Although I don’t usually do this, I’m going to throw up some links for those that haven’t read some of the articles yet. It’s really good to know and worth reading – IMO – then we’ll get back to the reviews I promise. 

First up, yesterday Jordan Castillo Price was plagiarized and the work was passed off as fusion fanfic or some such nonsense. You can read about the wank over HERE on JCP’s LJ or her post on Jessewave’s site including some talk about how authors can protect themselves HERE. This is the exact same thing that happened to Zathyn Priest however many months ago with his book. 

Personally I think there are many more examples of this that are never reported so if you happen to read fan fic and notice some odd similarities, please check it out. It may be paranoia but this is a horrible blow to authors. I just don’t believe on any level that these people do not know what they’re doing is wrong. Taking an entire book and changing only the names and perhaps a small detail or two but leaving the entirety of the book intact is no way anywhere close to fanfic and any attempts to lie, explain, or excuse is just smoke to cover their ass.

 

Second, mrs.giggles posted this tidbit about Fictionwise and *le gasp* the checker I was using for shady publishers is a shady publisher!

October 2009 update: troublesome report that the one-time $15 set-up fee now is invoked any time a change or update needs to be made. They have been paying late, and sometimes in error to the author’s disfavor, not corrected; this is harder to track because they have removed real-time figures. They have censored books, removing ”controversial” ones. This sort of thing bothers publishers, but few dare to protest.

Source: Piers Anthony

I do know they are picky about content and have refused to list some twincest titles. I remember authors having to fight to get their titles listed. Doing a quick check I see 4 of the StarCrossed titles up, none of Sage Whistler’s, and Amanda Young’s new twincest. However, their tagging system sucks, their DRM sucks, and frankly I wouldn’t shop at FW unless it was the last e-tailer alive. But I do like the word counts : D.  Shady Fictionwise, very shady.

 

Lastly, over on Loose Id they have a new feature called “Editors Picks” where their editors pick their favorite books. There are a TON of m/m titles listed (which probably will be crucified by certain blogs to show Loose Id is way too m/m centric – god forbid) but it also shows that my taste is very different from some of their editors and perhaps that explains why I think their quality has taken a nose dive. Some of the “favorites” listed I wouldn’t use to line my cat’s litter box. But on the plus side they do have some greats up there like Faith & Fidelity, Immortality is the Suck, one of the Heaven Sent series. I wish they listed editor name so I know whose judgment to trust but check it out.