| So, last week, in addition to posting my very great sadness about the divorce of Madonna and Guy Ritchie*, I posted some reviews. One of those reviews was for Personal Demons, and I noticed, when reading it, that it sounded rather familiar. So I saw the name of the reviewer was Lisa, and remembered that the League's good buddy Lisa, who also posts and reviews at Urban Fantasy Land, did some work for Bitten by Books, the site I quoted last week on my blog. It was the same review she posted there. (And by the way, I see UFL is looking for some new team members as well; I'm sure we have some readers at the League who would be of great value to the site. We love UFL here [AND Bitten by Books, and all the sites in our sidebar], and think it's awesome, and you should visit it several times a day and help it grow! Sorry, just my little plug there.) Anyway. I forgot to mention in my lj post that it was the same review, and it gave Lisa quite a start. Oops. But it reminded me of something. Once before I got a review which seemed to me, at least in one particular line, to be very similar to a review I'd gotten elsewhere; I hunted around until I found that one, and compared them, and looked at a few others, and decided that it was simply an innocent similarity (I noticed several review sites used the same sort of line: This is an excellent book about [subject A] and [subject B]; the A and B being something like "vampires and love", or "demons and love"; or whatever.) Am I the only writer who does this? I kind of feel like it's my duty to; I'm the one who sees all the reviews, after all. While I imagine most reviewers also check other review sites, I'm also sure that they write so many reviews they're not necessarily going to remember exactly what they said about every book; they would recognize their own words, of course (as Lisa did) but they may not recognize a similarity with a review they wrote months before, especially as I believe most of them read a LOT, write a LOT of reviews, and quite possibly have their own writing projects they work on as well. What do you guys do, in this case? If a line in a review strikes you as familiar, do you hunt around for others to compare? What would you do if you found outright plagiarism in a review? I assumed what I would do would be first to not post the review on my blog, and next to contact the site administrator and copy both reviews, and let them see what they think and handle it as they see fit. If it was really, clearly a case of plagiarism I would contact the original reviewer as well. But beyond that...what? And how clear a case would it have to be, especially as some reviews are simply more formulaic than others, which would necessitate similarities like those? (Note: I'm not saying reviewers are formulaic or implying anything, just that some review sites have particular rules about how reviews should be written and what they should contain, for the ease of their readers--which is perfectly acceptable. It's not meant in any way to say that sites that do this aren't good or their reviewers are hacks or anything of that nature, at all, so please don't take it that way.) Just as I would hope a reader who spots what appears to be another writer stealing from me would email me and let me know, I would think the reviewer would need to be informed. But at the same time, just because a review uses the same phrases, doesn't mean it was stolen; there are only so many ways to say "This is a very sexy book", for example. What do you guys think? Do you look for this sort of thing in reviews, is it a concern for you? How would you handle it if you noticed two matching reviews written by different people? *And by "my very great sadness", I mean: It was just something to blog about, and I couldn't give less of a fuck about Madonna or Guy Ritchie and his lame movies. |
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I've done this -- sadly, the reason I caught it was the reviewer used Harriet Klausner's review. And, although the wording wasn't exact (she rearranged a phrase and took out her thesaurus) she managed to keep one of dear Harriet's errors.
But that was just a line or two ... the rest of it was taken from a RT review, and another online review.
So I do check now if anything rings that little alarm bell.
Gah, I just lost my comment.
Anyway, it was: I have come across review plagiarism before. I caught it because they copied (not word for word, but close enough) out of Harriet Klausner's review ... and brought one of Harriet's errors over. That was one or two lines. The rest of the review they took from the RT review and another online review.
So I do check if that internal alarm bell starts ringing. If it's an advance review, I let my publicist know so that she can decide whether to send another ARC or not.
Oh! and as for what I did -- the reviewer was part of a review site, so I contacted the review admin. If it was a review from an ARC, I'd also probably contact my publicist.
Good question! I don't actively troll for copies of my reviews. I probably should, but I just don't have the time. Currently, I read 210+ blogs on a daily basis, I'm behind in my book reading, and I do have my own writing projects. (All this in addition to my two day jobs and volunteer work.)
Before I write a review, I admit I do read other reviews of the book. This is just to get a sense of how others felt about a book, to help me articulate my own feelings. I try to write spoiler-free reviews, and I try to always write a review geared to the audience I think will enjoy the book the most, even if I'm not part of that audience.
I have seen other authors find plagiarized reviews. Some ignore it. Some let their publicists deal with it. Some write to the bad reviewer. Some write to the good reviewer. Some post anonymous letters to the bad reviewer.
If I found my words on someone else's site, I would write to the admin and kindly ask them to remove my words.
I would be interested in knowing if this has ever come up in a lawsuit, and what the outcome was.
My biggest problem is when I copy myself. I review for several sites and have to write different copy for each of them and sometimes that's haaaard. So I've received email before accusing me of copying from...me. Though I find it silly when a reviewer can't come up with their own stuff. It kinda makes me wonder if they ever actually read the book. I know in my freelancing career I've been hired by places that wanted reviews for books or movies or games that they never sent you to experience. Just said, research and write something. Not a great practice IMHO.
~J
Thanks, Meljean! Doesn't it make you feel icky, to see that? Almost like it's somehow your fault, in a weird way. Thanks for saying how you handled it, too; I've wondered about it a few times before.
Hmm, Lindsay, I wonder too! I've never heard of it, not that I can recall, but I can't imagine it's never come up anywhere at all. And yeah, I figure most reviewers aren't going to see the theft on their own, unless they spend hours reading ALL the reviews at every review site; I guess I feel kind of like it's my responsibility to keep an eye on my reviews, if you know what I mean? I'm the one who sees all the reviews of my book, either through having them sent to me or Google alerts or Googling the book, so...I try to keep an eye out, you know? I don't police but it is something I think about.
Lol, JSB, everybody does that, I think. Some of my favorite authors have a particular phrase or two I've seen them use several times; I kind of like it, actually. It's like a little trademark thing and adds continuity, if you know what I mean. But then I'm weird. :-)
What's the point of reading the book and doing a review if you aren't going to give your own opinion of the book? I can't even imagine copying another reader's review.
I don't review many books, but when I do, I've started jotting down notes to myself as I read. Since I have trouble putting into words how I feel about a book, I found this helps.
yay props for Lisa.. I write reviews but mostly only to B&N.com. I try to beat Klauser! I hate for you guys to be Klauserized right off the bat!
Okay. I'm going to try this for about a fifth time :D My posts were eaten by the intarwebz yesterday.
Thanks for the UFL shoutout. We appreciate it.
I never really thought about anyone stealing my words until I saw your post. Let me tell ya, that woke me up faster than any cup of coffee. Since reading that, even though it was my own review, it has made me a little wary. I read plenty of review blogs but can't read absolutely everything so it is possible it could happen and I wouldn't know it.
But if I did run across my own words I would definitely ask them to kindly remove the review.
Lisa T.
Great topic!
Thanks for the love to BBB! We are also looking for reviewers if anybody is interested, just drop me a line. :)
Now, the review theft issue has recently come out. I heard about it from another blog owner/author who caught it. They posted an open letter to the person (without their name or info) and then contacted them and asked them to remove their plagiarized reviews.
One other time, somebody sent me info on a person who was doing this on EBAY reviews. So, one of our reviewers (or two) went through and checked to see if any of ours were there. Thankfully they weren't.
I actually don't read other reviews prior to writing mine. And rarely afterwards. I pretty much say what comes to my mind. LOL That and I have zero time to read what others thought about it. I sometimes will catch reviews when they are compiled all together at sites that cull their material from other sites. But that is pretty rare. ;)
I agree with those who said why bother stealing it, if you read the book, you should have something to say.
This is why I love the league, so many great topics, so little time!
Hi Rachel! Thanks for weighing in! :-) The review process always really interests me, so hearing what you guys do before you write one has been particularly cool here.