Bachelorette Number Twelve has been plagiarized
I’m usually a pretty laid-back and emotionally even-keeled person, but I have to admit I’m very upset and furious right now, and I wanted to share the situation with you because I think it’s important, not just for me, but for the entire community of sapphic readers and authors.
Here’s what happened: Yesterday, someone in my Facebook group for readers of sapphic fiction posted anonymously, saying they had come across a fanfiction on AO3 (the biggest fanfic archive worldwide) that is “inspired by Bachelorette Number Twelve,” my newest sapphic romance, which has barely been out for two months. The reader seemed to think the fanfiction was really cool, so I checked it out.
You see, I love fanfiction in general—it’s how I first discovered sapphic fiction, so I’ll forever be grateful for its existence. I can totally understand when fascinating characters from a TV show or a movie or even a book inspire a fan to write a story about these characters.
What is fanfiction?
In case you aren’t familiar with the term, fanfiction (also called fanfics) are stories written by fans, using characters from someone else’s work, usually TV shows or movies. Fanfiction has a long tradition in the sapphic community because we rarely get positive representation in movies or TV shows, and even if we do, lesbian/sapphic characters still often end up being killed off. So it’s no wonder that queer fans write their own happy endings for their favorite characters.
I won’t go into details since I’m not a lawyer, but legally, fanfiction falls into a tricky gray area because fanfic writers use characters from someone else’s copyright-protected work without permission. Some authors and TV/movie producers pursue legal actions against fanfiction based on their work, while others allow or at least ignore it, as long as fanfic writers don’t make any money from it.
But this is not fanfiction!
However, when I checked out this particular fanfic, I discovered that it wasn’t what I would call fanfiction. To me, fanfiction means “borrowing” someone else’s characters and/or story universe to tell your own story.
This story, however, wasn’t merely “inspired by” my novel Bachelorette Number Twelve. Instead, someone took my book and copied it almost word for word, changing just bits and pieces here and there to make it fit the fandom they are writing in.
To give you an idea, here’s the first sentence of Bachelorette Number Twelve, which was published in January:
Ellie stood on her tiptoes on top of the ugliest orange plastic chair she’d ever laid eyes on, stretching to the right as far as she could, when a pair of sneakers squeaked to an abrupt stop behind her.
The first sentence of the fanfiction, which was posted just a few days ago:
Yelena was in the main pantry as she stood on her tiptoes on top of the ugliest yellow rolling chair she had ever laid her eyes on, stretching as far to the left that she could, when a pair of training shoes squeaked to an abrupt stop behind her.
Here’s another example from Bachelorette Number 12 from a scene in which Regina participates in a singles auction:
She wasn’t nervous. Of course not. She handled cardiac arrests, strokes, and subdural hematomas for a living, bringing people back from the brink of death on a regular basis. A silly auction wouldn’t make her sweat.
Standing around, waiting, had just never been her thing. She was a woman of action.
But as much as she hoped for a last-minute miracle that would get her out of this, she knew it wouldn’t happen. The only way out was through.
The fanfiction not only has a singles auction scene too, but the wording is nearly identical in many places:
She wasn’t nervous. Of course not. She handled aliens, magical monsters, and demented robots for a living- this would be a walk in the park. She had been paraded around by her mother at galas for years- she’ll be fine. A silly auction wouldn’t make her sweat. Standing around and waiting had just never been her thing. She was a woman of action after all.
As much as she hoped for a last-minute miracle that would get her out of this, she knew it wouldn’t happen. The only way out was through.
The rest of the story—at least the two chapters of the fanfic that are already posted—follows the plot of Bachelorette Number Twelve exactly. And it’s not just the plot that is identical. Many lines I have written were used word for word.
This is not an homage or someone inspired to write their own story after reading mine. This is someone stealing my story and pretending it’s their own. It’s plagiarism (passing off someone else’s work as your own) and copyright infringement (copying chunks of someone else’s story without permission). Even saying “inspired by Bachelor Number Twelve” in the author’s note of the fanfic (misquoting the title and not even naming the author, by the way) doesn’t change that.
This is getting old…but not less upsetting
Sadly, this isn’t the first time something like this happened to me. A couple of years ago, someone posted my sapphic romance The Roommate Arrangement on Wattpad, changing just the character names to make it appear as if it were a Clexa fanfiction, and claimed they had written it.
I’m also not the only sapphic fiction author this has happened to.
Stealing is easy, writing is hard
To be honest, it feels like a kick to the gut. An entire series of kicks to the gut. I put my heart and soul and an incredible amount of work into each of my books. From the first idea to publication, I worked on Bachelorette Number Twelve for nearly a year—doing research on working in an ER, the setting, disc golf (Regina’s hobby); creating detailed character profiles; outlining the novel; writing the book; revising it for months; and finally proofreading it half a dozen times.
Not to mention all the other people who invested their time and energy into my manuscript—my beta readers, the medical professionals who helped me get the medical setting right, and the editor and proofreader my publisher paid.
And then someone comes along, steals everything I have worked on so hard, changes just a few things, and pretends this is their story. Calling it “fanfiction” doesn’t make it all right.
Writing a novel is hard work. There are no shortcuts. There shouldn’t be any shortcuts. If you want to be a writer, you have to put in that hard work, no matter if you’re writing fanfiction or original works.
Why plagiarism & copyright infringement aren’t “harmless”
I don’t really know what this fanfic author’s motivation was and what they were thinking. Maybe they honestly thought this wasn’t a big deal. But it absolutely is.
For one thing, having your work stolen is emotionally damaging to authors. It feels like a violation—as if someone just waltzed into my home and stole one of my most-prized possessions.
It also takes valuable writing time away from writers. Instead of working on my next book, as I had planned to yesterday, I had to contact AO3 and fill out DMCA takedown notices to get that fanfiction removed from the site. It’s exhausting.
If a book is in Kindle Unlimited—as The Roommate Arrangement was when it got posted to Wattpad, that also means the author signed a contract with Amazon, promising to not make the ebook available anywhere else. Amazon’s bots comb the Internet. If they find a version of the story—or even just a story with plenty of identical text—anywhere but on Amazon, the author is in breach of Amazon’s terms of service. Amazon could take down the original book from their sales platform—which means the author loses income and readers can no longer read the book. Amazon could even close the author’s account for good. All of the author’s books would be gone from Amazon forever, and that would destroy the author’s career!
So copyright infringement and plagiarism aren’t harmless. They endanger an author’s livelihood. This is very serious for every writer, but especially for authors who make a living from their writing and need that income to pay the bills, as I do.
For the same reason, sharing ebooks on pirate sites isn’t harmless either.
What can you do to support authors as a reader?
If you come across a story—published or fanfiction—that you are sure plagiarizes the work of another author or infringes on their copyright, please report it to the author of the original work so they can take a look and take action, if necessary.
In fact, when The Roommate Arrangement was posted to Wattpad, it was a reader who alerted me, and I’m still very grateful for that.
It should go without saying, please don’t download pirated ebooks. (Not just to protect authors, but also to protect yourself, by the way. These sites are often full of viruses and malware). If you ever hear a fellow reader talk about reading pirated books as if it were a totally fine thing to do, please speak up.
How to know when to alert an author
To help you understand when you should reach out to an author and alert them, here’s an explanation of what is—and isn’t—copyright infringement.
Copying chunks of someone else’s work word for word and posting or publishing that work without permission is copyright infringement—and that’s a crime. Even if the person paraphrases here and there, adds a few words, or rearranges sentences to make it a little different, it’s still copyright infringement.
Of course, I’m not talking about short, common sentences such as “She smiled.” I’m talking about copying unique, complex sentences and paragraphs like the ones you can see in my examples above.
What’s not copyright infringement are stories that use the same basic premise. Ideas aren’t protected by copyright, only the exact words to express that idea. Two stories that are based on the same trope will often have similar scenes because those scenes follow logically from the trope. For example, fake relationship romances will often have a scene in which the characters have to kiss to convince others they are a couple. So if two different fake dating stories both include a scene like that, it doesn’t mean one author stole from the other, as long as the descriptions within that scene aren’t copied verbatim or near verbatim from another author’s work.
Every writer knows that coming up with a story idea is the easy part. The writing and revising to make it a published book is the hard part. 99% of the work is in the execution, not the initial idea.
What happened isn’t just about me or only about this one fanfic author who might or might not have been aware that they were doing something wrong and presumably even committing a crime.
It’s about respecting the hard work that goes into creating stories and protecting authors from emotional and financial harm.
Thank you for your support!
Jae
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