#29 Spilling the Tea on Romance Scandals

For a genre that seems all hunky dory, there is certainly a lot of drama in Romancelandia. Especially when it comes to issues of authorship and publishing! This month, Jackie and Jen dish on some of the most notorious controversies, dramas, and petty squabbles (including heir own) that have rocked the steady ship of romance. Buckle in sparkly nerds. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.Let us know what your favorite scandal was at the end of the month! There's no reward...but if you email us we might remember to give you a shout out in the next episode...maybe. We forget a lot of things.Christiane SerruyaAfter 22 years of practicing law, Rio de Janeiro-based Serruya decided to become an author. After 6-7 years of writing, she had churned out more than 30 works and had one of her short stories was published in a best-selling collection.In Feb 2019 news broke that this "author" had blatantly plagiarized Courtney Milan and others. Soon authors like Tessa Dare, Lisa Kleypas, Kresley Cole, Karen Marie Moning, and over 40 others found their work copied into Serruya's. These passages ranged from short sentences with moderate rewriting to whole multi-paragraph sections that were near verbatim.Tessa Dare started a whole hashtag: “#copypasteCris”In short, Serruya says that she was not responsible for the plagiarism. Instead, she put the blame on an unnamed ghostwriter she hired from the site Fiverr..."ghostwriter" - writers for hire who are paid but receive none of the credit for the work produced.The Stratemeyer SyndicateThen she goes and plagiarizes the queen herself, Nora Roberts. Nora retaliates and takes her to international court (because Queen Nora has the powers to do so), and an injunction goes through which bars the physical or electronic sale of Serruya’s books which were involved in the lawsuit, as well as barring Serruya from receiving royalties from those books. Roberts also won a monetary settlement, which she donated to literary charities.#CockyGateBasically, indie author Falena Hopkins tried to copyright the word "cocky" then tried to go back on what she said that she was trying to stop other authors from using cover designs similar to hersShe's written her Cocker Brother series since 2016. The series concerns 6 brothers and extends onto stories about their children and holidays.According to the court documents Jen went through, Hopkins was worried that there were too many other “cocky” titles out there, and readers were getting confused about which books to buy. She showed the court a few messages from people confused because they had bought the wrong books. Hopkins claimed that a lot of readers messaged her being “wait...this has a cocky word in it too but it’s not you??” or “Wait, this is the same model you used!!!”Hopkins filed for trademark protection on May 1, 2018It starts devolving into a twitter battle, and Hopkins sues three people; Tara Crescent, a man who protested the lawsuit, and a publicist (on accident). Hopkins tries to argue that the use of Cocky in the title should be limited to her books only because she's got the most notoriety or something like that (read Jen's articles for more detail). The judge doesn't agree with Hopkins' argument, since "cocky" is a common-use word. The injunction is thrown out, the restraining order against the use of "cocky" is denied, and the trademark registration is cancelled.Alexa Riley...a scandal?Alexa Riley (AR) is a team of best-friend indie authors known for their spicy quick reads. At one time they were publishing on Kindle Unlimited at a rate of almost 2-3 books per month between ~2016-2018.News started coming out though that AR was not only stuffing pages (including extra blank pages in their ebooks for extra page turns and therefore more money), but also of plagiarizing, using ghostwriters, and paying for click farms"click farms" - any kind of operation intended to fraudulently interact with a website. In order to appear more legitimate, the clicks come from real people using mostly mobile devices (cheaper, smaller in size, easier to arrange).Amazon took them down almost immediately...and then nothing...else...happened?Now you can find AR's books through the library (some of them), AR's website, Eden books, iBooks, Kobo, Nook, and Scribd...The Syndicate of James PattersonPatterson uses multiple coauthors when publishing "his" books. He then publishes these books under his name and brand.Instead of being the sole author, Patterson works with lesser-known writers, providing, according to him, extensive outlines, plots, characters and notes to help drive his coauthor through the story. Patterson then, again according to him, goes through upon receipt of the manuscripts and extensively edits. Patterson does his revisions, and rewrites as necessary before sending it back to the coauthor for the next written draft. Over time the number of rewrites goes down for each new collaborator. These co-authors are paid by Patterson. Patterson then takes over the publishing process.Perceived issues with Patterson's publicationsHe calls himself the #1 bestseller...and yet...he's not?Patterson isn't completely writing his own books, and we don't know for sure the writing process with coauthors, beyond his own testimony. So can he fully call himself a bestselling author?Also, as it pertains to romancelandia...there are romance authors (and other authors out there) who have published way more books than Patterson under their own name...so what gives Patterson the right to call himself the #1 bestseller?So...Many...LinksMore on the Stratemeyer SyndicateMore on Sue GraftonChristiane Serruya:"Cristiane Serruya: Alleged Plagiarist" (SB Sarah, 2019)"Cristiane Serruya is a copyright infringer, a plagiarist, and an idiot" (Milan, 2019)"Romance novelist Cristiane Serruya accused of plagiarism" (Flood, 2019a)"The Cristiane Serruya Plagiarism Scandal" (Bailey, 2019a)Lucas Morta blog post "I’ve never earned any penny with any book in all these years, says Cristiane Serruya, acussed of plagiarizing more than 30 authors" (Morta, 2019)"Nora Roberts Sues Cristiane Serruya, Wins Injunction" (Bailey, 2019b)"Nora Roberts files ‘multi-plagiarism’ lawsuit alleging writer copied more than 40 authors" (Flood, 2019b)"Janet Dailey and the Curious Case of the Missing Author" (Hobbs, 2021)"#CopyPasteCris: Romance Novelist Cristiane Serruya Caught in Plagiarizing Scandal" (Fernandes, 2019)"Plagiarism, then and now" (Reeth, 2019a)"Not a rant, but a promise" (Reeth, 2019b)"Let me address this" (Reeth, 2019c)"Blowback" (Reeth, 2019d)"Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" (Reeth, 2019e)"To Sum Up- Sort of" (Reeth, 2019f)"Update" (Reeth, 2019g)"Here's How I work" (Reeth, 2019h)"Readers are Amazing" (Reeth, 2019i)"Breaking news 2" (Reeth, 2019j)"Brazilian romance writer accused of plagiarizing from Courtney Milan, other novelists" (Schaub, 2019)#Cockygate"Cleaning Up the Cocky Cock-Up" (SB Sarah, 2018)"Don’t Do This, Ever: Faleena Hopkins Cocks The Whole Entire ****Up" (Trout, 2018)"Trademark Case: Authors Guild Wins ‘CockyGate’ Court Ruling" (Anderson, 2018)"Romance Author gets unduly cocky over registered trademark " (Whipple, 2018)"'Cockygate' Author Faleena Hopkins Backs Down From Trademark Dispute After A Settlement Is Reached" (Tsoumbakos, 2018)"How an author trademarking the word “cocky” turned the romance novel industry inside out" (Grady, 2018)"Cockygate: Faleena Hopkins Has Registered a Trademark on Cocky, and is Using it to Threaten Other Romance Authors" (Hoffelder, 2018)"Chance Carter And #Cockygate Collide" (Gaughran, 2021)"Re: Cockygate" (Hopkins, 2019)US Patent and Trademark Office status of "cocky""A cocky Lawyer Reviews #cockygate" (Youtube video, French, 2018)Alexa RileyTwitter thread by @Jenny_Trout (2019)Reddit Thread "Alexa Riley is banned from Amazon"James Patterson"James Patterson mostly doesn’t write his books. And his new readers mostly don’t read — yet" (Heller, 2016)"The Patterson Problem" (De Maria, 2016)"James Patterson: Author or Brand Manager" (Kelber, 2020)"The James Patterson Book Farm Must be Stopped" (Sizemore, 2021)"Stephen King mocks James Patterson for self-written blurb — and writers loved it" (Heching, 2017)"How Many Books Has James Patterson Written? Best Update [2021]" (Penn Book Center, July 2021)"Ten of the Most Prolific Authors of All Time" (Irisreading.com, 2020)