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[Agent] Cheryl T. Pillsbury

randomsome1

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For heaven's sake. This is all getting so hugely out of proportion. Have a look at the context, people. One plagiarized chapter in a vanity-published book that fewer than 100 people will ever see. Everyone is behaving as if this is Nora Roberts and Janet Dailey all over again. This really is more equivalent to the kind of plagiarism that happens in fanfic. When was the last time the Internet was abuzz with indignation over that?

Um, now. I'm getting my little corner of the internet abuzz because I'm currently dealing with something very similar--a fanfic author snagging chunks of my fic for her own work, then refusing to admit her "mistake" and take the work down. Either way, this pisses me off. I don't care that no money's being lost, I care that I fought to get those lines right and I struggled to polish the story and then I found bits of it chewed up and ralfed out into some kid's shitty fanfic of my fanfic.

This isn't the first time this has happened to me. I have very strong feelings about plagiarists, no matter if they're fanficcers with a five-person fanbase or NYT bestsellers. I'd guess that the people getting bent out of shape here also share my sentiments.
 

jamiehall

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Question:

What exactly would an "agent" earn from setting up a POD deal for an author?

I mean, I have an agent who sets me up a spanky deal, agent takes his percentage, passes me my nice advance. Book launches and my royalties come in, agent takes a cut, pass me my part.

POD, I paying to have my book published, then it comes to me and I try and sell said books to recoup my expenses and the agent does what? For what?

That is a serious question. 'Cos I can't make head nor tail of all this.

I am reminded of some advice I found some years ago and it popped back into my mind here. The advice - never try and sub your work to publishers claiming to be your own agent.

No idea if this is the case here, but my question above stands, if anyone can tell me. Thanks.

There are several reasons why scam agents do this:

1) Some get kickbacks from the vanity press.

2) It allows them to claim sales, which may get them more new clients (the kind of clients that scam agents get may not realize that PublishAmerica is not a real publisher, yet these kind of clients also might be smart enough to shy away from an agent with no sales whatsoever). Scam agents tend to eventually pick up at least a few sales to vanity presses.

3) It may satisfy the client for whom they get the vanity press deal, at least for a time. Perhaps client A would have moved on in despair, but a vanity press contract might keep client A around for a while longer, paying scam agent fees all that time.

Remember, scam agents make zero or nearly zero on royalties. They get their money from unethical fees or from kickbacks. It doesn't matter to them that a vanity-published book won't sell any significant number of copies, because they weren't counting on getting any royalty money from their victim anyway.
 

Caro

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Um, now. I'm getting my little corner of the internet abuzz because I'm currently dealing with something very similar--a fanfic author snagging chunks of my fic for her own work, then refusing to admit her "mistake" and take the work down.

A bit OT, but have you contacted the group "Stop Plagiarism" over on LJ? It was started three years ago after about four or five incidents happened in quick succession in the corner of the net my friends and I played in. I'm not as active with the group as I once was (time constraints, mostly), but they're a good group of people and I recommend talking with them.
 

necia phoenix

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Between the woman working with Hill and Cheryl Pilsbury? No. Remember, the Hill scam was located in Edinburgh, and the woman working with Hill, who called herself Claire Ashton, had either a British or Scottish accent (I forget which, but people did speak with someone claiming to be her). There's ample evidence that Cheryl is American.

- Victoria

Ok.
Just wondering.
What a mess.
 

randomsome1

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A bit OT, but have you contacted the group "Stop Plagiarism" over on LJ? It was started three years ago after about four or five incidents happened in quick succession in the corner of the net my friends and I played in. I'm not as active with the group as I once was (time constraints, mostly), but they're a good group of people and I recommend talking with them.
Yeah, my post is in their queue. I'll probably go for fanficrants & SONPS as well--the full unholy trinity of grouchiness.
 

brianm

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From Cheryl Pillsbury this morning.

http://www.agpress.50megs.com/
It has come to our attention about, 'Of Atlantis,' and, 'Dark Prince,' by David Gemmell have some idential wording. After seven long days and nights of investigating, we have discovered that Mr. Christopher Hill from the UK purposely did this to scam Ms. Lanaia Lee of her money, now her reputation. We have placed her book on hold with the publisher, I have personally bought the book, 'Dark Prince,' and one of our editors will do a page-to-page comparison to make sure they are no longer identical.**
We truly apologize for this situation, we didn't know about Mr. Gemmell and his work until last week when this came to light. We never meant to harm anyone or discredit his work. We will solve this issue before its published. We truly apologize to the public, but mostly to his family and his honor as an author.
 

JulieB

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About time. I notice that's accompanied by another announcement:

October 8, 2007 and January 1, 2008, save 20% on your project. Our way of saying thank you for looking at us and using our services to publish your project.
 

Monkey

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The apology was actually sandwiched between advertisements. Tacky.

But even tackier is the fact that Cheryl Pillsbury seems incapable of writing a coherent sentence.

(Edited to remove reference to what I thought was a misspelling, but was really something else. I stand by the rest of the post. :) )

Never use an agent that cannot spell basic words in their native language.
 
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Dawno

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No, a comb bind is a real type of binding - it's those spiral plastic teeth - really cheezy, you can do it at Kinko's pretty cheaply.

I saw it and used it a lot when I was teaching.
 

JulieB

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You can buy inexpensive comb binding equipment at the office supply store. I've got a really cheap punch and bind system here in my home office.
 

Monkey

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Ah, my mistake. I'll have to go back to making fun of all her *real* misspellings.


and some of her phrasing:

Yes they do and I'm a firmer believer in what I do and so do my friends.

For people who throw stones at glasses houses should be very cautious about speaking before they know the truth.

Lanaia is being wronged major time.

I could get more examples of both (these are just from a quick scan of her statements at Making Light), but you get the idea.
I could also list all her contradictions. It would take a while.

Now, I know that this stuff is from message boards...but there are similar problems with the woman's website. And really, shouldn't we expect an agent to be able to write better than this? These aren't the usual I-left-out-a-letter typos.
 

JanDarby

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Did anyone else do the math? I believe seven days ago was BEFORE the post at Dear Author.

JD
 

brianm

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Did anyone else do the math? I believe seven days ago was BEFORE the post at Dear Author.

JD

I noticed that, too. It's been four days but I'm sure it feels much longer to her.

She added a new prologue to the bottom of her page and, apparently, only the site owner/admins can remove the first offending chapter.
 
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DamaNegra

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She added a new prologue to the bottom of her page and apparently, only the site owner/admins can remove the first offending chapter.

Yeah but the new prologue is just a rewritten version of the plagiarized material. So where can we draw a line? Is it still plagiarism? Or have the circumstances changed?
 

AnneMarble

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Did anyone else do the math? I believe seven days ago was BEFORE the post at Dear Author.

JD
I think Jane of Dear Author mentioned contacting her before the post went up. IIRC the post only went up because they didn't like the response they got. I don't know if they contacted her several days before, however.
 

randomsome1

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Yeah but the new prologue is just a rewritten version of the plagiarized material. So where can we draw a line? Is it still plagiarism? Or have the circumstances changed?

If it's the same thing, plot point for plot point with only some rewording--or in this case, an assload of typos and gibberish--then I'd still call it plagiarism. I refuse to believe that this author would come up with something on her own that matches someone else's book down to the tiniest detail.

The original:
[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif] He had not meant for the hound to die; he had loved the pup. And he had tried so hard, concentrating always, so that whenever he stroked the dog his mind was calm. But one day the playful hound had leapt at him, knocking him from his feet. In that moment Archimedes’s hand had snaked out, lightly slapping the beast on the neck. The hound collapsed instantly, eyes glazing, legs twitching. It had died within seconds., but what was worse it had decomposed within minutes, the stench had filled the garden.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif] It was not my fault,” the child had wanted to say. But he knew that it was; knew he was cursed.[/FONT]
[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]The "new" version:[/FONT]
[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Archimedes mother had given him a small puppy hoping this would provide much needed companionship for her very lonely son. Archimedes always tried to be very careful how he played with the dog because of his extraordinary powers. One day while they were playing, the dog jumped up on the child scaring him, still too young to control his powers, he pushed the dog aside and then right before the boy's eyes the dog just disappeared.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]The child had not meant to hurt his only friend, the puppy he so loved, but Archimedes was still too young to know how to control his very special gift. The child honestly believed, his special gift was some sort of demonic curse and this made the young prince very sad.[/FONT]
 

absitinvidia

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I think Jane of Dear Author mentioned contacting her before the post went up. IIRC the post only went up because they didn't like the response they got. I don't know if they contacted her several days before, however.

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that Lanaia Lee contacted Jane about getting her book reviewed, then Jane found the plagiarized material and told Lanaia about it, and when Lanaia and Cheryl threatened her with legal action, she made the post to Dear Author.
 

DeadlyAccurate

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If it's the same thing, plot point for plot point with only some rewording--or in this case, an assload of typos and gibberish--then I'd still call it plagiarism. I refuse to believe that this author would come up with something on her own that matches someone else's book down to the tiniest detail.

The original: [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]The "new" version:[/FONT]

So instead of copying the text, she's paraphrasing it.