I met three times with a man who wanted me to publish his textbook for the local technology center. I thought it was a great project and scheduled it to be published in October -- until I received the book. It consisted of about a fourth of his writing and ... drum roll ... photocopied pages of six or so other text books. In this 123 page book, he had only written about 40 pages of it. The rest he was stealing. Of course, he intended to pay me to type in those pages, and so it wouldn't be photocopied any more. He seemed to think it was the photocopies that were the problem and not the fact he was stealing another person's writing.
Why is intellectual theft so hard to understand? If another person writes it, it belongs to that person, and you have no right to copy it or publish it or make derivative works or do anything else with it unless you have the author's permission. (Unless, of course, it's in public domain, and none of those textbooks are.) It doesn't matter if you do it for profit or not for profit or for school or for whatever. I went over this with him. I looked up copyright law and showed that to him. And finally I realized he didn't want to understand or listen.
Despite the loss of the money -- and he would have been my largest contract so far -- I told him I couldn't publish it, and showed him how my contract with authors (that they must sign) specifies that the work is original.
He then told me that he had taken the book first to Staples, and when they saw the photocopied pages, they wouldn't photocopy and bind it for him, either. So he said, "I guess I'm going to have to type it up, and then someone will publish it and they won't know it came from other books."
I ended the meeting soon after that. People who will steal writing will steal other things, too. I don't want to do business with him ever. What galls me is that he attends my church and makes a big deal about his Christian witness. I feel sick about it.
Anyway, this left a hole in my publishing schedule. It occurred to me that maybe I could fill that hole with a book of my own. Over the past 12 years, I had written various Tales from Bethlehem, a retelling of the Nativity Story from the viewpoint of various characters. I had published them on my blog, in my family newsletter, as Christmas card inserts, and a local newspaper. I thought I might have enough material for a book, particularly if I included my Christmas poems and wrote a couple new Tales.
So that's what I'm going to do. Come October, people will get to read the tales of the stable boy, serving girl, cook, clerk, star, camel, donkey, and others. Jean -- awesome Jean! -- had agreed to proofread it for me. You've probably seen the cover on Facebook. If not, I'm going to post it here down below.
So what am I doing this week?
- Working on Tales from Bethlehem, of course.
- Chores.
- Publicity for Kelley Benson's book On Target: Devotions for Modern Life. His books should arrive Thursday. He's very excited about it, and so am I. He's doing a lot of publicity and work.
- Walk three times.
- Writers group meeting Saturday morning.
- Fight off the black dog. It's had me in its grip for a while now. Tired of it.
Hope you have a great week. And here's the possible cover for Tales from Bethlehem.
6 comments:
Wow. Some people's kids, huh? How did he not get the concept of theft? Did you, by chance, take note of who wrote the books he stole from? Maybe you could give them a heads up if the guy does get it published. Good save, though. At least if you publish your own work, you know it's original, right? The cover looks great!
I didn't keep a copy, Wendy. I now wish I had. Today, he gave the prayer at church. I wanted to walk out.
And thanks for the compliment on the cover! :) The background cover photo came from Colourbox.com, a stock photo site, and was only $12.50 for royalty free use in books! How awesome is that!
Your cover is lovely.
As for the root source of your "exciting" week, I'm shaking my head. I know it was a no-brainer for you to walk away once it became clear he refused to accept the concept of copyright violation. One more thing to add to your checklist of things to investigate before accepting a manuscript -- select a representative sample of sentences and input them into a search engine and see what you get back. Use Google's book database to your advantage. Hubby used to do that with student papers he suspected of plagiarism. It works amazingly well. Remember, you'll be getting potential clients who have been turned down elsewhere for the ham-handed approach your guy used who have learned to be less obvious as a result.
Hope all goes well with Kelly's book. Looking forward to the proofread.
People like that drive me batty. I actually know a writer who has admitted she hangs out in writing chat rooms specifically to steal ideas, character names, concepts, whatever, from newbie writers because 'it's not like they'll ever sell anything, someone might as well use it.'
It severely ticks me off. Theft, dishonesty, backstabbing. All awful. Needless to say, I don't talk about my books AT ALL if she's around. We writers should help one another, not cheat each other, ya know?
It was the right thing to walk away. I'm sorry he couldn't see it's plagiarism. With the internet and online 'sharing' copyright and use have become really fuzzy - besides, once it's online, it's out there for anyone - but photocopying textbooks to publish yourself is just plain theft.
You cover is lovely, btw. {{huggs}}
Jean, that's a great idea that I hadn't considered. I will have to do that.
I didn't mention that he was just this side of rude at the last meeting. I think I made an enemy there. Well, I'm looking for a new church anyway.
Oh, Tammy, when I read about that writer who uses chat rooms to steal, I felt a slow burn come over me. She must have no morals at all.
And I'm glad you like the cover. Thanks. :)
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