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Yeratel:
Romance writer, publisher split up over plagiarism claims
Published: 4/18/08, 7:46 PM EDT
By HILLEL ITALIE
NEW YORK (AP) - Romance writer Cassie Edwards and publisher Signet Books have decided to break up after allegations emerged in January that in she lifted passages in several of her books from other sources.

"Signet has conducted an extensive review of all its Cassie Edwards novels and due to irreconcilable editorial differences, Ms. Edwards and Signet have mutually agreed to part ways," the publisher said in a statement Friday.

"Cassie Edwards novels will no longer be published with Signet Books. All rights to Ms. Edwards' previously published Signet books have reverted to the author."

Signet publicist Craig Burke said that the publisher, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), would have no additional comment. Edwards, whose many books include "Bold Wolf," "Silver Feather" and "Falcon Moon," was not immediately available for comment.

A romance novel Web site called Smart B------, Trashy Books posted excerpts in January from Edwards' novels and placed them alongside similar passages from reference books and magazines.

Penguin initially said that Edwards, who lives in Mattoon, Ill., had "done nothing wrong" and that any use of other texts was protected by "fair-use doctrine."

Edwards has written more than 100 novels, although not all with Penguin, which has said that more than 10 million copies of her work are in print.

"Writing my Indian romances is my small tribute to those beautiful first people of our land who have suffered so much injustice," Edwards writes on her home page on Penguin's Web site. "And I have just begun. My upcoming books will continue with more passion and adventure and rich historical settings. Enjoy!"

In a phone interview in January, the author told The Associated Press that she indeed "takes" material from other works, but said she didn't know she was supposed to credit her sources. She then asked her husband to get on the phone. Charles Edwards said the author got only "ideas" from other books and did not "lift passages."

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On the Net: http://us.penguingroup.com

Tech L. Me:
*snerk*

If you read the passages in question over at the blog/website that exposed it (http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php) it is painfully obvious that Cassie Edwards has "taken or lifted" passages and worked them into her stories, and not very well either.

Even if this isn't against the law (she changed some of the words around) it's morally dubious at best and rather pathetic for a published author to do so. And don't give me that crap about crediting sources, you've been taught better than that from Elementary School onwards. You don't have to do a full bibliography but come on, if you're relying on source material that much an author's note saying "Hey I read these books and they helped me get my details straight" wouldn't be too much to ask.

And if she wants to "tribute the beautiful first people of our land who have suffered so much injustice" there are a hell of a lot better ways to do so than by writing trashy bodice rippers and badly written ones at that, but that's just my two cents.

Starbeam:
This http://www.newsweek.com/id/94543 was the one that really made me laugh.  Talking about ferrets as pillow talk after sex.  And, I'm not 100% positive, I think that even just switching around a few words still counts as plagiarism.  The article link I posted, is pretty much almost word for word the same thing, the few words switched aren't enough to hide that.

Yeratel:
Well, when you're getting paid by the pound for cranking out bodice rippers for the romance market, I guess it's pretty easy to pad them out by cutting and pasting geographical descriptions, cultural exposition, and nature references, instead of just doing the research and writing it in your own words. I expect we'll be seeing a lot more of this kind of thing, as a younger generation of authors rises up, since so many of them got through college by doing this same sort of thing on their research papers. I think it's funny that doing a simple Google search on keywords was able to lead so directly to the original source material on line. Still, it's hard to argue with success, and as the article notes, she's got 10 million copies in print.

meg_evonne:
mediabistro.com broke this story several months ago.  At that point, it was the first book that was discovered to have 'lifted' whole paragraphs and descriptions from an approximate 1935 novel that had won awards--if this is the same author (?) it just seemed trashy.  I had no idea she had so many novels in print.  The original article did make me curious to take a look at some of her jacket covers next time I visited a book store.  Bob would approve of the artwork at least. 

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