Notes from a Sitting Duck

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

They're out there, in droves, just waiting for us.

No, I'm not getting paranoid - any more than usual, anyway. Every day writers are being made into sitting ducks. I'm telling the truth, and I'm talking about thieves. Call them pirates, call them freedomers, call them file-sharers, call them plagiarists, call them anything you like, but they're still thieves, talking our work without our permission and giving us no compensation.

It's interesting that those who believe 'if it's on the internet it should be free' or that we should be happy just to have our work read and give away our work so freely have never published anything of their own. When we call them thieves to their faces they are offended and hurt; why, they ask, are we being so selfish? People want to read our books. People need entertainment. We have entertainment. How can we be so small of spirit, they wonder, as to deny people what they want when we have it. We want our work to be read, don't we?

Of course, they never stop to think - or plain just don't care - that we spend weeks, perhaps months, maybe even years writing that book. We spend money, too, if we're self-published, on editors and proof-readers and covers and formatters. That never seems to enter their tiny little brains. They just want to be seen as a kind of Robin Hood, graciously giving to the have-nots and never caring if it is at the expense of the ones who created the books.

Now of course you know I'm not talking about a writer who decides to give away a book of his own, either as a short-time sale, a long-term enticement to a series, a gift promotion, or a whatever. I have my own opinions about free books, but as long as the writer himself is the one making the decision to give it away, that's fine. It's their property and they can do what they want with it.

Another particularly slimy kind of thief is the one who gets a copy of the book and then puts it up for sale in his store... but without the author's permission and without any compensation going to the author. The reader gets the book, the seller gets the money, and the writer, who created the book, gets... nothing. Except for a very few mega-sellers, writers have always gotten the short shrift in the publishing industry and it looks like that's not going to change anytime soon.

A new wrinkle in this perpetual 'screw-the-writer' cavalcade is the plagiarist. Oh, people have been stealing books and ideas from other writers for centuries, but suddenly this kind of theft seems to have gone on steroids.

Now these thieves take chunks of copy from several books of similar genre, then mash them up into a new 'book' (perhaps 'manuscript' would be a better term) and put it out as their own. Sometimes they don't even bother to do their own 'mashing-up' but hire a ghostwriter to do it, so they can claim to have written a book without even having touched it. Even worse, there are thieves who take a book and leave it untouched except for changing the main characters' names, maybe the location and maybe the industry in which they work, then put it out as their own work.

And I have never ever heard of any legitimate writer getting any of the money owed them after the scams have been discovered.

In order to defend his property the writer has to spend time - time that should have been spent with his family, or writing, or whatever he chooses - chasing down these thieves and sendings DMCAs, or he has to spend money hiring a company to do it for them - money that should have stayed in the writer's pocket. What's worse is that most of these criminals operate from overseas, beyond the reach of law enforcement - if law enforcement would take an interest in piracy, which so far it hasn't. In the rare instance where an operator has closed down, you can bet within a month or so it will be back up and running again on another website, gleefully continuing to steal writers' property and profits.

I don't know where or how much farther this trend of thievery will or even can go, but I'm absolutely positive that somewhere someone will think of another way to rip off the poor writer who labors to create something.

Sad to think that the internet - which has given so many of us careers with the advent of self-publishing - is what has also given us this rise in crime. I'm sure that there was plagiarism and intellectual theft back in the day of gate-keepers/traditional publishing, but the purely physical limitations of print publishing kept it to a minimum. The internet and self-publishing has indeed turned out to be a two-edged sword.

I don't know what or how is to be done about this, but something must be. Surely someday some hot-shot computer person will come up with a theft-proof something or other that will give writers and writers alone control of their works. Hopefully it will happen soon, because writers are tired of becoming every crook's target.

Picture This!

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

There's been a great deal of chatter on some of my writers' groups lately about headshots and how often they should be replaced. Opinions vary widely, going from every time you change your hair style/color, to when it no longer looks like you.

I'm firmly in the latter camp. Considering I have been known to have my hair the color-of-the-week and (if I'm wearing a wig or hairpiece that day) go from long to short to mid-range with dizzying speed, as long as the face resembles mine I'm fine. Otherwise I would go both broke and crazy trying to keep up with photos of all my varied looks.

The fact that the picture looks like me is in itself a small miracle. While I admit I'm no beauty, children and dogs don't run screaming at my appearance. At least, not most of the time. I do, however, have the kind of face that does not take good photographs. My face is round, chubby and either paper-pale or blazing red, depending on the momentary state of my blood pressure. In most of my photographs I look like a gigantic sugar cookie with an idiotic grin - which might be why I took up photography years ago. If one is taking the photo, one cannot be in it!

When I came back to writing seriously after a ten-year hiatus - long story - I knew I had to have a good headshot, which meant needing a photographer who was at least part magician. Knowing I needed all the help I could get, I went to Glamour Shots at NorthPark Mall (are they even still in business?) which gives you an idea of how long ago this was. I booked a standard package and luckily had a late-ish afternoon appointment. Luckily, because I became a challenge to this place, which prided itself on delivering a good shot.

One hairstylist, two make-up artists, three photographers and three and a half hours later (most shoots ran no more than thirty to forty-five minutes) I finally had a decent likeness. In spite of all the challenges (problems?) of the shoot they charged me only the standard sitting fee, but of course I had to add extras - two additional 8x10s, both different, as presents for my mother and brand-new husband, and (what really drove up the price) I wanted to buy all rights to the shot I wanted as I was going to use it professionally. They did sell me the rights to that shot, but it was expensive! However, I guess the price has amortized out over the years I have used it. People still recognize me from it, so I am going to continue using it for a while longer at least.

During the interim years I have done at least two other shoots, both ending with images that either didn't look a thing like me or looked so much like me at my worst that, refusing to use them, I condemned them to pixel-heaven. According to impartial judges, the old shot still looks more like me than any of the newer attempts. So, like the man who came to dinner it just keeps hanging around.

The truly sad part of this tale is that my mother died unexpectedly just a few days after this shoot. She never saw the picture I had made especially for her.

Good Grief! Today is What???

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

This year the Christmas elves have morphed into malign gremlins, entangling me in strings of tinsel and lights and sending me crashing flat on my face. I try not to post just one essay to both my first Wednesday blogs, preferring to do two different posts on two different subjects, but this time I really have no choice. You see, I forgot. It is now almost half an hour after they should have gone up online, and I am sitting desperately writing in a dark cold office while every other creature in the house is contentedly sleeping, including The Husband.

I do have good excuses/reasons – many of them. Christmas shopping. Out of town family come to visit. Self-indulgently, parties. A couple of meetings that could not be missed. Two hard deadlines breathing fire down my neck – one to finish a book, the other to finish edits. A chronic physical health problem flaring up, as usual at the most inconvenient time. And, perhaps the most annoying of all, this is our seventh week of having no internet at home, meaning that I will be breakfasting at my favorite internet café as soon as it opens in order to get this posted. I really don’t know whether to go ‘sigh’ or ‘grrrr.’ Or both.

As I have said before, do not marry an overly-analytical man. It does get ugly.

So now what shall I say to redeem myself? Nothing, because the forgetting of such a long-standing and treasured responsibility is unacceptable. Hand to heart, I promise to be better.

With any luck at all, all our Christmas shopping will be done this week. Except for my own present, I do all the shopping for the family, but I have been known to have to buy my own occasionally. In both The Husband’s and my families we only give token gifts as we are all blessed with what we really need, but the list is long and it is hard to find even tokens that are not outrageously expensive. As I lurch from store to store, happily shrinking list and traumatized credit card in hand, it is a painful mental gymnastic to think of something appropriate to give each individual. I predict that the gift-card people will be getting most if not all of our business this year.

So, dear reader, the hour is wee, the office is cold, and I am tired. Again, I beg your pardon for such culpable behavior, do promise to be better, and wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas!

(And if you see a couple of elves with sinister expressions carrying ropes of tinsel and lights, please don’t tell them that you’ve seen me!)