The Author Autumn 2006
When 19-year-old Kaayva Viswanathan’s How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life was found to owe more to rival novels than her young imagination, one agent remarked cynically: “I should start hanging round the school gates. I have a couple of great manuscripts that I can’t sell for love or money by older writers. If I can find a school kid who’ll pretend it’s their work in return for a fee, we’ll make a killing.”

If US press reports are accurate, that is not far from the approach book packager Alloy Entertainment took when they put together Viswanathan’s cross-cultural chick lit novel. Whether it is or not (they have not answered my emails, so I cannot say), it is not such a giant step of logic from editorial meetings in which publishers brainstorm ideas about who they want to write a book and what it should be about.

With such a Pop Idol approach to publishing, it can only be a matter of time before some publisher decides to tour the country to hold Lit Factor auditions – based not on the quality of the winner’s writing, but their marketing potential and ability to reach a new demographic. Here is a tip: the winner will be either very young or very old, beautiful, clever and easy to sell as an “authentic” representation of whatever they are writing about.

It is an open secret in the book trade that once-successful authors whose advances haven’t just peaked but plummeted are “reinventing” themselves as younger, prettier “authors” (sometimes changing gender) in order to get deals with publishers obsessed by sales track records and the sell-in to retailers. In some cases this is done with the collusion of agents and publishers, but not always.

And why not? If there is one thing highlighted by the recent spate of scandals about plagiarism and fiction passed off as truth, it is how marketing has surpassed content in the list of criteria by which certain books are acquired.

It also highlights the pernicious trend among publishers (and readers) to expect authors to represent the world about which they write. A city girl romance? Then it has to be by a city girl romantic. A thriller? Then it has to be by a thrusting young man with shady friends. An action packed war story? Then it has to be fronted by a genuine war hero. A glamorous celebrity novel? Get a celebrity to front it. No wonder ghostwriters are busy these days. The trade seems to believe that readers these days lack the imagination to understand that fiction is, er, fiction, not fancy memoir.

It is easy to see why Viswanathan looked such a great prospect. A beautiful 19-year old Asian woman and Harvard undergraduate, in marketing and PR terms there is not a box she does not tick. The book, a coming-of-age novel about a young Asian woman, has “authentic” stamped all over it. Viswanathan could be marketed as an “authentic brand”, as the jargon goes, reaching across cultures and ages and identified with by readers. As for PR, well, bring it on.

Trouble is, in the excitement surrounding Viswanathan’s signing of a six-figure contract, no one seems to have asked, given her age, how likely is it that she could write an original novel. Not very as it emerged – she is alleged to have plagiarised everyone from Sophie Kinsella to Salman Rushdie.

Marketing is not the sole cause of a slew of plagiarised and passed off books that include James Frey’s fictional memoir A Million Little Pieces and Judith Kelly’s Rock Me Gently, a grit lit memoir that was alleged to have plagiarised everyone from Hilary Mantel to Graham Greene. Time is the problem – as well as complacency.

An alleged plagiarism of one of Sue Limb’s novels illustrates the point. “A reader sent me an e-mail saying she’d noticed very striking resemblances between a novel she was reading and my (earlier) work, Up The Garden Path,” she explains. Initially Limb did not react. “I was too busy and not really interested at the time, so I took no action at first. Then, weeks later I had a very similar letter from another reader who had noticed the resemblance.”

After reading the offending book, Limb found similarities not just in the plot, but in characters, settings, dialogue and a host of other areas. The tip off came not from her publisher but readers. That is usually the case: eager readers were behind the allegations against Viswanathan; in Australia an article which plagiarised one of Bill Bryson’s books was spotted by a reader; and readers tipped off Hilary Mantel about Judith Kelly’s alleged appropriation of her words.

One reason publishers and agents fail to spot problems is that they have so little time to spend reading rival publications. Alan Samson, publisher at Weidenfeld & Nicolson claims that 3,000 manuscripts a year cross his desk. Agents complain they are drowning under the slush pile.

When not reading through a mountain of manuscripts, publishers are more often stuck in meetings – one complained to me that for two days he had been stuck in a cover meeting attended by over 20 members of staff, the majority of which, presumably, were thinking what he was: “I could be getting on with my work.”

“I think it is worse for editors now than before,” says publisher-turned-agent Patrick Janson-Smith. “They are always in meetings. One of the reasons I left publishing was because of the interminable meetings.” Even as an agent, he complains there is little time to read what is already published. “As an agent I find it hard to find time to read other books, but I do because it is important to know what books work, otherwise you have no sense of the market.”

Editors tell me they should spot plagiarism by changes in pace and style in an author’s writing. But this only applies if an editor is intimate with their author’s work, an intimacy bred over several books. This trust in one’s judgement may work with established authors, but how can it apply to début authors? As début authors, with no sales track record to sully their reputation, come to dominate the market, problems with authenticity will proliferate.

The editorial churn in houses does not help. It is not unknown for authors to find themselves dealing with three editors over the life cycle of a book. How likely is it that a new editor will be familiar enough with their work to spot something suspicious? Especially, as any experienced author will tell you, when editors leave, the passion that led to a book’s acquisition usually leaves with them.

Even if the new editor is committed to their book, authors tell me it is never quite the same. If the editor is less than enamoured by the project, it is more likely to affect their concentration and their ability to spot problems. “The only books I’ve had real problems with are ones where I thought, ‘They are okay, but not great,’” confides one famous editor. “It was to do with my lack of passion, commitment and focus,” he admits.

In many ways the current problems with plagiarism and passing off highlight a clash in the high minds and low aims of those drawn into publishing in the 21st Century. Publishing may have embraced modern practices in management and marketing, but it is still an industry based on the very old fashioned notion of trust. It is why editors tell me that more than a libel writ, they fear an accusation of plagiarism, because, if proved true, it means the person they lunched with and nurtured over the life of their book has lied to them. As betrayals go, it cuts deep.

“It really would be a betrayal of trust,” says agent Felicity Rubinstein with a shudder. Her clients have never faced accusations of plagiarism or claims they have lied, but she admits she would be torn about how to respond if it happened. “It looks so sleazy if an agent runs at the first sign of trouble, but it would be very hard to go on being an advocate for someone if there has been a breach in that trust.”

Of course, clauses in publishers’ contracts protect their investment if an author strays. Authors tempted to break the rules should be warned: it can prove very expensive if found out. I know of one author, whose “memoir” proved a lie and his book withdrawn from publication after the agent hired a private investigator to check his story before its newspaper serialisation. The publisher has not only demanded the return of the advance, which tipped £100,000, but also legal costs in excess of £20,000.

The book’s ghostwriter had raised concerns about authenticity some time ago, but there was strong circumstantial evidence in its favour and, besides, it was such a sensational story, the publisher was reluctant to take these doubts seriously. With two years work on the project wasted, the ghostwriter feels bitter and has decided to give up ghosting.

Lying is not against the law, plagiarism is. But it is a grey area. One man’s plagiarism is another woman’s homage. Let’s face it, if Shakespeare were alive he would be rich from plagiarism claims. Or would he? It seems the law is not clear, as Sue Limb discovered,

Despite a 14-page document listing alleged plagiarisms, her lawyers advised she did not have enough to sue her rival. “The legal eagle at my agency advised the borrowing was more a case of ‘cherry picking’ and fell short of the ’substantial part’ necessary to bring the matter to court with sanguine expectations of a judgement,” she says. “A friend who specialises in intellectual property rights agreed.”

Limb had to bite her lip and feel aggrieved. Other authors have more luck. Andrew Lownie wrote to the publishers of a book on Edinburgh that plagiarised several pages of a book of his and received the author’s advance and an apology. However, the money merely covered the cost of the legal advice he took before complaining.

As with Lownie’s book, most cases of plagiarism are settled out of the glare of publicity. The handful of cases faced by publishers every year result, if there is a clear case of plagiarism, in the books being allowed to die quietly, with reprints and paperback publication cancelled. It is only when claims involve books as famous as Harry Potter (J K Rowling was wrongly accused over her use of the word “muggle”) or the Da Vinci Code (with the recent Holy Blood and Holy Grail trial) or if an author is thwarted and decides to “go to the papers” that accusations reach the public domain.

Also, most cases owe as much to ignorance as wilful deception. Viswanathan and Judith Kelly both blamed unconscious absorption of other people’s work for any alleged problems. I have had writers misappropriate my work, passing off as their own quotes and passages from my articles without attribution. When tackled they have looked confused and I genuinely believe they did not know that in failing to source the quotes they were plagiarising my work and leaving themselves open to a claim.

But ignorance of the law is no defence. Nor does it make me any happier or sympathetic: writers live by what we write, steal our words and you steal our income. Ignorance smacks to me of a lack of professionalism. Would they be so cavalier about libel? I doubt it. Authors need to be up to date about the laws that affect their work. The internet may have made it easier to plagiarise, consciously or unconsciously, but it has also made it easier to spot. If they get caught, it could prove expensive – to their reputation as much as their pockets. And if you doubt that, ask Kaayva Viswanathan how she rates her chances of getting published in the future.