Hey there. Welcome to Nothing but the Words. I’m your author coach, Candice L Davis.

I hope you’re doing well and writing well this week. 

As I record this episode, this country is still dealing with major turmoil, major shifts, and major unanswered questions.

And yet, we keep writing.

At least some of us do. I recently saw an article from an author who insisted it’s impossible to write in the midst of a pandemic and protests and election ugliness.

And maybe for her it is impossible.

Everyone has their process. But I’ve found that, when you learn how to manage your thoughts, create a conducive environment, and set the right goals, you can keep writing through almost anything. I say all of that to say, don’t give up on your book while you’re dealing with all these very real distractions. There will be an end to this, as there are to all things, and I think most of us who keep writing will be glad we did. Those of us who don’t may have some regrets.

Okay. Enough of that. In today’s episode, I want to talk to you about stolen work in your book.

I’ve lost count of the books I’ve edited and the authors I’ve coached over the years. Suffice it to say, there have been many of most.

What I’ve found is that there are some first-time authors out there who are plagiarizing other people’s work and don’t even know it.

That’s a dangerous trap to fall into, but it’s one you can easily avoid.

So why do people do it? Let me preface this by saying, I’m not talking about people who cite incorrectly. I’m talking about authors who don’t give any credit at all to the originator of the content.

Here’s what I’ve found.

First of all, I give all of my clients the benefit of the doubt and assume any plagiarism is unintentional. And believe it or not, it often does happen unintentionally and more often than you might think.

For some authors, years if not decades have passed since they last had to cite their sources for anything. Remember when you had to do footnotes or endnotes in high school or college? Well, believe it or not, a lot of students never learned how to do that. And if they did, they forgot as soon as they

Because you can use facts that are considered common knowledge without citing a source, some authors start to lump everything into this category. But just because it’s common knowledge in your circles or your industry doesn’t mean it’s actually common knowledge, when in doubt, get a second opinion or cite your source.

The 3rd common way I see authors unintentionally using stolen work is raving about another book or proprietary system that they’ve successfully used. They think they’re doing the other author a favor by speaking glowingly about their system. But in fact, they’re rehashing another author’s work for their own book.

I’m not a lawyer, and certainly not an intellectual property attorney, but there are some best practices you can follow to make sure you avoid stealing other people’s work.

Here’s how you can avoid stealing other people’s work for your book: 

#1 When you quote anything—words from a book, a speech, a movie, a website, or a TV show, give proper credit and cite the source. If you’re not sure how to do that, then let us give thanks for the internet. Just look it up. 

Let me add one thing here. The book you’re writing is your own, your own ideas, research, experiences and stories.

One of my clients quoted a whole paragraph from a movie. I recognized immediately that it wasn’t his voice, and when I asked him about it, he said that movie had really inspired him. This was his first time writing a book, and he really had no idea that he needed to give credit to the movie for that quote.

Even after I pointed that out to him, I coached him to reconsider whether or not he needed to use the movie’s ideas in his book. He has his own ideas, and his readers want to hear from him, not from a random movie. In the end, he decided to cut all but one line.

#2 Don’t quote poems or song lyrics. I know that sounds extreme, to say just don’t do it. But songs and poems are typically short enough that taking one line from them could be considered using a significant part of the work. Why run the risk?

If a poem or song is still under copyright and you really want to use it, request permission, but don’t be surprised if you don’t get it. In my experience, books don’t suffer when authors just leave out those lyrics or lines from a poem. It’s just that the author has fallen in love with the idea that these lines are important to their book. Trust me. They’re not.

#3 Don’t copy and paste.

A few years ago, I was working with a client who I had already coached through several books. This time she was writing an authority piece that had grown to almost 400 pages. About halfway through her manuscript, I noticed something off. Periodically, I was running into writing that didn’t sound like her.

At that time, I was testing out Grammarly, which I have since let go, but it had a plagiarism-check function. When I ran it, whole pages of her book came up as plagiarized from various websites. I was shocked and, after I freaked out for a minute, I shot her an email.

Her response to me was basically: Oh yeah, I put that stuff in there as placeholders. I must have missed it when I was rewriting.

Uhm, don’t do that. If you need a placeholder, use your own words. Copying and pasting someone else’s content is asking for trouble. If I hadn’t found those sections in her book, she might have published it with that content in it, which could have led to readers questioning her integrity and had a really nasty impact on her business. All because she copied and pasted.

#4 Don’t rearrange.

My husband is a screenwriter and filmmaker and he recently told me the story of a young screenwriter who wanted to get into feature films. The producer took another screenwriter’s work, changed a few character names and settings, rearranged the order of events, and slapped her own name on it. Then, she set about trying to get the movie made. 

She got all the way up to talking about a deal with a major production company, when one of the company execs told, her, “We’ve already seen this exact script from someone else.” It was not her best moment.

#5 Write about your own ideas. The Success Principles, by Jack Canfield, This Year You Write Your Novel, by Walter Mosely. On Writing, by Stephen King. How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. And just for good measure, any and everything ever written by Toni Morrison. 

All of these books had a positive impact on me. But when I sit down to write a book, I can’t share most of their content and then say I’m just sharing it because it helped me. If I want to share their books, I can write a book review and send people the link or buy copies for my family and friends, but I can’t just share all of their ideas and say, hey, look. Aren’t they great.

#6 Write about your own ideas. Yes, they may have started as something you learned from someone else. We’re all building on the wisdom of people who walked the path before us. But if you’re writing a book about a subject, share your ideas and experiences. Yes, you can reference those inspirations when it adds value to your book, but you can’t just give away their systems in your book even when you credit them. 

Quoting is fine. But writing your book ABOUT THEIR BOOK isn’t.

If you follow these dos and don’ts, you’re likely to avoid unintentionally plagiarizing. When in doubt, check with an expert. If you’re still in doubt, don’t use the content.

That’s it for today, my friends.

If you enjoyed this episode, then I’d really appreciate a positive review from you on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you’re looking for a structured program to help you write your nonfiction book, in less time AND write it better, check out my group coaching program Short Books: Big Results at CandiceLDavis.com/shortbooks. My clients are killing it in there. Most of them will be successfully published authors by the end of 2020 and you can have the same experience. Find the program at CandiceLDavis.com/shortbooks.

Thanks for listening to nothing but the words. I’m your author coach, Candice L Davis. And I’ll see you next time.