If it seems too good to be true , it usually is!

Publisher’s Weekly reported today that Kaavya Viswanathan’s How Opal blah blah… will not be republished and her second book deal is dead as well. In a statement issued by her publisher LB, Viswanathan admitted that she’d read McCafferty’s books and acknowledged the similarities:

“While the central stories of my book and hers are completely different, I wasn’t aware of how much I may have internalized Ms. McCafferty’s words. I am a huge fan of her work and can honestly say that any phrasing similarities between her works and mine were completely unintentional and unconscious. My publisher and I plan to revise my novel for future printings to eliminate any inappropriate similarities.

I sincerely apologize to Megan McCafferty and to any who feel they have been misled by these unintentional errors on my part.”

Unintentional my ass!

My first thought when this story broke wasn’t how outrageous the $500,000 advance was, but how it all just fell into her lap. Who is this twit and how can this possibly be? She wasn’t an aspiring writer, didn’t consider this her ‘real job’ and yet was able to produce a voice deserving of a two-book publishing contract and the biggest advance known to man.

Then when I found out that she used a book packager to help write the story AND plagiarized another author, I nearly had a stroke. How did this happen? How can an unknown, untalented, off the street, wake up one day and say I think I’ll write a book, manage to do what we all dream of? She didn’t. It was a sham and now it’s over.

Let this be a lesson, or a reminder if you will; there are no shortcuts in this life and anything worth having is worth working for; if it seems too good to be true it usually is; and as I’ve said before, be mindful of what you put out there…Karma can be a bitch!