Inexcusable Behavior

Madly in Love has been postponed this week due to some really frightening situations I've recently been made aware of. Not just frightening, but disappointing on a whole new level. I've always been a believer in the gray areas. Decisions don't easily fall in the right or wrong categories... except for the decisions that are obviously, without question, as clear as day wrong. Such as the very things that are happening in the publishing world right now.

The first is the current belief by some, and probably a small percentage but a very vocal small percentage of authors that they are always right and readers don't matter. This absolutely baffles me. I recently-- just in the past couple days-- decided to join the Amazon forums. The behavior I saw some authors partaking in over there appalled and shamed me. Some authors are downright hostile to readers. What happened to 'the customer is always right'? As one reader pointed out on those very forums, "authors are producing an inexpensive, non-necessity in saturated market where they're not only competing with other authors, but the media-TV-movies-internet large. You'd think they'd be doing back flips to romance readers and treat them with respect. Instead, it's insults." Every other day I hear a new story about authors behaving badly, either because of a bad review or some other reason. This kind of behavior has got to stop! And it's frightening to consider what will happen if it doesn't.

The next example is something I read about through twitter, being a fan and follower of Cherise Sinclair. I also managed to find this blog post about it as well from Lolita Lopez, Promoting Your Book: The Sleaze Edition. What it boils down to is a self published author was using the names of bestselling authors to gain exposure. He did this by using their names on his book covers and possibly, I'm not quite clear on the details, in the title as well. I didn't see the books by the author but Ms. Lopez did and has the whole sordid story. Truly atrocious and inexcusable behavior.
 
By far the most disturbing is the theft of other authors' work. No, not piracy. I'm talking about out and out plagiarism.  In the past week, I've heard not one, not two, but three separate instances. First, an indie author on a writers forum made a post regarding the theft of a free read he had on Smashwords. The culprit took the work and published it, for money, on Amazon. Luckily, someone recognized it and told the author and Amazon pulled the book before he could make any money. The next time I heard about plagiarism, it was in an article at Interracial Erotica (found HERE) about a woman who has over 65 stories on Amazon, at least five of which have been confirmed plagiarised. This article talks about Amazon not helping, but I'm hesitant to get on the torch burning wagon because the first author praised their quick response time. The last is the most disturbing--not because the other two aren't horrifying, but because the thief is potentially ruining the credibility of an entire publishing house with them. An author publishing through Siren Bookstrand has been accused of plagiarising a well-known M/M author at Samhain. The evidence is pretty damning. You can read about that story at teddypig.com, HERE.

What is going on with the moral compass of the world? How can anyone justify these things to themselves? It absolutely sickens me. Do people really think this behavior is acceptable? Even in school we're taught how wrong plagiarism is. I'm at a loss as to how to combat this kind of behavior and disheartened by the amount of stories coming forward. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, these pariahs will be eliminated and a new era, where all the stories told are about friendly authors, can be born. Until then, a word of caution for authors and readers alike.