Breaking Plagiarist News!

By little black duck February 20, 2013

8 Comments

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Looks like the publisher of Misty’s stolen books is Misty herself!

Misty Wright, the author of this article, is a contemporary suspense romance author and the founder of iVisionaryMedia.com.

The company is dedicated to provide high- quality and excellent content from esteemed authors and “renowned” editors.

Source

Renowned authors repackaged as Misty! It’s terribly convenient.

The company is committed to the unremitting pursuit and attainment of total customer satisfaction by producing best quality, cost-effective information materials, and imaginative literature.

Source

Someone else’s imagination, apparently.

This burns my ass, kids.

Misty Wright (aka Esther Lam aka Laura White) claims in her Amazon profile that she’s a “secretary by day and book fanatic the rest of the time.” She’s apparently pursuing her lifelong dream of being an author by taking other published author’s novels, changing a few names and republishing them under her own name. Then to make herself legitimate, she created her own company and wrote pregnancy self-help books under the name Laura White. I suspect Pat Mize is an alias as well.

Our three amigos live in Singapore, so the chances of any lawsuit may be very slim, however I’d still like to shut this woman down.

Because she has no shame, Misty then made the Blog Book Tour. Same post, mind you, a little copy/pasta for the unimaginative.

~~The Reading Diaries~~ Mandy took her review down, but no mention was made of why. I do wish bloggers (like Lexie, below) would make some mention instead of pretending it didn’t happen at all.

~~Ramblings of a YA Reader~~ (UPDATE 2/20)This post came down yesterday after the blogger was made aware. Lexie even made a post apologising, however no one blames the bloggers who review the work of a plagiarist because they can’t possibly know. Most of them are trying to perform a service by getting readers to authors, and it’s a shame when one is taken advantage of. Thanks, Lexie!

~~The Loopy Librarian~~ (UPDATE 2/21) Links removed with a warning to future surfers about Misty Wright. Thanks, Allie!

This takes balls, folks, and I hope these bloggers make mention of it on their sites. No one expects bloggers and even small presses to be able to flag plagiarists at a glance with the limited resources available. There is no database for all of the written words published and sold, and it’s only through alert readers that authors even discover theft. I don’t blame the above blogs at all for promoting Misty/Esther/Laura, but I do expect them to do the right thing.

Jennifer tells us that Amazon has taken down “Assassin’s Love”, or rather it’s no longer available for purchase. It’s damn near impossible for self-published authors to get into Barnes and Noble, so it was never available for the Nook.

I can see why Kobo isn’t catching on with readers.

I certainly did search for Misty Wright. What the eff, Kobo?

Kobo didn’t have anything for Misty after all.

For those who self-publish, you already enter a tough the marketplace where the quality of your work is immediately suspect. It shouldn’t be further tarnished by the David Boyers and Misty Wrights of the world. It is always in your best interest to help weed out these people out and boost the signal when possible.

You could be next.

Affiliate Disclosure I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated websites.

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little black duck

Just this fox. I'm a writer of horror and dark fantasy. I totally don't brag about it. The latter statement is an utter lie.

http://www.montileestormer.com

The Loopy Librarian
February 20, 2013 - 12:21 pm

Thank you for commenting on my site to bring this issue to my readers’ attention. As for posting the “unimaginative” post, that wasn’t very kind. As a librarian and blogger, my goal, in part, is to support Indie authors. What would the “right” thing be that you are asking us bloggers to do? Do you want me to smear Misty? You took care of that in your comment. Do you want me to take down the links to the books she claims to have written? What point is there in that when the link takes them to a book that is no longer available for purchase. I did contact Misty via Goodreads (which is where she found me) and asked her to answer to these allegations. I did the same on twitter. The main message that authors need to take from this is to copyright their material and be vigilant. I could remove the post all together, but then the comments that you and another writer made about Misty’s plagiarism would no longer be there. So, it seems to me that the best way to draw attention to this is to allow the post and comments to stand as they are. Once again, thank you for bringing this to my readers’ attention.

Reply
Corey Feldman
February 20, 2013 - 5:24 pm

I agree, this hurts all writers, but indies especially. The same thing has happened with the big publishers as well. It a pretty crappy thing to do. It is hard to get into Brick and Mortar B&Ns but I doubt they will be around much longer. From what I hear you can get in if you use Lightning Source and allow returns. Its easy to get into B&N online. My paperback Egret book showed up in B&N searches within a couple days of the Amazon launch. Once I passed my 90 day exclusive I voluntarily gave Amazon for my kindle version. I put it up as a Nook Ebook. Took me about 5 minutes to reformat and upload and about 6 hours before it appeared for sale. It really sucks this happened and I’m sure it won’t be the last time. But I doubt it will have a long term impact in Indie and self published authors because eventually the publishing houses are going to fall/merge and soon the Indie market will shift to significantly outperform the traditional sector. But that is just my humble opinion.

Reply
- little black duck
  February 21, 2013 - 11:05 pm
  
  Corey, if it only takes you five minutes to reformat and upload, a plagiarist only has to take twice that long to find/replace character names.
  
  But I doubt it will have a long term impact in Indie and self published authors because eventually the publishing houses are going to fall/merge and soon the Indie market will shift to significantly outperform the traditional sector.
  
  Yeah, no they won’t, and the fact that plagiarists are indeed targeting self-published and indie authors means you’ve got a nice bulls-eye on your back. Publishing houses aren’t going anywhere, brick and mortar stores may be consolidating, but they aren’t going anywhere either. They can co-exist with digital-onlies and indies.
  
  Reply
Lexie
February 21, 2013 - 6:43 pm

Hi! I actually want to delete my blog post without saying something. But I wanted to reply to the comments I received in my blog. I am really sorry for what happened. I don’t know about it and just thinking of wanting to promote her cause it’s a new author. I just want to help but sadly, this is how I am being repaid. 🙁

Lexie of Ramblings of a YA Reader

Reply
- little black duck
  February 21, 2013 - 10:58 pm
  
  Lexie – no one blames the bloggers and reviewers who trust the authors that come to them. You did the right thing, removing the interview, and that’s all that matters. Please continue to review new authors. We need voices like yours.
  
  Reply
The Loopy Librarian
February 21, 2013 - 11:17 pm

I chose to leave the post up, not to promote Misty, but to keep the info out there. If anyone visits this post now, they will see a warning about this “author” as well as my reply to your comments which include how she lied to me when I confronted her on Goodreads. I also removed all the links to the books in question and left a bright red explanation as to why. Misty wanted me to remove the post altogether, but I felt that the information would then be lost and that would be to her benefit rather than the reader’s. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Reply
- little black duck
  February 26, 2013 - 11:58 pm
  
  Sorry – this was caught in my spam filter.
  
  I wanted to thank you for bringing it to your readers’ attention. It’s a difficult position for bloggers to be in when something like this happens.
  
  Reply
Corey Feldman
February 22, 2013 - 7:39 am

The same type plagiarism has happened in traditional publishing, so it’s not just Indies that have to deal with it. As for brick & mortar, I have a hard time imagining them surviving. I live in the DC metro area and I have exactly one large book store close enough as to not be a PITA to get there. That’s B&N and they aren’t exactly on the stablest of financial grounds. I’m not predicting the neat term end of hard/paper backs but pretty soon most of them will be ordered online. If B&N survives it will be online only.

Reply