Although I’m not necessarily a fan of romance novels in general, I’m a huge fan of the blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. One of my favorite things about this blog is their series of book cover snarking.
On January 7, SBTB posted allegations of plagiarism by romance writer Cassie Edwards, citing numerous examples of text from her novels that were strangely similar to works by other writers in various genres. Bummer, Cassie.
Four days later, the Associated Press picked up the story and The New York Times wrote about it one day after that. Both stories mention SBTB and link to the site. Way to go, ladies!
If you visit Smart Bitches, Trashy Books now, you can see how they are taking advantage of this publicity. In the upper right corner, the first thing you’ll see is a link to a PDF file entitled, “A Centralized Document of the Cassie Edwards Texts.” A little further down, you’ll see where SBTB aggregated links to all relevant posts they’ve made on the subject.
This is a great example of how to respond to sudden increased exposure of your website or blog. Make it easy for new visitors to find what lured them to your site in the first place.
These Smart Bitches are smart. Very smart.
I do wonder how this negative publicity will affect Edwards’ sales and fan base. She’s been very popular through the years, writing over 100 romance novels. Or at least putting her name on the cover. According to The New York Times article, some fans are calling for a boycott of her work. Her publisher, Signet Books, is also investigating the claims.
If you were Edwards’ publicist, how would you deal with this backlash? It’s not often that crisis management really comes into play when representing authors.
5 comments ↓
Thanks for referencing SBTB, what a great read. I hope they’ve been reaping the benefits of all the increased traffic.
How would I deal with this if I were Edwards’ publicist? I’d advise her to start writing under a pseudonym!
Steve Weber
Thanks for stopping by, Steve! I could spend hours poring over the SBTB blog for a few good giggles.
What if she were to write under a pseudonym, then start “plagiarizing” Cassie Edwards works?? Just kidding!
Rachelle
Thanks for introducing me to SBTB! Like you, I think I can easily spend a few too many hours just taking in their writing and grabbing a brain snack for the day.
Having only written a romance novel for Marketing Managers who have an Excel fetish (Excel for Marketing Managers), I can’t even imagine the mess that Cassie is dealing with.
I suppose this is “no news” to me. It makes me wonder when some PR people and marketers will realize that they have a blogging and Internet audience they have to manage as part of their mix.
I think I’ll give the traditional crisis management response and have her hit all the TV shows, apologizing profusely and offering lame statements about how sorry she is “if anyone” was offended by her actions. (Sarcasm here)
On a serious note, I’d love to see someone do something really honorable and dramatic - like re-print the novel and insert an introduction by Cassie Edwards that says that much of the work is pulled from the following books and authors (with references in the text). The I’d like to see them actually take the proceeds from the book and pay the references a fair amount as a royalty. By doing this, those readers who are interested in the subject matter (in this case the Lakota) will have references they could follow for further reading - if they want to. Most won’t care and I don’t think her sales would be affected.
So that’s my long 2 cents.
Ivana,
Thanks for the comment!
“It makes me wonder when some PR people and marketers will realize that they have a blogging and Internet audience they have to manage as part of their mix.”
You’re so right on this. I advise all of my clients to set Google Alerts for their names and any other search terms related to themselves or their books. (That’s how I knew you had written about me, by the way!) I’m sure with bigger corporations, it would be very time intensive, but sooo worth it, in my opinion. Monitoring one’s online reputation is just too easy. Wouldn’t it be nice for companies to nip problems in the bud before they get picked up by more media? Or at least get a fair warning.
A good example of this is the saga of the PR Week and Adicio fiasco, covered over at B.L. Ochman’s blog.
Your re-print idea is SUCH a great one! I never would have thought of that. Too bad it will never happen.
[…] ago, I gave thumbs up to the ladies at Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books blog in my post, “Ain’t It A Bitch.” I also emailed Sarah and Candy, the bloggers behind SBWLTB, to let them know. Sarah had […]
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