Plagiarized Best Sellers–Why Do It?

What is plagiarism?

Everyone knows that plagiarism means taking another’s work and presenting it as your own. Most bestselling authors are above doing such a thing, yet accusations against them do occur.

What is behind these plagiarism charges?

Deliberate Acts

If an author has intentionally taken copyrighted material and published it as their own, they have committed plagiarism. Perhaps out of fear of inadequacy, or due to deadline pressure, an occasional author steals copyrighted material without permission, or takes ideas without crediting the originator. The source of the stolen material can be books or other print material, as well as information from the Internet. The result is often a protracted legal battle and the loss of the author’s reputation in the publishing world.

There have been rare cases where a writer has used the entire text from a published book, reworked it so that it is somewhat disguised, and later published it under their name. Not only is this a theft from the original author, it violates the plagiarizing author’s publishing contract, which stipulates that the material is original, resulting in disgrace and lawsuits.

Inadvertent Acts

Unintentional plagiarism occurs, usually due to sloppiness. Perhaps as the author was doing background research for his book, he failed to footnote the paragraph he copied into his notes from another source. He might have been about to create the footnote, but got interrupted at that moment by a phone call or a doorbell. Later, thinking that unattributed paragraph was his own, he included it in his published book. The consequence of this error might be a financial settlement along with an apology from the errant author.

Coincidence

Sometimes people come up with similar ideas independently; it happens all the time. For instance, I was an agent for quite a few years without ever seeing submissions about the black plague. Then, in one week’s time, three authors from different corners of the U.S. queried me with a similar plot device: the black plague being re-introduced today due to a newly-unearthed, contaminated artifact. Perhaps it was pure coincidence. Perhaps the authors had all been inspired by a news story involving an archaeologist finding an object buried with black plague victims. Their stories were otherwise entirely different.

Greed or Imagination

Like the mega-jackpot winners, a best selling author is perceived to have become instantly rich. People with twisted moral standards might try to dream up false accusations against the author as a way to get some of the book’s earnings. Other people might imagine things against successful authors due to their own mental or emotional issues, perhaps even believing that these things are true.

Copyright 2006 by Barbara Doyen. All rights reserved.

New software for detecting plagiarism means that writers should take steps to prevent risking their reputation due to charges of plagiarism.

Plagiarism is a serious issue, and one that should concern every author.

Very clearly, we do not want to be on the receiving end of someone plagiarizing our work, nor do we want to be the plagiarizer.  This applies not only to deliberate or inadvertent “lifting” of content from hardcopy, but from web content as well, even if it is taken from your own websites.

Of course you know that it’s a serious offence to include copyrighted material in your work as if it were your own.  But too many writers are confused about web content, thinking anything they find on the Internet is copyright-free and available. It isn’t.

When writing your book or article, don’t “borrow” from printed material or anything from the Internet, even if it is in the public domain.

Put everything in your own words.

Your publisher must explicitly approve the few exceptions to this advice prior to your manuscript’s deadline, or better, before offering you a publishing contract. If your publisher agrees, you will be responsible for getting the legal permissions needed and must submit the signed documents to your publisher prior to publication.

The ramifications of plagiarism are very serious, not only for the author, but for the publisher of your material.  So serious, in fact, that most publishers today utilize a software tool that very effectively checks every manuscript for plagiarism, that even cites the sources of the plagiarized material.

Authors who submit manuscripts containing plagiarized text are likely to have their publishing contracts terminated. Word about such things gets around the publishing community.  Reputation is important in this industry–sully yours and your future writing career will be seriously jeopardized. No legitimate agent will knowingly represent plagiarized material and will be upset to discover it in a project they’ve sold. No editor will want to work with an author who is known to plagiarize—the risks are too great.

So, do your research.  Then put aside your research material and write all your content from scratch.  That way you, your agent, your editor, and your publisher will all be pleased with your original writing and eager to work with you again!

Copyright 2006 by Barbara Doyen. All rights reserved.

The James Frey controversy takes another twist—the discredited bestselling author is accused of plagiarizing his nonfiction memoir, A Million Little Lies.

Not only is James Frey in trouble for publishing fiction as truth in his memoir, but he is also under suspicion of plagiarism!

Apparently, A Million Little Pieces is similar to Eddie Little’s Another Day in Paradise, according to John Dolan, who appears to have been among the first to uncover Frey’s lies in September 2005.

After the Frey controversy, A Million Little Pieces stayed on the bestseller lists, selling well and continuing to earn a lot of money.  If the charges of plagiarism are found to have any basis, the publisher might hold up payment, pending an investigation. If the plagiarism charges are found to be true, Frey might be forced to give up his earnings. However, the plagiarized author, Eddie Little, is deceased, so he won’t be the one to initiate a lawsuit.

Read more about the James Frey Controversy:

James Frey Timeline

James Frey Consequences

James Frey’s Victims

What Can We Learn From James Frey

Copyright 2006 by Barbara Doyen. All rights reserved.

Why are people calling James Frey’s book, A Million Little Lies?

When Oprah selected James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces for her book club in the fall of 2005, she thought she was doing a good thing. The book was promoted in the publisher’s release as a “brutally honest” true story, Frey’s memoir of his addiction and recovery. Throughout the on-air interview, Frey spoke about the book as if it were entirely true. Millions of Oprah fans bought and read the book, saying how much it had inspired them in dealing with their own life problems.

Early Hints of Trouble

After the book selection was announced but before the program had taped, a Hazeldon counselor told an Oprah producer that some things in the book were not right. Oprah called the publisher about this and was told that the publisher stood behind the book.

James Frey appeared on the Oprah show, and the Oprah edition of the paperback, released in September 2005, sold more than 2 million copies as a result.

The Story Breaks

The Smoking Gun posted the article that started the controversy, “The Man who Conned Oprah,” on Jan. 8, 2006. It claimed that important parts of the book were untrue.

Larry King and Oprah

Over-riding his own wishes, James Frey appeared on “The Larry King Live Show”, at Oprah’s request.

On the show, Frey indicated that his book was based on his own memories. Further, he seemed to indicate that there was some debate at the publishing house over whether to publish the book as fiction or nonfiction.

When publisher Nan Talese heard Frey say this, it caused her to “almost collapse,” according to an interview in The New York Observer article, “The Awful Untruth.” Talese went on to say, “When the manuscript of A Million Little Pieces was received by us at Doubleday, it was received as nonfiction, as a memoir. Throughout the whole process of publication, it had always been a memoir, and for the first year and a half it was on sale, it was always a memoir with no disputation. It was never once discussed as fiction by me or anyone in my office.”

At the end of the Larry King Live show, Oprah called in to support the book’s “emotional truth” as an inspiring tale of redemption.

Copyright 2006 by Barbara Doyen. All rights reserved.

What Happened Next: James Frey Consequences

In The James Frey Timeline, we covered the events leading to the making of the bestseller, A Million Little Pieces, including Oprah’s selection of the book for her bookclub, and the author’s appearance on The Oprah Show in the fall of 2005. Then the controversy broke and James Frey made an appearance on The Larry King Live Show and Oprah called in to support the book’s “emotional truth” as an inspiring tale of redemption.

Oprah later retracted this support on her own show with guests James Frey and publisher Nan Talese, saying “I made a mistake and left the impression that the truth does not matter, and I am deeply sorry about that.”

On the same show, she said to Frey, “It is difficult for me to talk to you because I really feel duped … but more importantly I feel that you betrayed millions of readers.”

Under Oprah’s questioning, Frey admitted that the Smoking Gun article was “pretty accurate.”

(PWDaily article, “Oprah Grills Frey, Talese,” Jan. 26, 2006)

(New York Observer article, “Freyed Tomato,” Feb 2, 2006)

Publisher’s Formal Statement

In an unusual move, James Frey’s publisher issued a Publisher’s Note clarifying its position, which began:

“The controversy over James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces has caused serious concern at Doubleday and Anchor Books. Recent interpretations of our previous statement notwithstanding, it is not the policy or stance of this company that it doesn’t matter whether a book sold as nonfiction is true. A nonfiction book should adhere to the facts as the author knows them.”

The Publisher’s Note was posted prominently on its website, copies were sent to bookstores to put in existing books, and the Note was added to all future copies of the book along with an Author Statement from James Frey.

Many people find this Author’s Statement unsatisfactory, because it appears that Frey is excusing his dishonesty. This is doubly wrong, because he states that his intention in writing his memoir is to help others to change their lives, and in the book he seems to know that true recovery from addiction means telling the truth to yourself and to others.

As a result of a lawsuit, anyone who bought the book as nonfiction before Jan. 26, 2006, is eligible to file for a refund.

Copyright 2006 by Barbara Doyen. All rights reserved.

How Could This Have Happened?

Learn about the situation that allowed James Frey to publish his book as a memoir and the people who might have been hurt along the way.

How could James Frey’s book have been published as a nonfiction memoir?

1) Publishing houses, in an attempt to improve the bottom line, cut fact-checkers from their staffs some time ago.  Those who defend this move cite how costly it would be to pay someone to check every single fact in a book, greatly increasing their costs.  So they do nothing, unless a sharp-eyed editor happens to catch a factual mistake while going through the text.

2) The publishing industry is built on relationships based on trust.

AGENT:  Broken trust resulted in a split between Frey and his agent, Kassie Evashevski, at Brillstein-Grey.  In a Jan. 31, 2006 Publisher’s Weekly interview, she said:

“In the last week, it became impossible for me to maintain a relationship once the trust had been broken. He eventually did apologize, but I felt for many reasons I had to let him go as a client.”

EDITOR:  Acquiring editor, Sean McDonald, said he believed Frey, according to an interview in Publisher’s Weekly.McDonald even became friends with Frey, according to a MediaBistro Oct. 19, 2005 interview, Authors and Their Editors:  James Frey & Sean McDonald.

In this interview, James Frey said that 17 of 18 publishers rejected the manuscript as a result of his agent’s marketing efforts. McDonald said what attracted him to the manuscript was the unusual voice of the author.

PUBLISHER: Broken trust resulted in a cancellation of Frey’s lucrative new book deal which Penguin-Riverhead offered Frey in January 2006, as reported in Publisher’s Weekly on Feb. 24, 2006.

MOVIE RIGHTS PEOPLE: The whole controversy affected the upcoming movie based on A Million Little Pieces. Ironically, the LA Times reported that Frey earlier “had a class Hollywood fit” when a Warner Brothers screenwriter wanted to change some things in the book.

Here is an excerpt from their Feb. 6, 2006 article, “Does Frey Have Trouble in Hollywood:

“Frey said they didn’t have the right to alter the facts in the book, the observer recalled this week. ‘How could they do this? This was his life! How could they change the facts of his life?’”

BOOK BUYERS AND READERS: Many people who purchased and read A Million Little Pieces as a true memoir now feel “had.” This controversy has probably resulted in a loss of confidence in the book publishing industry in general, memoirs in particular, and James Frey as an author of nonfiction.

To say that James Frey has sullied his reputation is an understatement. He is unlikely to regain this kind of success again, if indeed, he is ever able to persuade an agent or a legitimate trade publisher to take on another of his books.

Copyright 2006 by Barbara Doyen. All rights reserved.

What Can We Learn From James Frey?

A publishing professional reflects on the ramifications of the James Frey controversy.

There should be a clear difference between truth and fiction.

Claiming a faulty memory or sloppy fact checking are not the real issues here, although writers have a duty to take steps to check their memories and their facts.  The real issue here is the deliberate intent to deceive, to create fiction that is passed off as fact.

James Frey deliberately and intentionally altered the truth in a significant way on a book he wrote that was published as nonfiction.  The implication that small changes were made to disguise and protect real life people, as is sometimes done in memoirs, is completely false here.

Had the book been published as fiction, none of this controversy would have occurred.

We have been appalled at the blurring of the difference between fiction and nonfiction.

And we’ve been surprised by those who have risen to Frey’s defense—whole websites have sprung up about this.

Today, perhaps more than ever before in history, the public needs to have a clear understanding of what is fact and what is not.

Those of us in publishing have an obligation to the public to do everything we can to keep a distinction between what is fiction and what is nonfiction, clearly informing the consumer just what they are buying.  We feel so strongly about this that our agency has twice cancelled marketing efforts for book projects when we had come to distrust the author’s veracity, withdrawing the book proposals under consideration.

We would have no problem at all with A Million Little Pieces, had the book been published as fiction.  But it wasn’t.

People who read the book believing it was the truth are entirely justified in feeling duped.

This controversy has caused broken trust in all the publishing relationships involved in this book:  the agent, editor, publisher, publicity people, promotion people like Book Reviewers, media people like Oprah, book sellers, and ultimately you—the millions of people who buy books based on recommendations from all of us in the industry.

Lessons Going Forward:

* Writers: be scrupulously honest and truthful when writing and when submitting to agents and editors and publishing anything labeled nonfiction.

* Readers and book buyers: Do not accept anything you are told as absolute truth, whether it’s in a book, an article, or media report.  This does not mean that you should go into paranoia and distrust everything, but rather that you should ask questions and to listen to your subconscious when it tries to inform you that something doesn’t feel right.  To think for yourself, not blindly believe.

* Publishing professionals: We need to tighten up our industry and we have already begun doing so.

Agents and editors are asking authors more questions about the veracity of a manuscript and being more cautious about acquiring nonfiction projects that could turn out to be fiction.

Authors of memoirs are including forewords or Author Notes that reference the James Frey controversy, sometimes to reassure the reader, sometimes to be funny, or both. For instance, What Did I Do Last Night? A Drunkard’s Tale by Tom Sykes published by Rodale contains this note:

“Thanks are also due to … James Frey for the importance of this statement: Everything in this book is absolutely true, although sequences have been rearranged and conversations re-created, often on the basis of subsequent interviews. The names of [certain characters] are pseudonyms.”

What do you think?

Had James Frey’s book A Million Little Pieces, been published as fiction, would it have been as popular?  Sold as many copies?  Been chosen for Oprah’s Book Club?  Share your views in our Discussions.

Copyright 2006 by Barbara Doyen. All rights reserved.