiarism, but it's definitely wrong.
posted by jb at 12:42 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
I am happy to have someone debate me on any of the above points if they think I've got it wrong!
No, I think you're right, and the vampire novels definitely fit into that "paranormal romance" genre.
As for repeating characters: since, to be a capital-R Romance, you need a happy ending with a couple (at least for now), that's why you get the series like the Bridgertons (or the Bedwyns, the Wallflowers, etc., etc.) where they go through a set of siblings or friends or club members, etc. The author can play in the same world without making anyone unhappy (since, as everyone knows, happy people rarely make plot happen - except Miles Vorkosigan, because he's insane, and even then someone has to get murdered or kidnapped to make more story after he's married and happy.)
T. Kingfisher's Saint of Steel novels are sort of borderline...My sense is that, in a lot of romantasy, the heroine is a Chosen One. That is def. not the case with the Saint of Steel novels (in fact, the heroine is often a "how the heck did I land in the middle of this mess?")
And that would be why they are fun and readable. An endless parade of "chosen ones" sounds insufferable. (The other great thing about the Saint of Steel is how many of the characters are sensible middle-aged people with jobs, who might also save the world.)
I'm going to just go and re-read the Song of the Lioness (aka "Alanna") for the 379th time - because, while she might be just a little bit of a Mary Sue, at least Alanna isn't some kind of magical chosen one, and she treats her male love interests with the nonchalance that they deserve.
posted by jb at 1:20 PM on January 9 [2 favorites]
No, I think you're right, and the vampire novels definitely fit into that "paranormal romance" genre.
As for repeating characters: since, to be a capital-R Romance, you need a happy ending with a couple (at least for now), that's why you get the series like the Bridgertons (or the Bedwyns, the Wallflowers, etc., etc.) where they go through a set of siblings or friends or club members, etc. The author can play in the same world without making anyone unhappy (since, as everyone knows, happy people rarely make plot happen - except Miles Vorkosigan, because he's insane, and even then someone has to get murdered or kidnapped to make more story after he's married and happy.)
T. Kingfisher's Saint of Steel novels are sort of borderline...My sense is that, in a lot of romantasy, the heroine is a Chosen One. That is def. not the case with the Saint of Steel novels (in fact, the heroine is often a "how the heck did I land in the middle of this mess?")
And that would be why they are fun and readable. An endless parade of "chosen ones" sounds insufferable. (The other great thing about the Saint of Steel is how many of the characters are sensible middle-aged people with jobs, who might also save the world.)
I'm going to just go and re-read the Song of the Lioness (aka "Alanna") for the 379th time - because, while she might be just a little bit of a Mary Sue, at least Alanna isn't some kind of magical chosen one, and she treats her male love interests with the nonchalance that they deserve.
posted by jb at 1:20 PM on January 9 [2 favorites]
I have huge sympathies for Freeman - but I don't think plagiarism took place, exactly. It was more like being scooped (as a reporter or as a researcher).
For me I think there is something very morally dubious is happening here, because Freeman's editor-in-all-but-name seems to have poached a bunch of elements from her manuscript and had another writer-for-hire slot them into her work. It is very much like theft. I'd be fukken pissed if I hired an agent and they dropped me, then subsequently tossed the bits of my book they liked into someone else's book. And the sheer amount of editorial input the agent had! I've had editors who are less involved! Like I look at how involved Pelletier was in Freeman's and Wollf's work and it's just, mate, that's not an agent. You'll get feedback and guidance from a good agent, but they won't be actively tinkering with your work in a fucking live Google doc, for Gods' sake.
when I paid more attention to what was going on, it became clear that readers differentiated only on price with respect to unfamiliar writers, and would buy books with spelling errors on the first page over carefully-honed prose if the crap was cheaper.
I'm currently doing a chapter-a-month Australian paranormal fiction thing over on Patreon - and I won't self link, but you can find it in my bio if the urge takes you - and I legitimately spend more time on promotion than I do on the actual writing of it. It's being released monthly in 5-10k chapters, and I have about fifty bucks worth of subscribers, all bar one being people I know personally who have been at me for years to publish my own work, why are you wasting so much time on other people's books, you're so good, you'll be famous in ten minutes, let me know when Netflix picks you up...they have such faith in me and know almost nothing about just how rough it is to self publish. It's a supremely dispiriting endeavour. And that's after doing social media promotions professionally for a bit, too. The move to AI in everything has made SEO an even more impenetrable black box than it was before. The socials are all visual, so if you write but can't do video or produce a decent bit of graphic design you are fucked. That's even before getting to typesetting and layout and the actual practical parts of publishing. Everything is stacked against us.
I have one lone sub I picked up from Instagram and I love him with the fire of a thousand suns for taking a chance on me, with his buck a month for thousands and thousands of words of fic, the setting notes, the photos and reading lists, all the work I put in to make the Pat worthwhile to my subs between chapters. And the horror of it is that it's only financially viable because I've been dropped from a lot of my other copywriting and ghostwriting work because I am a human writer who charges money, not an AI that spits shit out for pennies.
I couldn't not write. It's burned into my DNA and it's a deep and powerful need, I get restless and stupid and depressed as hell if I don't have a chance to go any extended period without hieing off into a fictional world and creating interesting things. I have strong opinions of how badly Pelletier and Entangled has taken advantage of the two writers named in this case because it's not like working a retail counter or Accounts Receivable or anything. That need to tell your story can be like a physical pain, and Pelletier took full advantage of both of them.
posted by Jilder at 7:36 PM on January 9 [8 favorites]
For me I think there is something very morally dubious is happening here, because Freeman's editor-in-all-but-name seems to have poached a bunch of elements from her manuscript and had another writer-for-hire slot them into her work. It is very much like theft. I'd be fukken pissed if I hired an agent and they dropped me, then subsequently tossed the bits of my book they liked into someone else's book. And the sheer amount of editorial input the agent had! I've had editors who are less involved! Like I look at how involved Pelletier was in Freeman's and Wollf's work and it's just, mate, that's not an agent. You'll get feedback and guidance from a good agent, but they won't be actively tinkering with your work in a fucking live Google doc, for Gods' sake.
when I paid more attention to what was going on, it became clear that readers differentiated only on price with respect to unfamiliar writers, and would buy books with spelling errors on the first page over carefully-honed prose if the crap was cheaper.
I'm currently doing a chapter-a-month Australian paranormal fiction thing over on Patreon - and I won't self link, but you can find it in my bio if the urge takes you - and I legitimately spend more time on promotion than I do on the actual writing of it. It's being released monthly in 5-10k chapters, and I have about fifty bucks worth of subscribers, all bar one being people I know personally who have been at me for years to publish my own work, why are you wasting so much time on other people's books, you're so good, you'll be famous in ten minutes, let me know when Netflix picks you up...they have such faith in me and know almost nothing about just how rough it is to self publish. It's a supremely dispiriting endeavour. And that's after doing social media promotions professionally for a bit, too. The move to AI in everything has made SEO an even more impenetrable black box than it was before. The socials are all visual, so if you write but can't do video or produce a decent bit of graphic design you are fucked. That's even before getting to typesetting and layout and the actual practical parts of publishing. Everything is stacked against us.
I have one lone sub I picked up from Instagram and I love him with the fire of a thousand suns for taking a chance on me, with his buck a month for thousands and thousands of words of fic, the setting notes, the photos and reading lists, all the work I put in to make the Pat worthwhile to my subs between chapters. And the horror of it is that it's only financially viable because I've been dropped from a lot of my other copywriting and ghostwriting work because I am a human writer who charges money, not an AI that spits shit out for pennies.
I couldn't not write. It's burned into my DNA and it's a deep and powerful need, I get restless and stupid and depressed as hell if I don't have a chance to go any extended period without hieing off into a fictional world and creating interesting things. I have strong opinions of how badly Pelletier and Entangled has taken advantage of the two writers named in this case because it's not like working a retail counter or Accounts Receivable or anything. That need to tell your story can be like a physical pain, and Pelletier took full advantage of both of them.
posted by Jilder at 7:36 PM on January 9 [8 favorites]
I am going to chime in that a pretty long vampire series (twenty-one volumes), Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, whose main stage is St. Louis. So yay, for another river city.
Just out of curiosity, what is the fan fiction pipeline to commercial writer? I thought the pathway was build a following then take that to the commercial side of publishing. Is that out dated?
posted by jadepearl at 9:25 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
Just out of curiosity, what is the fan fiction pipeline to commercial writer? I thought the pathway was build a following then take that to the commercial side of publishing. Is that out dated?
posted by jadepearl at 9:25 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
« Older 📚 Under the fold: A Lot of Books 📚 | Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise Newer »
posted by toastyk at 3:12 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]