Rita's Ripoff: Tassie author receives shock of her career
When Lian Tanner went online to see if her book was available for purchase in Australia, the last thing she could have expected to learn is that it was - under someone else's name.
The award-winning Tasmanian author has written no few books over the course of her career, and only released Rita’s Revenge in 2022. But according to one of Amazon’s sale listings for the latter, Lian had nothing to do with it, instead declaring Emilio M Parks to be the author responsible for the 2023 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards shortlisted story.
Tanner opened up to ABC Radio Hobart about her discovery, confessing that she was “absolutely shocked.”
"Both had exactly the same cover, exactly the same blurb,” she explained of the two purchase options, “but one of them listed me as the author and the other one had this fellow Emilio M Parks listed as the author.
"He had a whole list of books he had apparently written, including Rita's Revenge and Doctor Seuss books, and heaps of other stuff."
She went on to comment that the mysterious Emilio M Parks came with a few red flags, noting that “there was no information listed on Amazon about the 'author', and his version of Rita only had 25 pages, when the real book runs to 351 pages. The stolen version was also selling at half the usual price.”
Obviously he is hoping someone will come along and want to buy the book, not notice it's the wrong author listed, and then just click through and buy it. Their money's gone and it's too late.
“It's a complete rip-off.”
Apparently Emilio M Parks has ALSO written a book called Rita's Revenge. With exactly the same cover. And he's selling it on Amazon for half the price of mine. Weird coincidence, huh?
He's also selling The Lorax. @AllenAndUnwin #ripoff #theft pic.twitter.com/lzE5UhoE6q
— Lian Tanner (@tanner_lian) February 25, 2023
Allen and Unwin, the publishers behind legitimate copies of Rita’s Revenge, chimed in on the unfortunate theft, though digital publishing director Elizabeth Weiss’ take couldn’t have come as much comfort to Tanner or her fellow authors, simply stating that plagiarism like that “happens from time to time.”
Tanner herself acknowledged the unfortunate likelihood of such events when she said that she’d “heard about entire books being stolen and published under a different title.”
“That's much harder to pick up because you're not searching for your own title,” she added. "It happens a lot with translations. Someone will pick up a book that's published in English, translate it into a different language, and then put it up as their own work."
However, all hope was not lost, with Weiss explaining that “sites like Amazon are pretty responsive. There is a particular channel we go through and if we can demonstrate the infringement of a title we hold the rights to, they're reasonably prompt [in] dealing with it.
"We try to get on to it quickly but often it's the author who finds their own book online and raises the alarm.
"Clearly they look identical. It's the same cover file but look at the price … it's a loss of sales but also a moral right infringement.”
Weiss also shared advice with shoppers hoping to grab their next online bargain, telling them that “it’s always wise to be a bit careful”, and to double - even triple - check all the information on hand before adding to cart, even on large and “reputable sites like Amazon.”
Images: Facebook