The Insidious World of Book Packaging
My husband brought me the tea from booktok and I was surprised that there wasn't more information. Some authors might not speak up because nobody wants to mess up their chances. I get it, if you're still clinging to traditional publishing, who want to mess up their chances? If you want to be traditionally published, do you want to work with people who allegedly steal your work?
Imagine running a marathon and every time you get close to a win, someone moves the goal posts. Imagine having a story that is so unique and personal being ripped off. That book got tons of publicity and is making millions of dollars. That's what allegedly happened to an author, Lynne Freeman. She worked with an agent who took her idea and paid someone else to write the concept.
Why is nobody talking about this? Here’s the court document if you want to read it! Below is the original tiktok that my husband showed me.
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Back in 2010, this poor author spent 3 years and had 45 revisions of her novel! 45!? Can you imagine that? She sent all of her world building notes, plots for books, synopsis to this agent. Her work went out on submission, but was never picked up. Despite rave reviews from another company and paranormal romance was hot at the time. The president at Entangled publishing received the query back in 2013. Years later, she claimed that the concept was her idea. She hired Tracy Wolff to write it as a book packaging sort of deal because of her voice. Crave came out in 2020-2021.
This is not just a copyright case. You can't copyright an idea or a trope, but that's not what happened. This is being presented as a fraud case. The author claims that her agent allegedly defrauded her. The agent took her story concept, her notes, and other materials for Tracy Wolff to write. The CEO of Entangled Publishing Liz Pelletier came up with the idea on her own and she also helped Wolff write it. Reading further, the agent told the author to write something else, but the author didn't want to do that. In 2014, the agent threatened to drop her from her client list if she didn't want to write in the genres she suggested. The agent told her the young adult market for paranormal romance was saturated. She that she would have to resubmit her story in 2021 in 7 years.
On a side note, 7 years is when the "reboot" cycle starts over again. I learned this in my animation writing class. Basically, the kids who liked paranormal romance when they were 14 have likely aged out of the genre. The kids who were 7 years old at the time of Twilight are now 14, so the market is due for new material. This is why you constantly see reboots every 5-7 years. The market seems to be shifting to a shorter timeline. But I digress.
The author focused on perfecting her craft during all that time and never gave up on her story. Crave came out in 2021, right before the recommended time the author would resubmit.
The original court filing shows the two stories and concepts placed side by side. The evidence is damning. It's entirely possible that Tracy Wolff had no idea this idea was stolen from someone else. How would she if nobody said anything? It's easy enough for a book packager to put something together and claim that as their own. Nobody would be the wiser.
When you submit to book packagers, they claim on they may be working on something that is similar to your own work. We all know that again, you can't copyright an idea. Sometimes phrases and cliches make it into our creative subconscious, we remix it and think of it as ours. That's what happens when you're constantly consuming and creating.
But that's not what happened here. What happened here is insidious and has wide reaching implications. There are at least 40+ pages of a side by side comparison. If I didn't hate Crave so much, I would have continued reading it. But I don't want to read the book again. Especially since it's not technically her book.
The case is for Breach of Contract, Fraud, Contributory and Vicarious Copyright Infringement. I'm not a lawyer by any stretch of the imagination. Basically, Wolff and the others mentioned in the suit had no idea about the fraud, they'd still be liable.
I'd be curious to know what comes of this. This has massive implications for book packagers and traditional publishing. If traditional publishing wants to survive, they need to stop doing shady sh*t like this.