Are YOU being plagiarized, too, without your knowledge?

by Jodie Renner, editor & author

Imagine my shock on Friday when an author I don't know emailed me to tell me that an "editor" and "publishing consultant" had copied a bunch of testimonials off my website and was passing them off, word for word, as her own!

I checked out the website, WordWorks Publishing Consultants, and sure enough, there were the exact words of two reviews of my editing by our own LJ Sellers, as well as other testimonials from MY website, by thriller writer Allan Leverone, CFCer and thriller writer A.M. Khalifa, and thriller client Tom Combs – copied verbatim, but attributed to fictitious writer clients, even Random House! (You should be flattered by that one, A.M. Khalifa!)

In fact, every single example of her testimonials under "Editing" was lifted – plagiarized – straight from my website, on this page: http://www.jodierennerediting.com/testimonials.

Here, for example, are the original top two reviews she stole, by LJ Sellers:

You can see the rest of the original reviews on my website. I worked damn hard for those testimonials, and they were carefully crafted by talented authors I've worked with, whose creations were stolen, just like that!

By the way, aside from those well-written reviews, the rest of the amateurish-looking website is full of typos and grammatical errors.

This blatant plagiarism is awful on so many levels, including that I would never have known about it if an author hadn't alerted me to this, saying in her email, "I got suspicious of this person due to some wild claims they were making in a Facebook group. Then I simply highlighted blocks of text from her 'testimonials' and googled them."

This is shocking and frustrating. But I and my talented writer clients, although insulted and robbed, aren't the biggest victims here.

The real victims are the many aspiring writers who get duped by this so-called "editor" and think she's so good at it that her clients say those wonderful things about her editing! And the unsuspecting writers then send her their money and entrust her with their manuscripts.

Oh, and by the way, on the testimonials page under "Writing and Content," she has reviews by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs!

“Excellent service – Pame has provided quality content and articles for our corporate branding and website for the past 30 years. Her work has always been professional and completed on schedule. I would be delighted to recommend her services to anyone seeking quality articles or other written content.” - Steven Jobs, President/CEO, Apple Inc

“Very satisfied with quality of writing services over the past 25 years. Great communication and all workis always done before specified deadline". -Bill Gates, President/CEO, Microsoft

“Highly recommended! Pame has a very powerful voice and a great writer, ready to satisfy all your needs. She is always available, reliable and they all work hard to comply with your requests. If you are looking for articles, website content, product description/review or a simple blog comment this is the place to order it!” - Jeffrey Baker, Media Mogul, NBC

This company is apparently run by someone named Pamela Wray Biron. Is she a real person? The spelling "Pame" is unusual for "Pam," especially for an editor, who would be familiar with English usage of the "e" at the end making the vowel long, like hat - hate, man - mane, tam - tame, etc. And all that great long list of accomplishments! Since she's apparently been editing for 26 years, has 6 degrees and numerous other qualifications, and has written 62 books, why is her website full of errors, and why does she have to steal someone else's client reviews? Wouldn't she be earning plenty of testimonials herself, and have a huge number built up over the years? Hmmm....

This shocking discovery also made me wonder -- if my testimonials can get lifted from my website like that, what other sites is this person plagiarizing from, and who else might be stealing my craft-of-writing blog posts and passing them off as their own?

And who's stealing YOUR work? And what can we all do about these scammers?

A suggestion from A.M. Khalifa: "Should we pay attention to who is plundering our work like this, or is plagiarism part and parcel of creativity?" I suppose I should be flattered that my editing deserved such wonderful testimonials that someone chose to steal them, and my clients who wrote those great reviews should be flattered, too... 

But what about those unsuspecting aspiring writers who get duped into thinking this person is an excellent editor for their book, because of the theft of these reviews? What do you think?

I've contacted Preditors & Editors, and also Victoria Strauss of Writers Beware, who's publishing a blog post today (Monday, Mar. 31) about this fraudulent site: http://accrispin.blogspot.ca/2014/03/pamela-wray-and-wordworks-publishing.html.

Unfortunately, that's all I have time for, as I'm racing around getting ready to move across the country as well as preparing to present a webinar before I leave (in fact I'm traveling today). So I urge all writers to read websites carefully and watch for "red flags" like this, and if you're looking for an editor or publishing consultant, do check their references thoroughly. And be sure to get a sample edit of at least five pages, then get an expert in both English usage and fiction techniques to check it over before hiring the editor for your whole book.

Jodie has published two books to date in her series, An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Writing a Killer Thriller and Fire up Your Fiction (Style That Sizzles & Pacing for Power), which has won two book awards so far, and is a finalist for two more. Look for Immerse the Readers in Your Story World, out soon. For more info, please visit Jodie’s author website or editor website, her other blogs, Resources for Writers and The Kill Zone, or find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. And sign up for her newsletter.

Identity theft is big business

Guest post by Terry Ambrose, author of the McKenna mystery series

Posted by Jenny Hilborne

Author of Mysteries and Psychological Thrillers

Victims of identity theft take note, I am one of you. I never expected to have someone steal my identity. I wondered why more couldn’t be done to find the perpetrators. And I wanted justice. So begins the dedication of the second McKenna Mystery, “Kauai Temptations.” 

It’s a story that uses identity theft as a launching pad for the more typical murder-mystery plot. But this post is about identity theft, not murder. This post is timely in a sense because the holiday season is drawing near. That means celebration, good cheer, and a target on your identity.

Identity theft is a $50 billion per year business. By any measurement, that’s big business. But identity theft is really an industry made up of many “small businessmen.” True, we who are victims don’t regard them as businessmen, we have a more graphic description.

The thieves—no, that’s not the graphic description, it’s far worse—have so many methods to trip us up it can make your head spin. The good news is that for writers, the following list can be a terrific starting point for a murder mystery.

•         Unsolicited emails with links for triggers to download a virus or malware have become commonplace. And sadly, the emails, the viruses and the malware grow more sophisticated each day.

•         Fake web sites that are exact duplicates of the real thing are set up and hosted under domains similar to the legitimate site. These fakes typically offer deals that legitimate retailers can’t match. The difference is that the fake site will steal your financial information and never fulfill your order or send you substandard goods.

•         Telemarketers offer free medical alert systems, home repairs, and other great deals. What they really want is a “yes” and your information.

•         Fake charities collect “donations” and never distribute to their cause. This has become a common occurrence and, unfortunately, these sites now crop up and are live and ready to go within hours of a natural or manmade disaster.

•         The FBI estimates that 90% of the work-at-home opportunities are scams. If you’re thinking of working at home and have dreams of making that advertised $10k a month, rethink the dream. You’ll be lucky if you don’t get taken for that much.

•         Financial planners and investment advisors can take you for your life savings. Think Bernie Madoff. Or better yet, think about my friends who decided to invest with their next-door neighbor—someone they’d known for a few years and was an investment advisor. They lost their retirement money and their neighbor because they didn’t check the guy out.

•         The next time you receive a travel clubs offer, read the fine print. Many offer deals you can never use or have ways to disqualify you for any one of a dozen reasons.

•         That $5 iPad you saw on the penny auction site? Don’t be downloading your new apps quite yet. Chances are you won’t get it and neither will most of the other bidders. Of course, the dirtbags—that’s getting closer to the right description, but is still too mild—those behind the site will have your information and how will you stop them from selling it? You can’t, no matter how many little checkboxes you check.

As I said above, this list might provide writers with ideas for a scam to incorporate into a mystery. For “Kauai Temptations” I used the theft of checks to get the identification of my protagonist, but it could just have easily been the $5 iPad. All of these scams wind up in the same place, with you struggling to recover while some guy the police can’t find starts on his next victim.

What does all this have to do with the holiday season? 

Quite a bit, actually, because this is the time of year when the scammers start working overtime. Between now and Christmas, you’ll probably receive more spam emails, see more unbeatable deals, and maybe even receive telemarketing calls. We can’t stop it, but we can all be vigilant and avoid becoming a victim. In that vein, here are three tips to enhance your financial security.

•         Check out businesses and charities with the Better Business Bureau at bbb.org.

•         Online scammers create great fakes websites and emails. Don’t be fooled by good artwork or perfect logos or a slick website. The good scammers can perfectly duplicate a website or email.

•         Never succumb to pressure. Pressure is the con man’s friend. Whether it’s in an email, on a website offering you a “last-minute deal,” or with a real person, remember that if someone demands something, they may be using pressure to dull your responses. Walk away at the first sign.

Bio: Terry Ambrose (terryambrose.com) writes mysteries and thrillers. His latest funny Hawaiian mystery, “Kauai Temptations,” was called “More delicious than a Coconut Mocha Frap” by New York Times Bestselling author Jenn McKinlay (www.jennmckinlay.com