reviews_and_ramblings | Well, I suppose it's not illegal but still...

WARNING: THIS IS NOT A PROMO POST THIS IS MORE A STAY AWAY ADVICE

While browsing on Amazon for new books, I found some "interesting" titles under the new arrival for Gay&Lesbian fiction...

2 Men 1 Sleepover by Jess Lanyon
24-7 by Eva Anderson
All He Wants for Christmas by Eva Anderson
At the Gym by Drew Gary
Bad Ass by Eva Anderson
Begging for More by LA Gregg
Best Friends by Jess Lanyon
Between the Bars by Mary Sexton
Black Boys by Chase Cochrane
Caught in the Locker Room by Drew Gary
Close to Touch by Pam Brown
The Coach by LB Merrow
Craving Danger by Eva Anderson
Crossing Chris by Mary Sexton
Curious by LB Merrow
The Dark Side by Mary Sexton
The Dickens of Love by Chase Cochrane
Do ME A Favor by Mary Sexton
Explored by Tara Michaels
The First Time by Drew Gary
First Time by Eva Anderson
Frat Boys by Pam Brown
Fun Loving Boys by Tara Michaels
The Gay Knight by Drew Gary
Gettin' Dunked in the Pool by LA Gregg
He's Gay by Eva Anderson
Her Smile by Jess Lanyon
His Craving for a Man by Tara Michaels
His Touch by Eva Anderson
Home for the Holidays by Chase Cochrane
Hot Tub Slip by LA Gregg
How Good it Felt by LA Gregg
Hurst So Good by LB Merrow
I Suck! by Chase Cochrane
In & Out by LB Merrow
In the Closet by Jess Lanyon
Its Huge by Eva Anderson
Jimmy John by Drew Gary
The Letter A by Tara Michaels
Life by Mary Sexton
Locker Room Luck by Tara Michaels
Long John by LB Merrow
Looking Back by Chase Cochrane
Love Lessons by Eva Anderson
The Magic Touch by Jess Lanyon
Man Handled by Tara Michaels
The Man Who Fucked Me by Drew Gary
Man's Best Friend by Eva Anderson
A Man-s Best Friend by LB Merrow
Me & Him by Jess Lanyon
Me & My Coach by Chase Cochrane
My Brother's Smile by Pam Brown
My First Cock by Chase Cochrane
My First Taste by Mary Sexton
My First Time by Tara Michaels
My Lady by Tara Michaels
My New Neighbor by Jess Lanyon
Naked Necking by LA Gregg
A New Game by Chase Cochrane
One Amazing Night by Drew Gary
Out & In by LA Gregg
Out of The Closet by Mary Sexton
Outta The Closet by Tara Michaels
Plugged by Jess Lanyon
Pull the Plug By Mary Sexton
Push Ups by Eva Anderson
Released Tension by Jess Lanyon
Say My Name by Jess Lanyon
Service Boy by Chase Cochrane
Silent Night by Tara Michaels
Sleep Over Gone Wrong by Chase Cochrane
The Sleepover by Drew Gary
Smiling Eyes by Jess Lanyon
so Good by Pam Brown
Stickin' It by Pam Brown
Stolen Heart by Drew Gary
Stranger Than Fiction by Jess Lanyon
Strength Training by Drew Gary
Summer Love by Tara Michaels
Super Sexy by Pam Brown
Touched by LA Gregg
Trapped by Tara Michaels
Two is Company by LA Gregg
Un-Plugged by LA Gregg
What a Lovely Taste by Mary Sexton
Wild Call by Pam Brown
Work it Out by LB Merrow
Work Out by Drew Gary
The Work Out by LB Merrow
WTF by Tara Michaels
You Don't Know Jack by LA Gregg

aside from the fact that some of these titles are really horrible, is it really necessary for this new author (I suppose s/he is only one...) to use these fake pen-name to draw "distracted" buyer? I suppose this worked in the '70 when 1 author and 1 publisher released 5/6 books per week, all with different titles and pen-names, but now? oh, well, in a way the authors involved can consider this a sign of their success:

Jess Lanyon --> Josh Lanyon
Eva Anderson --> Evangeline Anderson
Drew Gary --> Andrew Grey
LA Gregg --> LB Gregg
Mary Sexton --> Marie Sexton
Chase Cochrane --> Charlie Cochrane
Pam Brown --> P.A. Brown
Tara Michaels --> Tere Michaels

... but who is supposed to be LB Merrow?

ETA:

LB Merrow --> J.L. Merrow (thanks Charlie and Jamie)

ETA 2: as I told to a commenter, there is also another point to highlight, I recognize some of the pictures they used in the covers, one I'm sure is from Rick Day, that is a very famous male model photographer, and I strongly doubt they paied to use it, and I strongly doubt Rick Day allowed them to use it.

Well, I suppose it's not illegal but still...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That'll be JL Merrow.

Ah well, I suppose imitation's the sincerest form of flattery.

That is really, really low imo.

LB Merrow.. Well, the last name does bring in mind Jez Morrow.

It might not be illegal but it's not fair:/

I Googled a few of those titles and got no hits. I looked for them on Amazon, but neither the title or author name comes up with anything. Where are you seeing them?

if you do a simply search on Amazon with the title you will find them, they are kindle books. Here is one of "yours":

http://www.amazon.com/erotica-fiction-romance-bisexual-ebook/dp/B004P8JKZY/

they were all released on February 23

That link takes me to a book called Close to Touch. None of my books have that title. Even if she did have Man's Best Friend it doesn't make any difference. There are a dozen books out there called that.

And Pam Brown is probably as common a name as Pat Brown. Google my name and you find (among all the millions) a criminal profiler, a laboratory in Stanford and the ex-Governor of California.

There's no copyright on titles or author names. I actually found out after Alyson Books changed the title of my first mystery to L.A. Heat was also the name of a TV series and a romance novel.

Any way it doesn't look like pirating.

No, it's not pirating Pat, it's a bad way to promote books, they are using "famous" names changing only some letter in the first name. True Brown is a common surname, but Jess Lanyon? or Chase Cochrane? do you really think they are not trying to do something that, even if it's not illegal, it's at least a little bit not "fair"?

This is true. But like someone mentioned, she's charging nearly $10 dollars. Not many Kindle users will pay that for anything less than a best selling author.

But it is pretty sleazy.

INFO O.D.! INFO O.D.! OMG, thank you! That's either a lot of finger work or you know something about navigating Amazon that I don't. :)_

I missed the point of the thread at first, mea culpa. But I'll check it out anyway. :) Maybe there's some good stuff.

not sure you should, giving the price, there is a lot of better stuff I'm sure at less

I can see how it might not really be ethical now. But some of those names might actually be legit. I think if I was a writer I wouldn't do business with that company unless I was really and truly desperate, however. :|

Wow - just visited the "website" of the company supposedly publishing these stories - it's a Wordpress template with nothing altered other than their title. Very dodgy looking indeed - avoid like the plague, I'd advise...

I am very happy to see my friend JL Merrow has an imitator now, though - like Charlie says, it's flattery of a strange kind!

ETA: just checked the prices of these dodgy kindles - they're all $11.47 with no indication of story length - I hope no one is suckered into buying them, thinking they're by respected authors. Looks like they'll be sorely disappointed.

Edited 2011-02-25 21:41 (UTC)

That is my worry. I would never fall for such bad trick, but not all are computer savy...

As for story length I'd guess pretty short. I looked at the details for one (by "Chase Cochrane") and it showed 23kb as the file size and price £7.05. By contrast an actual Charlie Cochrane, Lessons in Trust as a random one, is 716kb and £3.14. Yeah, I think I see where I'm getting the best value for my money there - without even thinking about the quality of the writing!

Also, I think I found an entry for the next ugly covers contest on Jessewave's site. My eyes!!

LOL Is it wrong that I'm disappointed my name wasn't one of the ones hacked? ::sigh:: Very underhanded. Not cool, not cool at all. We all work very hard to get our names out there.

you can try to complain with the publisher :-)

That's one of those things that come over as ethically dubious and just a little pathetic. :-(

**splutter**

The beauty of that is that while it's highly unlikely any of our readers are going to fall for stuff so clearly marked WARNING HARD CORE PORN, the readers of hard core porn ARE prone to hurried and slippery finger misfires. Why, we may end up with a slew of readers who realize they actually kind of a like a plot!

well that would be the only "good" effect of this bad-planned attempt to gain easy money ;-)

Ah, yes, search-engine remoras: give your product a label something like a popular item and hope the second-level search results give a potential buyer your name. I think this strategy has been in use for quite awhile; look at the popular author names in other genres--mysteries, for instance -- then look on the shelves beside them.

And there's a lot of what I consider cheesy imitation going on in romance titles, too. Look through any list of books and see how many best-seller titles you can spot... or song titles, or movie titles. I have to admit that all of my titles have been relatively ordinary words or phrases, but that's not the same as if I'd called a book "Ransom of Red Chief."

I'm sure some promotional "genius" figured this out: If you want to catch the same audience as Brokeback Mountain, write something and call it "BAREback Mountain." Given the volume of stuff sold on Amazon, someone is probably making a good bit of money shoveling manure. But given the cover price, not as much as if they were undercutting.

I sort of wonder if these are being done by people who sneer at the genre, or just be a rip-off artist with a 'write your own porn' program? Not that it matters, really. Cheap imitation seems to be the order of the day, How many movies have been released in the last year that weren't based on comic books, video games, or were remakes of old films or TV series? How many books are just rip-offs of classics now in public domain? Moby Dick with space aliens, yawn...

I will not buy any of these books to test it, but my idea is that, if the names are not "original", there is little chance the stories are original. I'm smelling something strange even there. And unfortunately I think that, even if they sell a few of these titles, in any case it's a 100% of gain for them. BTW some of the pictures they use in the covers are from very well known photographers and I strongly doubt they paid for them.

Most Amazon listings let you see an excerpt... which I think would tell the tale.

If I knew the photographer, I might send them the url of the use being made of their pictures. That might ruffle some feathers!

Well, I suppose it's not illegal but still...

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