OUTSIDE INTERESTS

Another Plagiarist – Is there a race to the bottom

This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant

The alert and avid readers over at the Quality Reads UK Book Club discovered another word thief this week. Good eye, Folks! Have a round on me!

Misty Wright likes to take other people’s novels, change a few names and self publish through a vanity outfit called iVisonary Media. They seem to be proud of the fact that they publish her. Good for them. I think it’s like being the tailor of Al Capone’s suits or the company that manufactured Jeffrey Dahmer’s cookware.

Author Jennifer Cloud has compiled a nice chunk of proof that her novel, Crying Blood has been turned into Assassin’s Love and is currently for sale on Amazon. Misty’s gotten herself (and Jennifer) sixteen 4 and 5 star reviews, but it also  means she’s making a little bit of money. She’s also stolen works from Mark Stewart and Leitha Wards, so this clearly isn’t her first rodeo.

If this were only about money most people would just poo-poo it away, but it’s not. It’s not about an idea that someone turned into a bestseller or sold to a  studio to be made into a movie.  Plagiarism is like stealing someone’s kid from off the playground and raising that child as your own, taking credit when he cures cancer, and living in a nice house bought with the Nobel Prize money.

What’s weird is she could have published these for free through Kindle or Smashwords, but she *paid* to steal other novels. *facepalm*

Looks like the new breed of plagiarist is going after self-published authors who don’t have as much exposure, hoping their fanbase and a few free downloads would increase name recognition, however there are far too many book clubs out there with nice long memories acting as a first line of defense. If I wore hats, I’d take mine off to the book clubs.

I’m too tired to dig deeper this evening (morning) but keep an eye out. Three of Misty’s five books belong to someone else. Chances are, she didn’t write the other two either.

Here’s her blog. While I would never advocate harassing someone on the internet, she might be happy to know she no longer had to keep her terrible secret.

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.
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.
  • Plagiarist alert!
    February 20, 2013 - 2:13 am

    […] to MontiLee Stormer’s blog post on the subject, I see the news of this comes from Quality Reads UK, which deserve credit for the […]

  • Raven
    February 20, 2013 - 7:05 am

    I too had an author plagiarize one of my stories. I had to hire an atty. to get her to stop. She became my stalker and when I fought back, she trashed my author name and spread so many degrading lies, and continues to this day! Her name is D’Maria Scaglione and the book she copied from me, mine is “Footsteps through time” hers is “a unique bunny” then she fashioned her next 2 books after several of mine. She used bits here and there.
    Then she hooked up with some puppet guy who ended up going to prison for being a child molester and using the church and the puppets, to get close to the kids. This was all proven several months ago on the local and national news.
    Now this sick, thief author has gone into a so called spiritual business, looking for “Love donations” with her son. She told me herself, that her son had been arrested and sent to prison for sexual assault. (DoniChris.inc)
    She’s very good at getting people to feel sorry for her. I just wanted you to know. Please do not publish my name or email. I have had to move yet again and change my number. So far, she has no idea where I am living.

  • Lietha Wards
    February 21, 2013 - 10:41 pm

    Yes, I got a tweet this morning about my plagarized books. She took two that I know of. Sad thing was, they were free, unedited versions that I offer on scribd, and obooko, before I have them professionally edited and redone with about another 10000 words added. Unreal how low someone will stoop. Unlike you I have no qualms about making myself known to this degenerate. I left a comment on her so-called publishing site to her partners, if they do indeed exist. It also looks like amazon had my books up for a few months under her name. What the heck. I mean I have to PROVE copyright each time I publish. Now I know why! It’s dishonest people like that! Thanks so much for everyone who helped track her down!!!

    • little black duck
      February 21, 2013 - 11:12 pm

      I tweeted you this morning!

      It’s way too easy to upload books, especially when they don’t belong to you. I get that Amazon wants to make it easy for *anyone* to publish, but it also means allowing low-lifes like “Misty/Esther/Pat/Laura” to just publish what doesn’t belong to them.

  • Lietha Wards
    February 22, 2013 - 12:09 am

    Thank you so much! I appreciated the heads up! There are a lot of other Book Review sites that are already on to her. Unfortunately this isn’t the first time that happened to me…sigh…

  • Lietha Wards
    February 24, 2013 - 9:23 pm

    Well, for an update. Esther Lam AKA Misty Wright, Laura RJ White, emailed me begging for forgiveness, saying it wasn’t her fault. I told her that if she was truly sorry she would issue a public apology and remove ALL of her books off of amazon. Instead, she deleted her bios, her publishing site, and closed her facebook accounts thinking she couldn’t be tracked. She obviously thinks she can’t be linked with her Laura White account now. However, if you google Laura R J White, it’s still cached. She still has four pregnancy/fertility books on Amazon under that Alias. Located here http://www.amazon.com/Laura-White/e/B0070R843G
    She took down her Bio so no one could link the two. I did report her to amazon, and chances are those books are also plagarized. She said she was done with publishing…yeah right…that’s why she’s still selling books. She’s just looking for different victims. I find it hard to believe that she has time on her hands with all the volunteering, adopting, counciling in regards to pregnancy, and being a full time mom and secretary. Some people are so disgusting, pond scum looks fabulous!

Leave a Reply to Lietha WardsCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

little black duck
Verified by MonsterInsights