Scandal Shows Editors Don't Read!

If you've been following the story, I don't have to delve into the facts.

An up and coming novelist from Harvard has been accused of plagiarizing no fewer than two books by a "chick-lit" writer of some renown.

Specifically, she is accused of lifting more than 40 passages and some key story lines.

I recall seeing that she was paid a whopping $500,000 advance for her manuscript, which is a ton for such an ingénue.

Publishers, agents, and editors are all wringing their hands, expressing dismay and disappointment about how this rising star could do something so reprehensible.

Well, I have news for them, and maybe for you. Something even more disappointing and reprehensible is afoot. The simple fact is most of today's agents, editors, and publishers are not in the literature business at all.

They're marketers, not readers.

Why, you have to ask, didn't this new writer's agent catch her flagrant borrowings?

Moreover, didn't the editor that acquired the manuscript catch any striking similarities?

Were they asleep at the wheel?

No, my friends; let me inform you that most of these folks are functional illiterates, not members of the literati.

By the way, entire committees have to approve acquisitions these days, especially when they involve large advances, so this is not an oversight by one or two folks, but perhaps by a dozen or more.

Let's pin the tail on the real donkeys here, the smug poseurs who pretend to be people of letters, but who have insufficient background and judgment to do the jobs they're charged with performing.