The Copycats Of Fiction Have No Shame And Make Millions

When Terry Brooks published The Sword of Shannara, I was one of the first kids to dive straight into it.  And even at that early age (I was in junior high school at the time) I remember being shocked at how much it followed Tolkien's Lord of the Rings point-by-point. In LOTR you had the nine ringwraiths...in Brooks you had the nine skullbearers, in LOTR you had Sauron, in Brooks you had the Warlock Lord, and it goes on and on.  The King of the Silver River is Elrond, the Hall of Kings is Moria complete with monster at the gate, and the druids are simply the Istari wizards.  The Druids Keep is Isengard and Allanon is Gandalf, etc.  You even have two hobbits...only they aren't called hobbits but they are from Shady Vale...a place a lot like Hobbiton. And their names are Flint and Shea instead of Frodo and Sam.  Anyway...this is a well documented thing...the fact that a New York Times bestselling author blatantly stole from the grandfather of all epic fantasy and in the end...no one gave a shit.  And to Brooks' credit, it didn't stop me from reading his books. I was hungry for fantasy at the time so I bought all the Shannara books as they came out and they steadily got better and better (and more original).  I thought Elfstones of Shannara was awesome so yeah...he forged himself a great writing career. However, just out of the gate (so to speak) I thought things were so shameless with his first book that I would have been downright embarrassed had anyone called me on it.

Anyway, this is happening again in a book I'm reading.  What book you ask?  It's Amanda Hocking's Trylle trilogy and the first book is called Switched. Don't get me wrong...Amanda is a wonderful writer.  I enjoy her prose but the woman doesn't have a story. No, she has Stephanie Meyer's story.  Things started smacking me over the head about Chapter Six.  Let me see if you can pick what book she is following point-by-point as I lay them out for you.

These two books are essentially the same story. Only names have
been changed.  

We are introduced to the female protagonist named Wendy.  She considers herself unattractive, her hair is awful, and she has no friends.  She's the new girl in a high school in a small town and awkward as hell.  One day, a gorgeous boy starts staring at her and continues to do so until it makes her so uncomfortable she can't stand it.  When she asks him about it...he is evasive...won't give her a straight answer.  Only later on does she discover that he's a Trylle...the word for troll...and that he has essentially super powers.  And he's very long-lived.  Oh and he visits her in her bedroom at night...does this scene sound familiar?

One night outside her home, her life is threatened.  Not with a careening car but setup almost the same.  Two people attack her and "Finn" the hot dude saves her all by himself (pushing the bad people away). Then he takes her to his home which is absolutely gorgeous to meet his family of other trolls who are Gucci and Prada wearing, sushi-eating, upper class snobs.  I mean super rich. Like millionaire rich (high society). And it's secluded in the woods (think evergreen forests) with a view of the Mississippi River... Instead of a black Volvo we have a black Porsche.  She also finds out that there's something inherent in her that makes Finn stare at her. He can smell her.  It's her hair (not blood) and it's irresistible to other Trylle.

That's all the farther I've gotten...but does that sound familiar to you?  Does that point-by-point sound like a certain highly successful New York Times bestseller?

I know that some of you writers out there always say, "There are no original ideas." But COME ON! for Pete's sake!?

I mean, is there any shame to this?  Here...let me give you an example of what I mean...

Hey author friends! Here's my AMAZING plot for my story...OMG...IT'S SO GOOD AND I WILL MAKE MILLIONS. I even have cover art for it already made...check it out:

Dude from a future where mankind is pushed to extinction by machines escapes through a portal into the past.  He's on a mission to save a woman targeted by the machines of the future.  He has to stop a killer robot only, along the way, he falls in love with the woman and they have sex and she gets pregnant.  Here's the hitch...her baby will someday be this guy's father.

Holy shit!  Isn't that great?!  I iz so smart this is sure to be a bestseller and you all will be jealous while I'm making millions.

Anyway...what do you guys think? Amanda's books are huge bestsellers (maybe not as big as Twilight) but they've made her rich.  Terry Brooks is a rich fat cat too and he blatantly copied Tolkien.  I'm wondering why someone isn't blatantly copying J.K. Rowling.  I mean you could do it and self-pub and probably catch a portion of the same audience that J.K. has.  Even at 1% that's 4 million people that are going to buy your books.  How would you like to sell 4 million books?

Oh ummm...here's my story...there's this paranormal school that teaches wizards ghosts, vamps, werewolf kids how to properly use their powers.  Each one has a wand fetish like a silver bullet or locket that they channel their magic through.  There are professors in the school.  One paranormal boy named Charles Hatter is the only kid that survived when dark wizards ghosts, vamps, and werewolves led by Voldemort a real powerful dude attacked the family and left a mark on his forehead eyes (his eyes have flickering lightning bolts in the irises).

And to any of you that would say "You can get sued for this kind of copycat behavior"...I don't think that you can. Maybe Mr. Pagel can weigh in on this because he's a lawyer. But I'm pretty sure that ideas cannot be copyrighted...meaning a general idea...like a plot.

Anyway...authors that do this have no shame.  I'm actually kind of disgusted.  But they are richer than me and have huge publishing contracts so does what I think really matter? Nope.

How the hell did publishing get to be so terrible? Is it money? Are people so hard up to make a buck that they clone what other writers come up with and pass it off as their own story?  Does it ever occur to people that if they are just blatantly going to steal a novel point-for-point, chapter-by-chapter and just change names and setting that...I dunno...maybe the world doesn't need another book like this?  I guess I'm old school.  Writing isn't just about writing for me. It's storytelling. And please don't tell me a story I've already heard. I don't want to read George R.R. Martin's story as told by John Doe with all the names changed and have to put up with all the praise you get lauded because the idiots out there who read books aren't well read enough to know that a story is a ripoff.

Lottery

The statistics experts say that your chances in winning a big lottery are astronomical. It would be easier to seek out a bolt of lightning to randomly strike you in the head. Yet, against all odds, gazillions of people play the lottery. So many in fact, that it is reliable income for states with lottery programs. Now, I'm going to draw a connection to this "lottery" premise here and I want you to stick it out with me as you follow this whacky train of thought.

I think there are a lot of similarities in people seeking to publish and people playing the lottery. The biggest similarity is that people seeking to publish want money and lots of it. The astronomical odds against us in following this endeavor don't matter. Who gives a shit about the math, right?

Yup...I said it. Show me the money.

In order to understand my thought which came as kind of an epiphany on the way to Subway, I need to provide you with some background. Namely how our capitalism in the U.S.A. encourages blatant stealing and mimicking of successful products that are the cash cows for the top 1%.

Samsung is accused of copying Apple with their tablet. The new Internet Explorer 9 looks like a carbon copy of Google Chrome. Bing's search engine copied Google's programming so closely that they were called on it by Google who deliberately inserted parts of code that would show up as red flags if someone copied their stuff. We have Facebook essentially copying what Myspace did and countless others. Now you have Google going to war with Facebook in the social networking scene. It goes on and on. Stories look like other stories. Young adult fiction is dystopian after dystopian with female protagonists written from first person point-of-view. And blah blah blah. Why does this happen? Simple answer: there are a finite number of good ideas period.  But there are a ton of people. So how do you work a limited number of cash-generating ideas to a ton of people? You steal/copy that's how. Then you put spin on it. Spin is key. Allow me to elaborate.

The people that are not part of the 1% in our country don't make enough money to be happy. They can't afford the things that they want so they look to try and sell something to increase the frustration of being stuck in a fixed middle-class (or low class) income. They look to create a side-business. Now, I do think that writers go into this whole enterprise with a realistic point-of-view. As Amanda Hocking said on her blog when she was destitute, "I think I'll publish some of my stories on Amazon. Who knows...I could maybe make an extra $300  a month and that's more than I have now." Writing can be done by anyone with essentially no education. So the world is awash with it and everyone wants to sell you their book.

Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with this and I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. I do think that writers don't tell the truth when they say, "Oh I'm just wanting to get published so I can be read". I think if you're saying that to yourself, you're telling a big lie and your nose is gonna grow just like it did for Pinnochio.

My opinion on this is just because I'm just noticing how the world is...how it behaves. To clarify, I wish it were different. I wish that people had enough money to buy the things that they need to feel satisfaction and happiness. Maybe if that 1% was spread out amongst everyone and EVERYONE had at least a million dollars, there'd be less struggling going on. Does that make me a socialist? I hope not because "Socialist" is a frickin' dirty word. Please don't call me that...I don't want to get stoned by representatives from Fox News.

So yeah, I think that people that are trying to publish are doing it for one reason. They HOPE that they can make some money.  The bigger the payoff ...the better! It isn't about having this overwhelming drive to pen words to paper and that they cannot sleep at night, etc. It's about wanting to be respected, have money, influence, and possibly a little power. The Rejectionist says it perfectly in her tagline on her blog "You'll be sorry when we're famous!" Yup! Money! Power! Prestige! It's a lottery.

People crave these things because they see others that enjoy them liberally. I actually think that if people had tons of money, they wouldn't write. Be honest, if you made $600,000 a year, I seriously doubt that you'd go home to your mansion, from your vacations, and your house full of supermodels and say, "hmmm...ya know...the world just really isn't complete until I pen this fiction about a high school vampire."  I know I'd probably never write again if I had enough money to buy my dreamhouse and live the way I desired. James Patterson doesn't. Sure he publishes but other people do the work. It's a money-making machine and he's livin' the fat life because he created his brand. He's not a writer, he's a businessman.

Most of the writers that I know and have heard of started out poor. J.K. Rowling, Allie Condie, Stephanie Meyer, and the list goes on and on. People who were maybe scraping by or downright destitute...but they didn't have the life they wanted. Nope...they didn't have the big boat and the money to take dream vacations, etc. So they took a look at what they had to offer the world with the idea that they'd like to sell it and make some darn money. It's the desire to shake off the cloak of mediocrity. Prove me wrong in a comment. Name one writer who STARTED their career filthy stinking rich and then decided to write anyway and published a debut fiction novel that wasn't a tribute to their own greatness (Here's looking at you George W. Bush).

Part of the business is obviously building this thing we call a platform, i.e., followers on blogger, twitter, facebook and other places that we collect for "free" and who can help us in getting the word out when the time is right for such things. Others do it better than some. I've noticed that the most successful bloggers tend to be the most original. They have authority behind their words and give advice about writing. But you know, there's only a finite number of things that you can say about something and therein lies the problem. You get people doing what Samsung did to Apple...repeating advice that has been mentioned over and over and that can easily be found on the web. Copycats because you gotta blog about something and you need to play the game to social network.  I just find the whole thing interesting. I follow some World of Warcraft blogs...it's a game that has 11 million subscribers. However, despite so many people, there are only a handful of blogs worth noting. Those have thousands of followers because everyone else knows this too. If you didn't get in early and carve a niche for yourself, then you're saying what the "experts" have already blogged about and hence, you have nothing to offer.

So yeah, I guess the key to the business is finding something to offer. Agents have it easy because they have poor writers out there seeking to make a buck that follow their blogs in droves hoping to learn the secret to the goose that lay the golden egg. Everyone writes the same kind of stuff because that's the formula that makes money. It's the stuff that publishers are buying.  It's a whole supply line of people waiting for a payday (not the candy bar).

Anyway, that's all I had to say. Have a great weekend and am happy that blogger is back. I hope if you read this that you get your payday. It's not right that 1% of America is so disgustingly rich. I hope you get a piece of that pie. Please don't be mad at me if I think you are trying to publish to strike it rich. It's just what I think but at the same time, I hope it happens. If it doesn't, you can always say, "I just wanted to be read." No one will think any less of you for it.