Many authors who sell their work directly on platforms like Amazon are having their stories plagiarized, which can take an emotional and financial toll. One day two years ago Rachel Ann Nunes, who writes Mormon fiction and romance novels, received an email from a reader asking a strange question: Had she collaborated with someone named Sam Taylor Mullens? Nunes had never heard the name before. When the reader confronted Mullens about the parallels, she was told the two authors were simply collaborators.

If that was a lie, the reader said—and it was—then Nunes may have been the unwitting victim of plagiarism. After 'Fifty Shades of Grey,' What's Next for Self-Publishing? With that single exchange, Nunes found herself part of a trend affecting many professional authors in the age of self-publishing. An anonymous stranger seemed to have stolen her book, changed it superficially, and passed it off as her own work. First published in , A Bid for Love did well enough to spawn two sequels before it eventually went out-of-print.

They were a curse, and had been for the thirty-one years of my life. There was one major difference between the books: The Auction Deal had sex scenes and was being marketed as mainstream romance—the most profitable category in self-publishing. In the world of self-publishing, where anyone can put a document on Amazon and call it a book, many writers are seeing their work being appropriated without their permission.

Some books are copied word-for-word while others are tinkered with just enough to make it tough for an automated plagiarism-checker to flag them. For the authors, this intrusion goes beyond threatening their livelihood. Writing a novel is a form of creative expression, and having it stolen by someone else, many say, can feel like a personal violation. When Nunes tried to find out more about Mullens, things started to get weird.

The anonymous person on the other side of the computer seemed to multiply into an array of fake online identities. The stress took its toll on Nunes. She was faced with the choice of either letting the plagiarism go in the hopes the harassment would stop, or fighting back through the legal system. The case is set to go to trial later this year. There are pages on sites like Goodreads dedicated to identifying fake books, including plagiarized novels. Most of the plagiarism is happening to romance novels, which accounts for the largest proportion of ebook sales, but new cases are popping up in other genres as well, from cookbooks to mystery novels.

Even public-domain classics like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Dracula have been adapted and passed off as original works. For authors, finding out their book has been plagiarized can be traumatic.

This was especially the case for the best-selling author Opal Carew, who learned her serial romance Riding Steele had been plagiarized the same day her sister died from cancer. For Carew, the news added surreal stress to her grief. Some observers believed Harner resorted to plagiarism to keep her rankings up, Carew said.

Before she was caught, Harner was considered unusually prolific, producing 75 novels in five years. Amazon rewards writers who come out with new books quickly by putting them higher in the rankings, which in turn means more sales.

This policy also puts pressure on authors to write more to maintain visibility and to offset the dropping price of ebooks. When a reader buys a self-published book, Amazon keeps 30 percent of the royalties and gives the rest to the authors—meaning the company makes money whether the book is plagiarized or not. A traditional publisher is liable if it puts out a book that violates copyright.

Amazon regularly complies with this rule, and plagiarized books are removed from the site. Still, Amazon has the biggest chunk of the self-published ebook market, with some estimates putting it at 85 percent. Without Amazon, few authors could make a living self publishing. These issues become especially sticky when the plagiarized book sells well. The novel won awards and sold well but eventually went out of print, and the copyright reverted to the authors.

Even worse, Tear Drop was a number-one bestseller in the Irish crime-fiction category. Memories of late nights, pulling our hair out over plot problems, tending to young children, and now some stranger had come along and stolen them. Many of her books are still available on the site through third-party sellers.

The Rise of Plagiarism in the Age of Self-Publishing Books on Amazon, Google Play, and Barnes & Noble - The Atlantic

There was also the question of how much money Clancy made. Even in cases where the company has removed books for copyright infringement, the author must provide further documentation to receive royalties. Because plagiarists are driven more by financial motivations than creative or artistic ones, they tend to be repeat offenders. In a blog post , she explained that she got into self-publishing because she was inspired by Amanda Hocking, who famously got rich via Amazon.

Williams, who plagiarized both authors in one book, Amazingly Broken. Using the work of two successful authors in one novel turned out well for Williams: Although Amazingly Broken was only up for a week, it reached number 50 in the Kindle store, which meant it made enough to force Webber and McGuire to get lawyers involved.

Plagiarists usually hide behind multiple aliases, stolen biographies, and fake photographs. Bloggers and readers discovered that Williams used several identities and that the blonde woman on the author profile was a photograph from a modeling site.

In legal proceedings, it surfaced that Williams is a man. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount, which Webbers and McGuire ended up donating to charity. When Webber found out her work was plagiarized, she cried. To describe how she felt at the time, Webber used a word that comes up repeatedly when authors talk about plagiarism: The effects of plagiarism go beyond lawsuits and royalties, as was the case for Chase Weston, whom Tiffanie Rushton also allegedly targeted.

A former soldier who served in Iraq, Weston survived an IED attack with a broken back and brain injury. He wrote about his experiences at a treatment center for combat veterans with PTSD, which was published online as Terror in a Cloud of Dust. Though the specifics vary from case to case, being the subject of Internet plagiarism is inevitably an ordeal. While some authors have publishers to fight for them, many are left on their own and must decide whether to sue, an expensive endeavor that may not be worth it in the end.

However, in virtually every case I studied, the author found out about the copyright infringement from readers. An informal community of bloggers, book lovers, and writers has sprung up to protect authors from having their work stolen. The result is an imperfect ecosystem that authors, readers, and self-publishing platforms will likely help to refine in the future as digital technology and culture continue to merge.

Soaps (or any small gift) wrapped in old childrens book pages. Time to pick up more vintage childrens books at the flea market. | vintage | Pinterest | Or, Boo…

To understand how the standoff between Pyongyang and the world became so dire, it helps to go back to the country's founding. ATLANTA—Around midnight, hours after their candidate conceded he had lost the Most Important Special Election in History, the last remaining supporters of Jon Ossoff took over the stage where he had recently stood.

One of them waved a bottle of vodka in the air.

Together, they took up the time-honored leftist chant: But after a frenzied two-month runoff campaign between Ossoff and his Republican opponent, Karen Handel, the Democrat wound up with about the same proportion of the vote—48 percent—as Hillary Clinton got here in November.

If this race was a referendum on Trump, the president won it. Castile was licensed to carry a gun. He carefully informed Officer Jeronimo Yanez—exceeding his legal requirements under Minnesota law, though following the advice some gun-rights advocates offer for concealed carriers when stopped by police. And yet Yanez almost instantly shot him.

That aspect made the case a central focus not just for Black Lives Matter activists, but for some gun owners, too. Even setting aside the questionable grounds under which Yanez had pulled Castile over a malfunctioning taillight is a classic pretextual stop police use to question black drivers , Castile had done everything right.

If the party cares about winning, it needs to learn how to appeal to the white working class. The strategy was simple. A demographic wave—long-building, still-building—would carry the party to victory, and liberalism to generational advantage. The wave was inevitable, unstoppable.

It would not crest for many years, and in the meantime, there would be losses—losses in the midterms and in special elections; in statehouses and in districts and counties and municipalities outside major cities.

Losses in places and elections where the white vote was especially strong. But the presidency could offset these losses. Every four years the wave would swell, receding again thereafter but coming back in the next presidential cycle, higher, higher. The presidency was everything. With the powers in Pyongyang working doggedly toward making this possible—building an ICBM and shrinking a nuke to fit on it—analysts now predict that Kim Jong Un will have the capability before Donald Trump completes one four-year term.

Though given to reckless oaths, Trump is not in this case saying anything that departs significantly from the past half century of futile American policy toward North Korea. Preventing the Kim dynasty from having a nuclear device was an American priority long before Pyongyang exploded its first nuke, in , during the administration of George W.

The Kim regime detonated four more while Barack Obama was in the White House. In the more than four decades since Richard Nixon held office, the U.

But the GOP wins despite those Democratic gains have shown that enough ordinarily Republican-leaning voters are sticking with their party to give it a plausible chance of holding its majority. This dynamic points to the sensible conclusion that control of the House in November will turn on events that have not happened yet—which is why special elections historically have had such limited value in predicting the next general election.

The myth, which liberals like myself find tempting, is that only the right has changed. In June , we tell ourselves, Donald Trump rode down his golden escalator and pretty soon nativism, long a feature of conservative politics, had engulfed it. If the right has grown more nationalistic, the left has grown less so. A decade ago, liberals publicly questioned immigration in ways that would shock many progressives today. Listen to the audio version of this article: Download the Audm app for your iPhone to listen to more titles.

Over time, leaders lose mental capacities—most notably for reading other people—that were essential to their rise. If power were a prescription drug, it would come with a long list of known side effects. But can it cause brain damage?

When various lawmakers lit into John Stumpf at a congressional hearing last fall, each seemed to find a fresh way to flay the now-former CEO of Wells Fargo for failing to stop some 5, employees from setting up phony accounts for customers. Nor did he seem defiant or smug or even insincere. He looked disoriented, like a jet-lagged space traveler just arrived from Planet Stumpf, where deference to him is a natural law and 5, a commendably small number.

Summertime in Washington, D. There are swampy heatwaves in a region where the standard dress-code includes a blazer.

And a metro that always seems to be catching fire. The squirrel leaped onto his chest, then quickly bounded off onto a nearby tree.

They accounted for 86 percent of rodent-transmitted rabies cases reported to the CDC over a year period ending in the s. You probably know this, but just in case: The Wall Street Journal has fired Jay Solomon for becoming involved with an arms dealer, but reporters have often been unable to resist getting their hands dirty with the topics they cover.

Journalism scandals are all too common: Reporters are as fallible as the practitioners of any other profession, and because the press loves to cover itself, such stories receive great attention. The story of Jay Solomon is in an entirely different league. The ascension of Mohammad bin Salman may help entrench a more assertive foreign policy for the kingdom. Humans aren't the only mammals who kill each other.

So how do we stack up to lions, tigers, and bears? Lacey Schwartz grew up in an upper-middle-class Jewish household, and never once questioned her whiteness—despite not looking like anyone in her family. Global News Notes Photo Video Events Writers Projects. Magazine Current issue All issues Manage subscription Subscribe. More Create account Your account Sign in Sign out Newsletters Audio Life Timeline Events Books Shop View all.

Search Search Quick Links James Fallows Ta Nehisi Coates Manage subscription. Search The Atlantic Quick Links James Fallows Ta Nehisi Coates Manage subscription. Stealing Books in the Age of Self-Publishing Many authors who sell their work directly on platforms like Amazon are having their stories plagiarized, which can take an emotional and financial toll. Most Popular Why Ossoff Lost Molly Ball 7: Franklin Foer Jun 20, How to Deal With North Korea Mark Bowden Jun 19, What Democrats' Defeat in Georgia Means—and Doesn't Ronald Brownstein 3: Latest Video How North Korea Became a Crisis To understand how the standoff between Pyongyang and the world became so dire, it helps to go back to the country's founding Daniel Lombroso , Jackie Lay , and Mark Bowden Jun 19, About the Author Joy Lanzendorfer is a writer based in the San Francisco area.

Her work has appeared in Smithsonian , Mental Floss , and Salon. Most Popular Presented by. There are no good options. But some are worse than others. In the past decade, liberals have avoided inconvenient truths about the issue. A cautionary tale Summertime in Washington, D. Does social media make all friendships last forever? Fraud Alert regarding The Atlantic.

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