Something was sent to me this morning. A link to a tweet, that I then followed to read the entire thread. I am horrified.
MM authors are changing pronouns and releasing their books as FF.
FF authors are changing pronouns and releasing their books as MM.
MM and MF and FF authors are changing pronouns and releasing their books as MPreg.
Horrified yep… but… we’ve known that authors have been doing this for so long now. We’ve all seen the reviews that talk about *a few HERs were left where there should have been HIMs… etc
The defense is that it’s *their work* they can *do what they want with it*. Ethically this stinks. Am I the only one that thinks this?
Just a heads up to them – “… The rule from Amazon is “Content [allowed] that is not significantly differentiated from another book available in the Kindle Store” – changing the names and pronouns (and a few anatomical words) doesn’t change the story “significantly.” It’s duplicate material. …”
As Heather C. Leigh put it on twitter – “…This is gross and highly offensive. Creating realistic LGBT relationships in fiction is NOT as simple as substituting a body part and a name. Gay and lesbian people are NOT substitutes for anything! Grrrr. #getloud #lgbt …”
As an aside, remember the Mina Markell profile for sale where a *new author* with a *gay son* had *issues* but was better after reading a book by another *gay romance author* who is kind of suspicious himself? Shamelessly using a made up son to garner fans… yeah, not good.
So piecing together a lot of what others have found… I think the following is a foolproof plan to get your book selling…
This is how it works as far as most of us legitimate authors understand.
1. Get a ghost writer to write you a book for $ – often a lot less than the book is worth. You can get a 50,000 word book for less than $250, sometimes WAY LESS if you bulk buy a series (particularly one that has already been released a few years ago).
2. Buy in a FB profile that someone has seeded for a person just like you.
3. Buy the matching website.
4. Buy in generic covers in bulk.
5. Buy a few more ghost written stories. They don’t even have to be written by the same ghost writer. Just change the names. They’ll be fine.
6. You have too many books, so create a *brother* or a *sister* who also writes MM, because you are both gay men/women who like to write books. Or be *fake friends* with another new MM author[s]. This way you can have ten author names, no one will ever know.
7. Spend out a fuck ton of money on… reviews, ads, newsletter people, sending giftcards for Zon, etc… to get verified reviews and high in Amazon – it doesn’t matter if you spend out $1000 – you will make it back by unethically gaming the system. Also, use the whole 99c KU thing to get people downloading.
8. Tell everyone you speak to at conventions that you don’t even feel comfortable around *insert any group here, gay, bi, lesbian* but you LOVE the money you make off of *niche group* fans while it lasts. … oh yep, you wouldn’t believe the shit that you can get away with because people are scared to tell others what you say.
9. Gaslighting is your friend. Also, bullying behind closed doors, or accusing other authors of bullying. Brush up on your lying as well, because you’ll need to be up on your complicated backstories, and whether your brother is really your brother, or a cousin, or a friend, or a gay man/woman who was *insert cliche here*.
10. Watch your book, in KU, go top 10 and sell way more than you spent out. Oh, and don’t forget to release the next one three weeks later. Don’t forget to tell everyone you write 15,000 a day, otherwise it will look as if you are lying.
11. Change the pronouns from he to she or vice versa, and dump your crap into the FF or MM Market as appropriate.
This isn’t writing, this is selling. Unethical, nasty, bullying, festering, lying.
And I am sick to the back teeth with this shit now, because I have seen too many of my author friends who sweat blood and tears in their writing, pushed out of the market
Peace. RJ X
Twitter links –
https://twitter.com/DarienMoya/status/1011721743340359681
https://twitter.com/ease_dropper/status/1011680630298554368
Tell me, how do you feel about this? Keep it civil 
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