Janet Dailey: Part Two
Show Notes
Last episode, we covered the rise of Janet Dailey, one of romance’s biggest stars in the 1970s and 80s. A secretary turned millionaire, Dailey was one of the genre’s biggest success stories, but her husband’s work as her manager, and his interest in making her the #1 author in the world, fueled “Svengali” rumors. If you haven’t already, go back and listen to Janet Dailey: Part One for the full story, as this is information you’ll need for what’s to come in this episode. This week we’re picking up where we left off: we’ll be talking about Janet Dailey’s plagiarism scandal in 1997, an event that rocked the romance world and tarnished Dailey’s reputation.
Source Timeline
1982 - Love’s Leading Ladies – Kathryn Falk
1983 - Ted Koppel interviews Janet Dailey, Vivian Stephens, and Patricia Frazer Lamb
1985 - Female difficulties : sorority sisters, rodeo queens, frigid women, smut stars, and other modern girls – E. Jean Carroll
Jul. 13, 1986 - “Janet Dailey expands romance to a grand theme” — Connie Lauerman, Chicago Tribune
1987 - Where the Heart Roams directed by George Cscicery
1989 - Author Janet Daily [sic] Feature Story
1990 - How to write a romance and get it published : with intimate advice from the world's most popular romantic writers – Kathryn Falk
1996 - The Merchants of Venus: Inside Harlequin and the Empire of Romance – Paul Grescoe
1996 - The Janet Dailey Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to Her Life and Her Novels - Dailey, Janet; Greenberg, Martin Harry; Massie, Sonja
July 30, 1997 - “Stolen Kisses!” - David Streitfeld, Washington Post
July 30, 1997 - Laurie’s News & Views Issue #30, All About Romance
July 30, 1997 / updated Oct. 1, 2005 - “Romance novelist Janet Dailey admits plagiarizing rival's work “ - AP Staff, Associated Press
Aug. 2, 1997 - “Romance writer’s husband shares wife’s story of strife” – AP Staff, Associated Press
Aug. 7, 1997 - “Scandal is backdrop for Romance Writers’ convention” – Ellen O’Brien, Knight-Ridder
Aug. 10, 1997 - “The Queen Of Hearts Gives Up Her Throne” - Mark Peyser, Newsweek
Sept. 8, 1997 - “Roberts Will Sue Dailey After All” - Publishers Weekly
Sept. 14, 1997 - “Meaningless apologies, disowned selves Distancing ourselves from our mistakes: “Don’t blame me, blame my conduct”” - Kathy Kellermann, Santa Barbara News Press
Oct. 1997 - “Statements from Nora Roberts and Janet Dailey” - Carol Stacy, Romantic Times (via Romantic Times Index)
Oct. 1997 - “An Open Letter from Bertrice Small Regarding the Media’s Handling of the Coverage” - Bertrice Small, Romantic Times (via Romantic Times Index)
Nov. 1997 - Letters from the readers, Romantic Times (via Romantic Times Index)
Dec. 1997 - “The Summer of Discontent: The Rise and Fall of a Romance Icon” - Annie Sullivan, Romantic Times (Page One, Page Two, Page Three) (via Romantic Times Index)
Feb. 23, 1998 - “Nora Roberts: A Celebration of Emotions” - Judy Quinn, Publishers Weekly
Jul 29, 1998 - “Daileys sell Branson mansion” – Kathryn Buckstaff, The Springfield News-Leader
Nov. 7, 1999 - “Romance writer likes ‘beauty of middle love’” – Lydia Martin, Knight Ridder
Sep. 18, 1999 - “Dailey’s return to romance” – CBS News Staff, CBS News
Dec. 30, 1999 - “Love Finds a Way” - Donald Liebenson, Chicago Tribune
Apr. 23, 2001 - “Kensington’s Big Buy: Janet Dailey” – John F Baker, Publishers Weekly
May 1, 2001 - “A 2001 Update in the Janet Dailey/Nora Roberts Plagiarism Case”— All About Romance
2003 - A Natural History of the Romance Novel - Pamela Regis
Aug. 9, 2005 - “Going out with a show” – Kathryn Buckstaff, Springfield News-Leader
Dec. 17, 2013 - “Janet Dailey, 69, Dies; Romance Author Who Sold in Hundreds of Millions” - Paul Vitello, The New York Times
Dec. 23, 2013 - “Janet Dailey dies at 69; romance novelist overcame plagiarism scandal” – David Colker, The Los Angeles Times
Oct 29, 2015 - “Plagiarism: The Pattern and the Response” - SB Sarah, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
2019 - “Plagiarism in Romantic Fiction” - Caroline Kincaid, Unsuitable
Feb. 22, 2019 - “Plagiarism, Then and Now” - Nora Roberts, Fall into the Story
Feb. 23, 2019 - “Not a Rant, But a Promise” – Nora Roberts, Fall into the Story
Apr. 30, 2021 - “Janet Dailey and the Curious Case of the Missing Author” – Lindsay Hobbs, Topaz Literary
Jun. 20, 2022 - “Nora Roberts: a Trailblazer Episode”- Fated Mates S04.29
Transcript
Chels
Welcome to Reformed Rakes, a historical romance podcast that is always the center of drama. My name is Chels. I'm the writer of the romance newsletter The Loose Cravat, and a book talker under the username Chels_ebooks.
Beth
I'm Beth. I'm a grad student, and I'm on Book Talk under the name Beth HaymondReads.
Emma
I'm Emma, a law Librarian writing about justice and romance, the Substack Restorative Romance.
Chels
Last week, we covered the rise of Janet Dailey, one of romance's biggest stars in the 1970s, 1970s, and '80s. A secretary turned a millionaire. Dailey was one the genre's biggest success stories. But her husband's work as her manager and his interest in making her the number one author in the world fueled Svengali rumors. Bill Dailey, an entrepreneur with a working class upbringing, which included a stint as a carnival barker, was a polarizing figure, both in the romance world and in his home of Branson, Missouri, where he and Janet were local celebrities. His salty language and rude humor made him stand out in family-friendly Branson, but he was also an undeniable influence on burgeoning city's now famous country music scene, thanks to his work in buying theaters and artist talent management. The '80s were an interesting time for the dailies. Bill and Janet had some big successes, like Janet's multimillion dollar writing contracts and the opening of the Country Music World Theater, and troubled times, including civil lawsuits and Bill getting charged with felonious assault. If you haven't already, go back and listen to part one for the full story, as this is information you'll need for what's to come in this episode.
Chels
This week, we're picking up where we left off, and we'll be talking about Janet Dailey's plagiarism scandal in 1997, an event that rocked the romance world and tarnished Dailey's reputation. Okay, so- Round two. Round two. We're back. Yeah, we're back. Oh, man. So after last week's doozy of an episode, what was the most surprising thing that you learned?
Beth
I think I'm still annoyed about how people were coming for Bill in his fifth grade education, that they were like, Oh, he's only gotten to a fifth grade. And he was like, just would give that information neutrally. And people were like, I don't know. I'm still annoyed with that. Everyone should go back and listen to part one to hear what I'm talking about.
Emma
The thing I kept thinking about was the way that people talked about this marriage, the condescending way that they would speak about Janet and Bill being married, this assumption that there's something sinister going on. Which that combined with the fact that Bill shot someone and was charged with assault. I think we see this a lot when people are patronizing about marriages. It's like either mind your business or talk about it, actually help her. If Janet is in danger and you're afraid for Janet, it's like, offer her help. She doesn't seem to... I don't think she was in danger, but it's like if Bill is actually this character who is so dark and scary, this patronizing little winking comments in interviews with them helps no one and just makes them more ingrained with each other. If you actually believe that something bad is going on here, and it's like, they want to have their cake and eat it, too, with like, I want to not be involved and be removed. It's like their marriage. I'm not going to get involved, but I am going to make patronizing comments about his education, about his violet temper, about the gender dynamics in their marriage.
Emma
I thought about that for the past week.
Chels
Yeah. That was when I first started researching Janet Dailey, that was the very clear and most surprising thing to me. I was like, Oh, wow, this is really a story about Bill Dailey. It's almost as much as Janet. And It's interesting, and it's hard to find what to do with that. And this is going to be something that comes up a lot in this episode because the way that people feel about Janet and Janet's relationship with Bill is going to inform the way that they react to this plagiarism scandal. So, yeah, we're going to pick up where we left off and talk a little bit more about Janet's writing process. The journalist E Jean Carroll, who used to be most well known for her advice column in Elle, but now you would probably know her for her Trump lawsuit. She wrote about the 1983 Romantic Times Book Lovers Convention in her book, and her book is a mouthful. It's called Female Difficulties, Sorority Sisters, Rodeo Queens, Frigid Women, Smut Stars, and Other Modern Girls. In the '80s, she was like a gonzo journalist. She couldn't really write this book without inserting herself into the narrative and setting people up for absurd statements.
Chels
That's where she's getting a lot of her humor from. And then this is a quote of what she remembers about Janet Dailey. Emma, if you want to read this.
Emma
Somebody asked Janet Dailey, the 38-year-old woman who has written 78 books since 1976 and sold 96 million copies of them, what her biggest fault as a writer is. Janet thinks a moment. Laziness, she replies.
Chels
So that seems crazy, right? But I think knowing Dailey in her process, I'm personally not interpreting this as her thinking, Oh, I'm lazy and I haven't accomplished anything, but more like, I have an inclination to doddle that I have to actively fight against.
Beth
I'm like 100 % not surprised at all she said that, because again, she's always crediting Bill with the one who's pushing her, getting her career going, giving her structure. So, yeah, this rings very true to me.
Emma
Lazy does not like lack of industry, even as much as like, lack of get up and go. Yes, right. It's like Bill is the starter and maybe Janet's the finisher. And also it does feel... It's like, I wonder what Carroll is doing with this quote. I know she's juxtaposing the scale of the accomplishments with laziness, but what does Carroll want us to conclude from this? That Dailey can't see her accomplishments, that this is considered lazy still? What does Carroll want us to derive from this without any additional conclusions being drawn? It's like, okay, just the juxtaposition is going to do the work for you. Yeah.
Beth
What's the point?
Chels
Yeah. Well, I have read this entire book Oh, yes. Yeah. And basically, Carroll... I like her advice column in Elle, and I think it's very funny, but I really don't like this book because what she will do is she'll interview people, and you can tell she's stopping her interview you at a specific point. I think there's a really cruel part where she's talking to a doctor about infertility, and she sets him up for a really absurd statement, and then she just moves on to the next chapter. So you're just supposed to laugh. And I'm like, Oh, that probably felt really bad for him just looking at that. So I think that's what she's doing for Dailey, too. Like, Oh, Dailey, she thinks she's lazy, but look at what you've done. That's my only way of interpreting that.
Emma
We saw Carroll in the documentary we all together. Where the Heart Roams. Where the Heart Roams. And Carroll, frequently, her talking heads are often making quips and jokes at the expense of the women that are in the community.
Chels
And so according to the Chicago Tribune, in 1986, Dailey is published in 90 countries and selling 43,000 copies of her book every single day. My mind can't my mind can wrap around that.
Beth
That's a lot. I feel like I just saw someone talk got their backlist and just selling 50 copies, and they were happy that had gotten to that level.
Emma
Well, there's just the article that came out that was like, Most books sell under a thousand copies. Even books that you've heard of, books that win awards. Huge books, yeah. Huge books are selling under a thousand copies. It's total.
Chels
Yeah. And I know the romance market was a lot smaller at that time, so you could become a lot more successful. Now it seems like it's a much bigger fight. I mean, to get to Dailey levels, that's That's like an act of God, right? That's a little bit- Yeah. It's a little bit more- Will we ever see Dailey levels again?
Beth
I don't know.
Emma
It's like, if you think about who would be comparable? Even like, ACOTAR and Colleen Hoover don't sell numbers like this.
Chels
No. Yeah, they definitely don't. But yeah, she was just selling a lot. Her writing process is super laborious. So she regularly worked from 4:00 in the morning to 5:00 in the afternoon. So basically, she had a rule where she had to write 25 pages a day, and then she would stop even if it was a mid-sentence. She didn't outline her books, and she used a typewriter instead of a computer well into the '90s. Janet said that it took her about six months to write No Quarter Asked, but she was soon able to write a category romance in as little as eight days. The longer books, the mass market paperbacks, took her about six weeks. And so here's a clip I have, actually. I have never sat down in the typewriter in the mood to write.
Janet Dailey
If I waited for inspiration to move me, I'd have two books written. Never accept an excuse why you're not writing, and don't believe in writer's flak.
Chels
So yeah, in the last episode, we talked about how Bill told Janet to write the book or shut up because she had been talking about writing for a long time, and she says that he got tired of it, and that motivated her to write her first book because she felt like she had to prove something. I actually want to talk about this other anecdote from Janet's agent Richard Curtis in the Janet Dailey companion, because he's talking about how people are reacting to Bill, personally, personally, and it's just one of the most telling things. So, Beth, you're going to be Richard Curtis, and Emma, you can be Sonja Maths.
Beth
She certainly does work hard. I'll tell you another story which I think is funny, and I think Bill and Janet would, too. When Bill and Janet visited New York for me to take them around to meet various publishers, I brought both of them to Random House. We sat down in the office of Robert Bernstein, who was really one of the great figures in publishing. He left Random House after a while, but at that moment, he was really one of the towering figures of the industry. We were in this magnificent library room. He was in tweed. It was every author's fantasy of what it would be like to meet your publisher. We were sitting around the table and Bill started talking about how he and Janet worked together. He said, As a matter of fact, I even tell Janet the day on which she is going to start her book. Everybody in the room leaned forward, including me, because I'd never heard of that. And Robert Bernstein, in his elegant politeness, said, Would you mind explaining that? So Bill said, If it weren't for me, Janet would never start one of her books. She would sit on her butt.
Beth
She'll do anything to get out of starting a book. She never feels she's ready because she thinks there's always more research to do, more traveling, more on-site research, and so forth. I can never get her to start her book on her own. So I turned to Janet and I say, God damn it, woman, on July 20th, you're starting this novel. Well, everybody was just absolutely shocked.
Emma
I'll bet.
Beth
No one had ever heard of this, and you've got to picture this room. It was like Versailles. And Bill is saying something like, God damn it, woman, this is the day you're going to start your book. So we all looked at Janet, figuring she would say, Ah, Bill, shut up. But she said, Nope, he's absolutely right. If Bill didn't tell me when to start my book, I'd never start one.
Emma
She told me the same thing. I told her I couldn't imagine what I would say if my husband were to say something like that to me. I'm sure it would be pretty earthy. But I guess it's part of their relationship.
Beth
Yes. And I feel that although Janet does the writing and is the creator, Bill plays so many roles for her that facilitate the creative process that when I talk about Janet, I often find myself referring to her as them.
Chels
What do you think of this?
Beth
This is pretty in line with all other interactions where it's like Bill and Janet think they're coming off a certain way. And I think maybe they're just so in their own private world and jokes. And they think people are seeing them the way that they see their relationship, but people are not seeing their relationship the way that they see their relationship, if that makes sense.
Chels
Something about the description of the room. It was like Versailles. Versailles. And Robert Bernstein, who is your dream publisher. Everybody wants to meet him. And then them just being like, well, Janet writes when I tell her to. Coming off like... People didn't know what to do with that.
Beth
They think they're coming off as a team, and I think they are a team. But yeah, I think just the way they're phrasing it does not seem team-like, maybe, to some people.
Emma
I think this is also maybe something that has collapsed in maybe the last 20 years being on the internet. But the code switching that sometimes has to happen when you're from the Midwest or the South and you go to New York or you go to New England and you're just supposed to know who these people are and you're just supposed to know how you're supposed to talk to them. I think that still exists now, but I think because we're all on the same Internet, maybe it's a little bit narrower. But it's like, Bill doesn't give a shit who this guy is. Why would he care who certain people are in publishing? It's like, you don't talk to people that way. You don't talk to this guy that way. And it's like, yeah, that's a real thing where it's like you come into a place where everyone knows the code. Everybody knows the social dynamic. Everybody knows who has the money. Everybody knows who their parents were. If you come in and you're disrupting that, those people will unite together against their own interests in order to make sure that you're on the outside still. I wonder, with Bill and Janet, if they were from the Northeast, if they were from a big city, if all these factors of their relationship, if Bill had gone to college, if they could have had the exact same dynamic for themselves, but people would have talked about it so differently.
Emma
This could so easily be characterized as a husband who's invested in his wife's career. He He's like, I will not let Janet fail. I will do everything in my power to make sure that she writes these books that she wants to write. But everything is tinged with this like, oh, he's controlling. He's doing this. Bill is uncouth. Bill is off-putting. Why do you think that? Do you think that because he has a heavy accent, because he curses.
Chels
Because he was a carnival barker.
Emma
Right. All these things. Also, maybe the guy from New England who's doing that is controlling. We don't know their dynamics anymore, but the consistent characterization of this relationship from the outside looking in, makes you wonder what the dynamics are that are making people so judgmental of this couple who only also is very consistent in how they characterize their relationship. Yeah.
Chels
So Richard Curtis had been Janet's agent since the 1980s, the early '80s. So most agents are former editors, but Richard used to be a writer. And the way that that was more seen as a big deal for him was that he was like, Oh, I know what it's like. Advocate for you on this special level. So Bill contacted him because he read something Richard wrote about publishing houses, cheating authors out of their royalties. And then Bill was like, Hey, if you can put your money where your mouth is, we want to work for you. So Richard has this very funny story about being persona non grata at pocketbooks because he criticized them. And so they implied that he wasn't welcome to submit to them anymore. They were like, If you give us any authors, we're going to throw in the trash. But then when the dailies hire Richard Curtis in the early '80s, She's Dailey is one of the biggest names in publishing, and she's also at pocketbooks. So suddenly, they have to swallow their pride and invite Richard back to the table. Like, literally, they have to invite him to lunch. So Dailey is, of course, a huge star in the '80s.
Chels
This is a quote from a St. Louis dispatch article called The Right Stuff. So bankable is she that in 1988, publisher's Little Brown & Company signed her to a contract of at least 10 million to write five books. Two, Masquerade and Aspen Gold are already in print. Surprising no one, both were solid bestsellers.
Beth
Ten million in the '80s? Yeah. That's so much money.
Chels
That's insane. That is a lot of money. And at the time, Little Brown was a hardcover house, and Curtis moved her there because he felt like they were classy, and they were looking for a more commercial author, and Janet fit the bill. Or as one anonymous publishing insider told the New York Dailey News, quote, She was looking to upgrade her image, and they were looking to downgrade theirs. Right. It was rude.
Beth
Right.
Chels
So then in the early '90s, Bill executive produces another movie of one of Janet's books. If you'll remember about a decade earlier, he did Foxfire Light. This one is very different. It's called When A Spider Bites, and it's based on Ride the Thunder, one of her mass market Western. He wrote for pocketbooks in the early '80s. So Janet Dailey wrote the screenplay and turned it into more of a thriller. Based on the information I find about it on the Internet. I think it's safe to say it wasn't a hit. In 1992, Bill gives her this big mansion called Belle Reeve that's on Branson's Lake, Taneycomo. It's later featured in an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Did you all ever watch that?
Emma
I know enough of the intro. I don't know if I ever saw an episode, but I know the cultural moment.
Beth
I'm going to claim being Canadian for not knowing this.
Chels
I think it was a little bit before our time because I think my- Yeah, even for you guys in the '90s. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was a little bit before I was watching different things. But I do know the Good Charlotte song, which I guess is from- What's the guy?
Emma
What is his name? Robin something? It's a British man, and it's like Cribs. But Cribs, I think, is based on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Cribs is cool people, and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous is like...
Chels
Janet Dailey.
Emma
Just fancy. People who have lots of money. It's like, Here's their gold toilets, or whatever.
Beth
Yeah.
Chels
And it's very new money, right? Like, it's very... Yeah.
Emma
The house is going to be ostentatious. It's going to have a theme. And there's going to... What is his name? He's a very tan man. I know. Like, taking you around the house.
Chels
Yeah. But yeah, so they took them around Belle Reeve. So a bit of a shift. In 1994, the Associated Press reported that, quote, Dailies' frenetic writing pace has slowed down to about one book a year now. She didn't publish a book in 1993 because of personal tragedies. Two of her stepbrothers died of cancer, and her husband underwent successful cancer surgery. Janet Dailey, of course, had stepbrothers with her mom and then Glenn Rutherford, so two of them died in the early '90s. And then Bill Dailey underwent lung cancer treatment. He was a very... What I'm looking for. He was a prolific smoker. He smoked a lot.
Beth
Was he a chain smoker, maybe?
Chels
Yeah, that's maybe the word I was going to- A chain smoker.
Beth
Well, we don't know his exact smoking habits. I feel like chain means you're never stopping smoking.
Chels
Yeah. He liked to smoke enough where it gets mentioned. Yeah. But, yeah, just thinking about this shift of the slow down of these years due to personal tragedies. I know that, of course, moaning people is really tough. I just think, too, all we've heard about Janet and her writing style and And how she needs Bill to do it, and then suddenly having those caretaking roles being swapped where Bill has cancer. It's got to really throw a wrench into things.
Beth
Well, they are partners. I know. We've been following other people's characterization of them, but I feel comfortable being like, These are business partners. They're life partners, and they're partners and their partner's in business. So it's like, all the duties that she wasn't used to doing before are now on her plate. But also, I don't know if I would be in a head space to write or even do work if my significant other was going through cancer.
Emma
So just a lot. It's both the task of the business partner and also the emotional aspect of what's going to happen if something happens to Bill. Both business, and she is married to him.
Chels
Yeah, and she loves him. Yeah.
Beth
It's not just the business part, right?
Chels
Yeah. And the business part doesn't encompass so much stuff, not just sit down and write, but he does the extra work with agents, publishers, research, promotion. He takes care of literally everything in that small circle so that she can just focus on writing. So it's just a tough time all around for. She does get back into it, and then also Bill's cancer treatment is successful. So in the mid '90s, Richard Curtis, her agent, brings Dailey to Harper Collins for a three-book contract for $4 million. Paul Grescoe in Merchants of Venus says that she wasn't asked to write a single word of outline. Her name alone was enough of a guarantee for them. The Janet Dailey companion says that she's making around like 1 million a year this time. So it's millions somehow. I'm not really sure how that adds up together, but she's still making quite a bit of money even after that slow down. The last quarter of the Janet Dailey companion is filled with a catalog of her books in order. They're publishing years starting at Harlequin, so not the book. The synopsis main characters. The last entry is for a book published in 1996 called Notorious, which is a scandalous title for a scandalous book.
Chels
Notorious is a Western. It's about a ranch owner named Eden who has a reputation in her small community for evading the murder charge of her former husband. When I was reading Notorious, I think it seemed almost like a reverse Calder series. The Calders are this tyrannical family who are the heroes of the book. So So Notorious is like, what if the Calders were the villains? So that's what this type of Western is. So even- I'm just going to imagine it's set in the same universe as the Calder series, but it's the nice families in the Calder universe.
Beth
It sounds interesting. I don't know. But I'm up for American stories.
Chels
Yeah. Eden falls in love with the soft-spoken man. They team up. They both catch feelings. But Eiden has skittishness from her prior marriage. Right. It's not until 1997 that a reader notices similarities between Notorious and a book by Nora Roberts called Sweet Revenge, that was initially published in 1988. And so we asked... And I know we talked about Nora Roberts last episode a little bit, too. And I also asked you what you knew about Dailies. What did you know about Nora Roberts before I started reading?
Beth
I did know a lot more about Nora Roberts. I feel like she entered my orbit earlier because I think I read a couple of her books as a teen. And then felt very bad about reading those books as a teen. A religious teen felt that I should read.
Chels
Because you were reading Dirty Romance?
Beth
Yeah, I was reading Dirty Romance books. And she is interesting. I think she's had a long career.
Chels
Yeah, she'll have If you go to a Barnes & Noble or a Half Price books, she'll have entire shelves.
Beth
Yes, yes.
Chels
To her. Which the entire shelves thing, Roberts and Dailey do have a similar career trajectory. As I mentioned in the last episode, Roberts pitched a Harlequin in the late '70s but was rejected because they already had their American author, meaning they already had Janet Dailey. Instead, Roberts gets picked up by their then competitor Silhouette, and they published her first book, Irish Thoroughbred, in 1981. So like Dailey, Roberts wrote a lot of American heroes and heroines and cut her teeth in category romance before moving on to mass market and hardback publishing houses. And also like Dailies, Roberts was and continues to be incredibly prolific. She published 66 books in the '80s alone, and she's currently published over 220 novels. Dailies wrote romances, romantic thrillers, historicals, and women's fiction all under her own name. Roberts also spans genres and has several pen names, I think the most famous of which is JD Robb, which she uses for the In Death series, which are futuristic police procedurals with Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her husband, Rourke. This started in 1995, and they're still going.
Emma
I don't think I knew that. I knew JD Robb, I I think that- That name is familiar? I was like, I also know more about that. I feel like I'm more aware of that name than Nora Roberts. So I had heard of Nora Roberts. JD Robb, I think. I've seen more of those books on shelves, I think.
Chels
Yeah, JD Robb is really popular.
Beth
Yeah, it's like 50 books, I think, at least in that one series alone.
Chels
Before the plagiarism scandal, Dailies and Roberts were friends and contemporaries. They were both extremely high-profile authors whose success was aspirational. The top three best-selling romance authors of all time to this day are Barbara Cartland, Nora Roberts, and Janet Dailey. According to Nora Roberts on her blog, a reader posted about the similarities between Notorious and Sweet Revenge on a message board in 1997. At first, Nora was like, No, this has to be a mistake. But when they posted similar passages, she was very shocked. Sweet Revenge, which I would describe as a romantic thriller with a princess trying to get revenge on her horrible father, it was initially published in 1988 and was reissued in 1997. And that reissuing would really increase the probability of someone noticing the similarities. Because the reissue was published so soon after Notorious, a reader had read both books back to back. So Roberts goes to a bookstore and buys Notorious to check for herself, and she describes feeling very betrayed and angry that someone she knew personally would plagiarize her work. She calls her agent Amy Berkauer, who then calls Dailey's agent Richard Curtis at Harper Collins, and Dailey initially denies it.
Chels
According to Roberts, that story changed quite rapidly. Roberts says they tried to say it was something involving a mistake with an assistant or that it was unconscious copying. She said that she was asked to keep quiet and identify the portions of the book that were plagiarized. So she's going through and manually redacting portions of Notorious. Meanwhile, Richard Curtis is calling Robert's agent and saying that they want to put Notorious back on the market after the revisions are Nora Roberts is like, Absolutely not. And they both hire lawyers. So yeah, this sounds very stressful. Just someone that you thought was a friend of yours and someone that you've known for well over a decade and done a lot of interventions with is not only taking some of your work, but also putting you through the Ringer when you're trying to figure out what exactly has happened. And it also sounds, based on what Roberts says, that they weren't being very compassionate with her about... If they're calling her and being very excited about putting Notorious back on shelves, they're really not reading the room.
Emma
Right. And making her go through and pick out the pieces, which parts do you think I copied, it's not really her burden to do, right? It's not her to... Don't make her read the thing that is obviously causing her distress. And which parts do you think will get me in trouble? That's not Nora's job.
Chels
Right.
Beth
It's also interesting to me. Like you mentioned, it's like these three people are the highest best sellers in romance of all time. So it's like, Nora and Janet are just in this category by themselves. So it would, I don't know, feel like extra betrayal to me a little bit that my one contemporary who really were on the same level did that?
Chels
Yeah. Because it's like, I don't know, if it can happen with someone who you've known for so long and who also has a similar It's a career trajectory. I think other people will categorize it as a rivalry later. We'll talk about that a little bit more. But I don't see any evidence of that. There was plenty of room for both of them. So I don't They didn't have these bad feelings about each other, or at least not on the record until this happened. So it's got to be pretty jarring. Dailey ends up calling Nora Roberts to apologize and promised her that it only happened the one time and that it occurred due to emotional stress. But according to Roberts, it didn't take long for her to find out that that wasn't true. She says that she picked up another different Dailies book and finds more of her work. So that's like... I can see where you're being like, I don't know what to believe if you're telling me one thing, and I can immediately find evidence that this is not correct. There are some side-by-sides that Roberts provided of sweet revenge and notorious. I found some of these quotes from the Romantic Times, and I just expanded it to the full passage because it's like a...
Chels
This one is actually a passage. But there's more than this, according to Roberts. She provided multiple examples, but she said that everything in a press scope, the copying was too wide. This is like a scene where the heroine has a bad dream, and then she gets comforted by the hero who brings her a glass of water. So, Emma, you're going to read from Roberts' book, Sweet Revenge. And then Beth is going to read from Notorious, which is Janet Dailey's.
Emma
Addy, he shook her, gently at first, then harder when she fought him. Addy, wake up. She flinched violently, as if he'd slapped her, bundling herself against the cushions with her eyes wide and terrified. He continued to murmur to her, though some instinct kept him from gathering her close. Gradually, the glaze looked fated and he saw the grief. A bad dream, he said quietly as he took her hand. Hers trembled, but for a moment, just a moment, she gripped his fingers hard and held on. I'll get you some water.
Beth
Eden, wake up. He gave her shoulder a gentle shake, then shook it harder when she fought him. Wake up. Her eyes sprang open, round with terror, looking at him without really seeing him as she crinched back from him. He continued to talk softly, relaxing his hold on her and letting his voice soothed her fears. Some instinct kept him from gathering her close as he wanted to do. Slow, gradually, the glazed look left her eyes. You had a bad dream, he murmured and took her hand. It trembled in his. For an instant, and only an instant, she gripped his fingers hard and held on, then pulled away. I'll bring you some water.
Emma
There was a bottle still unopened on the counter. He watched her as he pried off the top and poured. Soundlessly, she drew in her knees close to her chest and dropped her forehead on them. Naja ground in her stomach while she took long, deep breaths and struggled for equilibrium. Thank you. She took the glass, steadying it with both hands. Humiliation grew sharper as grief dulled. She said nothing, only prayed he would leave and let her gather up the tatters of her pride. But when he sat beside her, she had to fight back the urge to turn into him, to rest her head on his shoulder and be comforted.
Beth
He left and eat and soundlessly drew her knees up to her chest and rested her forehead on them. The bed covers bundled around her. She took long, deep breaths, trying to quell the sickening churn of her stomach and the lingering tremors. Water ran in the bathroom. Then it stopped and she heard the soft pad of bare feet approaching the bed. Here you go. Thank you. She took the glass from his outstretched hand and wrapped both hands it to hold it steady. Eidon couldn't look at him. Not now, not yet. She just wanted him to go, to leave her alone, to give her time to pull herself together. But when he sat down on the bed, part of her wanted to turn to him to be gathered close and comforted.
Emma
You talk to me. It was just a dream, as you said. You're hurting. He touched her cheek. This time she didn't jerk away, only closed her eyes. You talk. I'll listen. I don't need anyone. I'm not going away until you talk to me. She stared down the water in her glass. It warm and tasteless and no comfort against the raw feeling in her stomach. My mother died on Christmas. Now, please, leave me alone.
Beth
Talk to me, Eden. It was only a dream, just as you said. She kept her gaze fixed on the water glass. It was more than that. His fingers brushed her cheek, pushing back a strand of hair. She closed her eyes at the contact. You need to talk about it. I'll listen. I don't need anyone, she insisted stiffly. I'm not leaving until you tell me about it. She took a sip of water, tasteless and cool. It did nothing to ease the rawness of her throat. I dreamed about the night Jeff died. Now, I've told you, you can leave.
Chels
So, Harper Collins ends up pulling Notorious entirely instead of republishing an edited version. Dailey and Roberts have an agreement to not go public until this is resolved. But for some reason that I don't really understand, Dailey's team take a different approach, and then they go to the press. So the Romantic Times printed Dailies' public statement, along with a statement by Nora Roberts. So let's start with Roberts' statement and just read it in full. I don't know if you wanted to read Roberts' statement.
Emma
After recently being alerted by a reader to striking similarities between several passages of my book, Sweet Revenge, originally published by Bantam in paperback in 1989, and Janet Dailey's Notorious, originally published by Harper Collins in Hardcover in 1996 and in paperback in 1997, the two books were carefully compared. That comparison revealed that Ms. Dailies extensively copied certain ideas, passages, and scenes from Sweet Revenge into Notorious. When confronted, Ms. Dailey's, through her representatives, acknowledged this copyright infringement, and Harper Collins has agreed to not accept further order for or ship additional copies of Notorious in any form that contained the infringing material. Following my discovery of the plagiarism and notorious. I learned that a manuscript of Ms. Dailey's, recently submitted for publication but not yet released, includes passages from another of my earlier works. I have now begun to examine other books published by Ms. Dailey. To my considerable distress, I've determined that Ms. Dailey also copied passages from several books I wrote and published through Silhouette Books between 1983 and 1986 into her book Aspen Gold, published by Little Brown in 1991. At this time, we're undertaking to compare other of Ms. Dailey's books with my published works in an effort to ascertain the scope of Ms. Dailey's copying. As yet, I have neither agreed to a settlement with Ms. Dailey nor commenced legal action because my paramount concern has not been financial compensation, but rather identifying all instances of copying and bringing an end to this disturbing pattern of plagiarism in a way that best serves interest and integrity of the writing community. I'm continuing to evaluate my options as to know how this goal might be achieved.
Chels
So Roberts addresses is Notorious, as well as a 1991 book called Aspen Gold. An Associated Press article also says that Roberts suspected Dailey's book, Tangled Vines, from 1991 to have plagiarized from her as well. And then Newsweek says that Dailies' book with Harlequin, that was slated for release after the scandal, 1997's Scrooge War Spurs, also had plagiarized passages. So these are of the four books that have been named in the papers, although I'm not sure if Tangled Vines was ever confirmed like the other three books were. Roberts also told Associated Press at the time that Dailies pulled from 13 of her books, and a lot of those were put into Aspen Gold, specifically. So the range of years of publicly confirmed plagiarism, like when Dailies' books with plagiarized passages were coming out, were 1991 through 1997. This statement in the Romantic Times is not the statement from Roberts that has lived on in cultural memory. And there's another one that's repeated on blogs a lot, and it would be from this 1998 Publishers Weekly article called Nora Roberts: A Celebration of Emotions. It says, quote, The shock that Dailey, a prolific romance writer and a longtime acquaintance of Roberts could pirate her work has even caused Roberts to stop writing for a while.
Chels
She says, quote, It's like mind rape. To think how far along it's been going, it's like being stopped. Okay, so we've read Nora's statements, so let's move on to Janet's. Beth, if you want to take this one.
Beth
Bestselling romance author Janet Dailey is offering a public apology to friend and colleague, Nora Roberts, for copying ideas and passages from several of Roberts's books. In particular, Dailey has I do not acknowledge that two of her books, Aspen Gold and Notorious, contain certain passages that were taken from earlier books of Roberts. Aspen Gold and Notorious were both written in the early '90s, during a time when Dailies was under great professional and personal stress, including losing her two brothers to cancer and nurturing her husband through treatment for lung cancer as well. However, Dailey takes full responsibility for those actions and any similar actions despite the environment in which they occurred. I do not excuse what I did, she states. It was wrong then, and it's still wrong today. I can only apologize to Nora, whom I've considered a friend, and to my readers for any pain or embarrassment my conduct has caused. I also wish to apologize to the publishers of Aspen Gold and Notorious, Little, Brown & Company and Harper Collins, respectively, who were not aware of my actions. After these actions of copying were brought to light, Dailey voluntarily agreed to pursue professional treatment to understand and deal with her conduct.
Beth
As a result, she is seeking treatment for a psychological disorder not previously diagnosed. I recently learned that my essentially random and non-pervasive acts of copying are attributed to the psychological problem that I've never even suspected I had. I have already been on treatment for the disorder and have been assured that with this behavior can be prevented in the future, Dailey says. During the past month, Dailey has personally acknowledged and apologized to Roberts for her copying from her work, and she has agreed to Roberts' proposed terms to settle the matter, including making a payment to the Literary Volunteers of America. Dailey remained willing to enter into such a settlement with Roberts. Dailey has also said that Roberts has dealt with her throughout this very difficult time with a decency professionalism that I deeply appreciate.
Chels
I hear people talk a lot about the Janet Dailey apology as being a particularly bad apology. There's one paragraph in here that I think really stuck in people's minds more than others, and that's the one that includes non-pervasive and random acts of copying.
Beth
I was going to say that's the one I've heard. Even before you were sending us stuff in the chat.
Chels
It's like word salad, right? What does that mean? Nora Roberts responded to this point in particular in the Washington Post by saying, I don't know what that means in this case, it seems pretty pervasive to me.
Beth
Yeah, it's hard to know. I feel like if the PR team is putting this together, it's like you're acknowledging something happened without owning up to it, essentially.
Emma
Yeah, I feel like the sentiment almost... I mean, again, you're right, it's word salad, and I don't want to project what it could mean. And that's something you wish was in the apology. It's acknowledging the specificity of which the copying is happening, which not even minimize what she did because it's like she's taking these passages, which actually is more important for copyright infringement litigation is the actual copying of passages. But that's what you wish was there as an acknowledgement of the actual acts that was happening. Because I think also when you read this, you're like, Okay, I don't know what. What did she copy? Did she copy the entire plot? Is it an accusation against Barbara Cartland from Heyer where she's saying she copied names and characters and all these things? Or is it the actual the execution in the writing? And when you look at the passage, it's clear it's the actual writing. But you don't know that from the statement.
Chels
It's word salad. I can see why people take issue with that. I think I would be quite annoyed. And also, I think Nora's response is pretty funny, to be fair. So talking about apologies, though, I think we talked about this not in the context of Janet Dailey and Nora Roberts, but just in the context of... Because we're in 2024 now, and the apology is a big thing, where the influencer apology, the- Right.
Beth
But that wasn't a thing yet. That's what you're saying. It wasn't.
Chels
Yeah. So we've had so many rounds and rounds of discourse about what constitutes a good apology. Can there even be a good apology? I think that people are bringing a lot of feelings, those same feelings, I think, because this is a 1996/7, we still have...
Beth
I feel like they- We're bringing our 2024 feelings to a '90s situation, which is just... Pr has always been there, and there's always been empty apologies, but I don't think it's... So you're saying it's not evoking the same feel of someone's pulling out a ukulele or write a passage on YouTube where it's like, I'm sorry.
Emma
Like a screenshot of your frowny face. Mistakes I've made.
Beth
Yeah, it's not the same feel.
Chels
Mask off. Right. Yeah. So there's this article. Speaking of this apology, specifically, there's this article in the Santa Barbara Press in 1997 by an associate professor named Cathy Kellermann. It's called Meaningless Apologies, Disowned Selves: Distancing Ourselves from Our Mistakes. Don't Blame Me, Blame My Conduct. It's a long title. And Kellermann is raking through Janet Dailey's Apology, which she pejoratively called the '90s version of an Apology, because the '90s piece is the worst that it's going to get at that point. But to prove that Dailey did it wrong. So the significance of this piece, because I think, why would I be talking about this particular thing from an associate professor? But the significance of it is that I've seen it be cited by romance folks decades after it was written. So it's on a blog post on Smart Bitches Trashy Books. And it's also cited in Duke's Unsuitable blog. They have a piece on the Janet Dailies and Nora Roberts scandal, so it's cited there as a reaction. I did I did find it unbearable. It's very stilted in a way that it's very hard to quote from at length. It has a ton of scare quotes, and it felt like it was written by AI, which I know it wasn't, but The TLDR is basically Kellerman is pointing out that Dailey keeps saying in the apology, My conduct, and doesn't take full responsibility for her actions by distancing herself from them.
Chels
So here's a quote. A genuine apology A genuine apology requires a person to admit wrongdoing. A genuine apology requires a person to accept blame for wrongdoing without excuse or justification. A genuine apology shows personal remorse to the injured party for the injury done to that party by the person. A genuine apology asks forgiveness and grace for the self. Janet Dailey begged forgiveness, but she never accepted responsibility and never sought grace.
Emma
So I have read this thing because you sent it to us. This made me feel crazy when I read it. This is the thing with apologies. We already said this. Nora Roberts does not have to accept Janet Dailey's apology, but also I don't know how you look at her apology and say she doesn't admit to wrongdoing. She says, It was wrong then, and it's still wrong today. I can only apologize to Nora. And she apologizes to all the... She names the people she's wronged, which is something we want from an apology. She says, I do not excuse what I did. It's like, yeah, so I know sometimes people focus on the context of her actions, and they're like, Oh, because of the context she's giving us, that's an excuse. And it's like, okay, without the context, people would be like, why is she doing this? So yeah, it just reading the Kellermann thing, I was like, it's going through with a fine-tooth comb in such bad faith.
Chels
Because the public memory of what she said is very fragmented. People remember pervasive act of copying, which is admittedly quite stupid. And so if you're going to say it's a stupid apology for that, by all means, say it's a stupid apology for that. But if you're going talk about Dailey making excuses, I think what we're going to hear in the next part of this episode is that literally everybody wants to know why Janet Dailey did this, as Emma said. This is the the only time you're going to hear it for a while, her words, her explanation. So it seems a little disingenuous to me to be like...
Emma
You want to hear excuses. That's the only thing people talk about. Why did she do it?
Chels
Yeah. It's like people want to know. She's one of the most famous authors in the world, and it seems like it's this big, crazy thing to do, right? She didn't get caught plagiarizing from some unknown author. She got plagiarized majorizing from someone who it seems more likely that people would eventually notice. So we've talked a lot about the apologies, the initial statement. And so if you remember, this apology is the first time a lot of people people are hearing about this, is from Dailey Statement, because Nora Roberts didn't think that they were going to go public, and it was just like a surprise. The timing of Janet's statement was very wild. It's basically right before the 1997 Romance Writers of America conference in Orlando, Florida. So Nora Roberts was set to get a Lifetime Achievement Award, and Dailey was going to present the Janet Dailey Award, which she created in the early '90s. It's an award for a romance writer who writes about a social cause or issue. Dailey, of course, did not end up attending the '97 RWA Convention, and her award was moved from the main event where, apparently, the soap opera actress, Morgan Fairchild, was presenting.
Chels
They moved it from that to a more subdued luncheon the next day, just as damage control. So the RWA Convention was suddenly under a level of national media scrutiny that they had not experienced before on this level. This included Knight Ritter, who covered the event and blasted it to all their papers, primarily taking the Janet versus Nora angle. Knight Ritter quotes a few authors who are baffled by Dailey plagiarizing from Roberts because of how well known Roberts is. And then they quote Olivia Hall, who was the RWA's President at the time. So Hall is quoted as saying, The sympathy of this organization is with Nora Roberts because writing is hard, and to take somebody else's work is the worst thing you can do as a writer. So the RWA is very much, at least according to this, a lot of people are definitely team Nora. It sucks to be plagiarized. This is the wrong thing to do. Roberts was on Fated Mates a few years ago, and she recounted a divide between people siding with her and people siding with Dailey. She said that at the convention, a writer told her that she should be flattered that Dailey would plagiarize from her.
Chels
That's really rude.
Emma
Yeah. It's a rude thing to say.
Beth
Yeah. They were like, trying to play it off light. Like, you should be flattered this bad thing happened to you, but it does not land great.
Chels
The way that she it in the Fated Mates interview was that some people were quite upset with her because they thought that she should be leaving Dailey alone. So it wasn't framed quite as a few misapplied jokes, but that people were actually coming up to her with these negative feelings. So Robert, she didn't know that this was going to be public, so she's blindsided by this. And then also the organization is on her side. All the people who in this magazine article are quoted are on her side. But it's that thing about 1997, where there's a lot of things that are just not recorded, a lot of reactions that we don't really have access to. And then also another thing that I was thinking about is that news traveled so much differently in 1997 than it does now.
Beth
You have a press release go out. No one's live tweeting the event of the RWA Convention.
Chels
Right.
Emma
Yeah, I just mentioned going to the convention and being like, Oh, my two favorite authors. You have no idea what's happening and falling apart. I feel like that could still happen now, but probably much more likely in this scenario, that people are just excited to be at this thing and don't realize what What's coming down the pipeline. What they're walking into.
Chels
Right, exactly. So much of the Janet Dailey, Nora Roberts scandal is actually, I think, about aggrieved romance reader feelings. So in 2024, all the mainstream coverage of romance is some flavor of BookTok is saving Publishing through Emily Henry and/or Colleen Hoover. But in the '90s, things were decidedly different. So the Associated Press started their coverage with, quote, There is a reason romance novels all seem to read alike. The Washington Post had an article called Stolen Kisses: Romance Writer Lifts Another's Bodice of Work. I'm sorry, I think that's funny. That's a good one.
Emma
That's a good title.
Chels
And it starts with, Heaving bosoms and throbbing are all very well. But if you really want to make a romance writer breathe heavily, try pinching her prose.
Beth
I mean, kudos to the English major who wrote that.
Chels
You know they were having a good time. Yes. Yeah. I feel like I'm going to hell because I think that's funny. I find that funny. So Newsweek's article is called The Queen of Heart's Gives Up Her Throne, and it also has this quote, Plagiarism? How can you tell when all this stuff sounds the same anyway? Okay. Even knowing that the Washington Washington Post one was very funny, but reading these all together. And this is what people will talk to you about the romance readers and writers who were around back then. They'll remember, they'll be like, The media really was awful. And so these are the reactions that they're getting is like, We're writing about a plagiarism scandal, but we're also communicating to you that this doesn't matter because we don't like these books or we don't think they're worthwhile. We think this is And I think a lot of the story of Janet Dailey and Nora Roberts is going to be the story of how the media reacted to it, and basically, and that has lived on in memory. Because as you know, romance readers are very, very sensitive to media coverage.
Emma
Yeah. I mean, I think that just speaks to it's like, the more things change, the more things are the same, where it's like any inter-community squabble in romance is always going to be flattened when it's talked by outsiders looking in. I think we see this with BookTok and smut. There's conversations the way that we talk about it amongst romance readers on BookTok, and then there are ways that we have to steel ourselves to prepare for conversations with people who are outside looking in because we know that they're going to be coming with preconceived notions about what romance is. And it's like, yeah, there's always going to be this disconnect that's misogynistic and patronizing.
Chels
Something that's mentioned in a few articles, including the Washington Post piece, is the addition of a quote from Dailey's publicist, Sanford Broca, who says that in addition to the myriad of stressors that Dailey was experiencing in the early '90s, her dog died, too. This is the one thing that I wish I could just go back in time and be like, just don't say anything about the dog. Because this is really what stuck in people's memories. I hear people all the time being like, Oh, she said she did it because her dog died. And I'm like, Shit, that was added later. And also, that's not where you're forgetting her husband.
Beth
Who is this publicist? Is a terrible publicist? Who thought that would be a good idea? Isn't anything with your dog as a related excuse suspect? Like, your dog hit your homework. This feels bad.
Chels
Yeah. He was just doing a terrible... Which I think that if he had the foresight to be like, This is what people are going to grab grab onto, is the dog. Because before I knew anything about this, I didn't know that Bill had cancer. I think that's the big one. I think that's the one that makes me the most like, Oh, this is probably intense day-to-day stressor. So if you ever hear someone bring up the dog dying, there were other things. It also wasn't even in her initial apology. There was no mention of the dog.
Emma
But even saying, Oh, she did it because her dog died. It's like you're drawing a connection that is not being drawn even by the publicist. It's like lots of things are going bad in her life right now that maybe make her more anxious about her ability to finish a book. And it's not that her dog dies and she thinks, I'm, wakes up the next day, it's like, I'm going to plagiarize. Even if it was just her dog dying, that's not how that decision making process would work. She's pushed to this level of distress that causes... Even if the distress is coupled with what you want to call laziness, it's not a one to one connection. It's some culmination of things together. But yeah, I'm also sympathetic because would your dog... A dog dying could... Especially if Bill's sick, I feel like that would really... Could somewhat send someone over the edge.
Beth
Yeah, I don't want to downplay the love of a pet, but it just It does not come across great. It feels almost like a private conversation that must have happened where it's like, maybe she did deeply feel something, and then the public took it and ran with it. Who knows? That's not what happened. This is just me speculating. But I don't know. Has this publicist also never been through something? I don't know. Her brother's passing away, two brothers. So it's like you're already actively grieving, and then you have an ongoing intense care situation. Even just thinking of what her Dailey life must have been like, where she's maybe driving Bill to treatments or helping him physically with things. We don't know how much help he would have needed. It takes a lot on someone.
Chels
So the Newsweek piece, out of all of these pieces, has the most detailed reporting out of anything that comes out of a scandal, and it's partially responsible for a few interesting story lines that stick with the dailies. Namely, they're the first paper that Bill into the discussion. So I'm going to read this quote. "Dailey began writing in the mid '70s at the urging of her husband, Bill, whom she met while he was the married owner of a Nebraska construction company where she worked as a secretary. Bill, 15 years Dailey senior, exerted extraordinary control over his wife. He managed her business affairs and did all her research, including taking the notes when they piled into their trailer for trips to locales for the next novel. He called the shots, says Bambi Lavine, Dailies' press agent until 1989, and she listened. Bill Dailey, a former carnival barker, has been a notorious character on the romance novel landscape. In 1985, he shot a man in the chest who had allegedly insulted a singer at the Wildwood Flower, a Branson restaurant bar, The Dailey Zone. In 1988, a Missouri judge ruled that Dailey had defrauded a Kansas man he'd hired to direct a movie based on one of his wife's books and ordered Dailey to pay $805,000.
Chels
The couple were forced to sell a vast tract of land as well as the equipment from their restaurant. Every dime Janet made had to go to paying off all these legal fees and debts from his entrepreneurial ventures, says Levine. If someone put a gun to your head and said you have to write a best seller in six weeks, Are you going to be able to produce?"
Beth
That last line is the- What? Is the line.
Emma
I think this is so symptomatic of how they talk about Bill and Janet. It's like, this is a moment where it's We're trying to understand why Janet did this. And instead of being able to take it 10 degrees more towards sympathy, it's like we have to set it up where it's like, We're going to place the fact that Bill shot someone next to this metaphorical use of gun to the head. And it's implying that Bill is holding her hostage. And it's like, We don't have to go that far to extend a little bit of sympathy for Janet because this just makes it look so much more sinister than it is by juxtaposing those two things. And it's like, Janet had done something wrong, and we are like, okay, here's the reasons why we think maybe she did something wrong without putting under suspicion their entire marriage. It's like, Bill is holding her at gunpoint and getting her to write. That's... That's such a... Also, they knew what they were doing, to bring up the shooting in the same paragraph as that metaphor. It's like, what's the aim of this angle?
Beth
This feels like this is pushing Bill to the front, because I feel like the people who know him at this point, we're in the '90s right now, are just people in the industry, people in publishing, people in Branson. But it's not like people at large really know who Bill Dailey is. Right. So this is, I I think what's- Right.
Emma
If you're just picking up a Janet Dailey novel at the bookstore.
Chels
Yes. You're not buying- You don't know who Bill.
Beth
Yeah. But this is doing some legwork for him.
Chels
Yeah. It's pretty scathing. And just to recap a little bit of what this article is talking about. So Bill did shoot a man named Steve Goodwin in 1985. But to be fair, Steve said he deserved it.
Beth
Chels has a parentheses. I'm joking.
Chels
So a brief recap. Steve initially said that Bill pulled a gun on him unprovoked. So Steve was at the Wildwood Flower. He said that Bill pulled a gun on him unprovoked and then shot him. And then later, Steve changed his story to say that he was acting out of line and that Bill practicing self-defense. There are allegations that Bill not only got him to say this by settling, but by paying off witnesses. And yes, in the late '80s, he does have to pay $805,000 to a man named Lawrence Winters, who was supposed to help make the movie adaptation of Janet Dailey's book, Foxfire Light. But Bill backed out, and then he said that he went Hollywood. I think what really struck me about these incidents are that they're very... I feel like it's It's a bit of a stretch to bring them up in 1997 because a felony charge in 1985 that gets dropped in 1986. And then also you have to pay a little over $800,000 while Janet is getting multimillion dollar contracts. I feel like if you're looking at it holistically, it's not really doing this cause and effect that they're making it seem like.
Chels
I guess just another few things to address here, just to recap from the last episode, too. That thing about the dailies being in debt, I don't think that really makes sense with the evidence that's given. As I mentioned, that Janet, if you heard she had million dollars with Harper Collins, multimillion dollar with Little Brown, the amount that Bill is said to have lost is not really coming up anywhere near those. It also makes it seem like Bill is very unsuccessful. And so I feel like this is where you get into the national versus local, because I've been reading a lot of brands and papers, and he was very successful. He was a local celebrity celebrity. He was very well known there. He was very embedded into the country music scene in Branson. So it's like, as you all were saying, the wider world knows Janet Dailey in a way that they don't know Bill. So it's easier to be like, Oh, he's just this guy who's always making investments. And it's like, well, yeah, that's what he does. And then also another thing, too, is... Because Janet has a story, right? Where she's writing Because Bill is telling her when to do it.
Chels
She wants to write, but Bill has to be the one who gets her to do it. Janet's writing wasn't really a get-rich-quick scheme for Bill. I feel like in the way that they're making it seem because they're saying that the amount of investments and projects that he's doing based off Janet's writing, that's suspicious to them. Right. Like, reading the local newspapers from even Omaha. In Omaha, he and Janet had multiple projects that they were both And then Branson. So it's just... It's just... It's just... It seems like something that you would say if you didn't know Bill, which, I mean, they don't know Bill. They're looking at these news headlines and trying to contextualize them into something about Janet. The Newsweek piece also called Janet the Fading Queen of the Romance World, and said that Roberts was the industry's hottest writer and an upstart. They're not the only ones to do this. The Washington Post article called Roberts Janet Dailey's Younger Rival. Neither of them were young. Dailey is 53 at this point, and Roberts is 47, and both of them are publishing veterans at this point. It just felt so much like they were trying to do a Salieri Mozart thing where Dailies has been jealous for years and years and years, and like, Roberts is outshining her.
Chels
I think you could make the argument that mid-90s, like Roberts was being more successful, but I don't really... Dailey was making a lot of money. I don't know.
Beth
Yeah. They want an angle. They want to pitch it as two women against each other.
Emma
To include younger rival. It's like, oh, especially to not include their ages when you reference her younger rival. It's like, oh, you know how people are going to pick up what you're putting down. It's like, oh, this one woman is much older, one woman is much younger. And you're going to be able to project your own misogyny onto that narrative.
Beth
Yeah, they're six years apart.
Emma
Yeah, I think it's like... Also, it's like we want this to be a narrative instead of what it is. People want to take this thing that happened and conclude something about it, which leads to a lot of projection on it. It's like You can't just be their peer because you want it. You want there to be a reason why Dailey copied Roberts, right? We want to rationalize that. And it's like, okay, if she's younger and she's jealous and she's an upstart, Dailey has a reason to take down Roberts or something. And it's like, it can't just be This is what happened. We have to put it into a neat frame narrative.
Beth
They have to make it sound more drama-filled, and there has to be a narrative that they can hook a reader with.
Chels
And this is also really insulting to Roberts, too. She had been publishing since 1981.
Beth
She's a seasoned veteran.
Chels
A career that most people never dream of by that point.
Emma
She's getting a Lifetime Achievement Award as this is happening. She's definitely...
Beth
That's useful.
Emma
It's very patronizing to talk about her. She hadn't done the work or that she is somehow behind Dailey in some way.
Beth
Right.
Chels
And so here's another quote from the Newsweek piece. Nora's career went up and Janet's was going down, says Kathryn Falk, the owner of the Romantic Times magazine, who befriended Dailey 18 years ago. "She wanted to get detected. She's pleading for help. She had a tumultuous life that would drive anyone to death."
Beth
Strong words, Kathryn Falk. Why am I not surprised she's at the center of this?
Chels
Yeah.
Emma
It's very '90s to be like, She has to go to therapy. It's like, Yeah, we're all in therapy, Kathyrn Falk. It's fine.
Beth
That's so funny.
Chels
Let's talk about the Romantic Times. So it was a widely read magazine created in 1981 by Kathryn Falk. And according to Paul Gresco in The Merchants of Venus, Dailey also had a hand in its success. Dailey was already a very famous author, and she told her newsletter subscriber Network, which was called The Dailey Report, about this new magazine. So if you don't know about Kathryn Falk. She has her own reputation. She was basically The Romantic Times Bill Dailey. She's a larger than life figure that makes things happen, and you either love her or you hate her. It's easy to find people praising her, but you can also Google quite a scandals. People in both the love and hate camp have said that they were intimidated by her. So of course, Janet Dailey is a fixture in the magazine and at the Romantic Times Book Lovers Convention. But her agent, Richard Curtis, told Paul Gresco that he had beef with Kathryn Falk. He said, I was born to hate that woman, I think, and vice versa. She wrote a very insulting thing about Janet once, and we threatened to sue. And I said I would have nothing to do with her, and I would not encourage any of my clients to have anything to do with her until she retracted it.
Chels
She never retracted it, took off after me by telling any author who would listen that I was a thief. So you know, I have a lot of opinions about her, but probably none you could print without getting sued. So in October of 1997, probably as soon as they can after the scandal, since they're a monthly magazine at this point, the Romantic Times posts the full statements from Dailey and Roberts, which we read earlier. Above the statements, Carroll Stacey, the publisher of the Romantic Times, wrote, Since the mid '80s, documentation has surfaced, see August 11th, Newsweek, regarding Janet's personal life, corroborating her claims that she indeed has had situations of extreme stress in her life, which in fact ran much deeper than the one she points to in her public apology below. But is a psychological disorder an excuse for plagiarism? Perhaps nor Robert's statement to the Romantic Times addresses it best. While I might sympathize with any psychological problems Janet Dailey has or has had in the past, there is no excuse used for plagiarism. It is theft. All a writer has are her words, and they cannot be stolen with impunity. So I'm including this bit because I've seen people say that the Romantic Times was pro-Dailey immediately after the scandal, and maybe they think that because Falk has sympathetic quotes in Newsweek.
Chels
But I haven't really found a sympathetic bent in the Romantic Times itself. So in this edition, Bertrice Small also chimes in. So if you don't know Bertrice Small, she's a very popular historical romance author back in the day. I think her book, Skye O'Malley, might be getting made into a TV show. She wrote like Bodice Rippers. I've seen her write into the Romantic Times, at least twice, to be very mad about how romance is treated in mainstream media. I don't know if that was just the beat of her column or if I just happened to encounter it twice. But here, she calls the plagiarism an American tragedy and expresses sympathy for both Roberts and Dailey before getting down to brass tax and slamming the media. Who wants to read? It's going to be silly.
Emma
I'll read it. Okay. So You media idiots. What's so funny about all of this? You guys think catastrophe is a hoot? That a shattered career is laughable? That the woman who read and write romance are ridiculous? Or could it be that you're just envious of our success? Or as earlier mentioned, anti-woman? Oh, stamp, stamp. That's written out. I've never been angrier in my whole life. My voluptuous snow white bosom is heaving so hard, my bodice just burst. If I weren't a lady, I would tell you guys to to get stuffed. Now, I feel like I have to read Sky O'Malley. If I weren't a lady, I would tell you guys to get stuffed. It's pretty iconic.
Chels
I did find that very... It's just like, not either Pro Dailey or Pro Roberts, but it's very funny. So I included it here. Yeah. Yeah.
Emma
And I think you could read that and be like, this is... I guess showing any sympathy to Dailey is maybe a way you could be like, oh, this is pro Dailey because it's like, if you think she's done the wrong thing, maybe you don't think there should be any sympathy. But I don't think it's wrong to be like, this is a sad thing that happens. When someone does something bad and ruins part of their life, it's sad. I think that's what Small is saying. It's sad that someone who is a titan of this industry has now burned so many bridges and it will irrevocably be changed by this. And the way that we talk about romance will be irrevocably changed. This is a tragedy for us all. I don't think she's saying Dailey is a victim as much as... But You don't have to be a victim for something bad to happen.
Beth
Right. Yeah, I feel like she's also commenting a lot more on just the reaction in the media, that they're condescending to romance readers.
Chels
Yeah, she definitely doesn't like that. The other time I saw her write in, it was like a TV show, something made a joke about romance writers, and she was very mad about it, and she wrote about it in the Romantic Times.
Emma
I just love that she's using the magazine as her own Twitter account. She's like, Let me write a letter.
Chels
It's so funny. So the Romantic Times has their big coverage of the scandal later that year in December of 1997, and it's a feature called The Summer of Discontent: The Rise and Fall of a Romance Icon by Anne Sullivan. Out of everything about the scandal, I think this is the most baffling piece I've ever read. Sullivan really leans into Newsweek's angle that Janet is jealous of Nora Roberts' success and that Bill Dailey is the source of most of Janet's problems. But it gets weird. So here's a quote. After a wretched ending to her marriage to a TV cameraman and a tumultuous divorce, leaving her a single mother with two children to support, Nora picked up the pieces one by one. She also picked a Mr. Wright when she remarried a few years later. Tall, sweet, down to earth Bruce, Nora's life settled down to a pleasant normal family routine around her two growing boys and couples careers. And so it later continues. Janet's life, however, on the other hand, did not evolve into stability and happy business ventures, in spite of her success with the silhouettes and later pocketbooks. Raised fatherless, Janet was still a teenager when she met and married Bill Dailey, who divorced the mother of his children to marry her.
Chels
Bill was some dozen years her senior, a former carnival Barker turned entrepreneur who dreamed out loud about making his, quote, number one in the book business and putting her name in theme parks, movie marquees, and a hotel.
Beth
I really love that Carnival Barker-
Chels
It lives on.
Beth
Part of his career. Everyone's quoting it. This is the article I've always thought of as the The fatherless article that they say that she's fatherless. But as you pointed out many times, she has a stepfather. He was in her life since she was pretty young.
Chels
She was 13 when she got a stepfather.
Emma
Now that people don't do this now, I feel like you You'll probably find this framing where you're putting two women against each other in articles that were published today. But it's so clearly framing. Nora is a success story. Nora is coming up-
Beth
Picking up the pieces of her life.
Emma
Picking up the piece and going to the top. And Janet, despite achieving similar levels of success, is like, her life is tumultuous and terrible. And it's like, if the roles were reversed, how would you frame the stories differently? You, you, like maybe Bill becomes a doting husband. It's, it's like, it's so, it's so transparent, this moralizing of their, their origins. And carnival barker, is that, was that used to mean something as more clearly, morally repugnant? I don't know what you mean. I mean, I guess it's like a throwback to think of carnies as the edges of society, I guess. But that feels like early 20th century, not like late 20th century, to be like, A carnival Barker.
Chels
The amount of times it comes up is so wild to me. And he wasn't even a carnival barker when she met him. Right.
Emma
We all had weird jobs at some point. We all had the jobs that we used to do. And it's weird that it keeps coming up.
Beth
And he had an amicable divorce. This is framing it, potentially, some affair or something. They were friends.
Emma
She raised his children. Yeah.
Chels
His ex-wife, Judy, she would come to stay at Belle Reeve with the Daileys. They were friends. Like, at this point, when this article was written, they were still friends with Judy. So it's not like...
Emma
It's so weird which connections they draw that are tenuous, and which ones... It's like, Bill... We've been saying for, I don't know how long we've recorded now, Bill seems like he's hard to like. Can you imagine reasons why his ex-wife might not want to be married to him anymore?
Chels
Yeah.
Emma
It's like, we have all these pieces of evidence that we don't want to draw a connection to. It's like, we want to have this more sinister narrative, but then other pieces of information get put together. Like, Janet was fatherless, and that made her, made her susceptible to plagiarism. Okay.
Chels
Yeah. What? And there are a few more compare, contrast paragraphs about Nora Roberts and Janet Dailey's husband. So it's basically the Romantic Times is praising Nora's master carpenter husband for having his own field and staying out of his wife's business, which Bill just decidedly didn't do. They go on to speculate that Janet was making a ton of money in the '80s, but that's drying up due to bad business decisions. The Romantic Times also said that after Bill Dailey loses the lawsuit over a foxfire light, which they keep referring to as firefly light, they say that after that, Bill filed for bankruptcy and that it makes the papers. I haven't found any evidence of this. The one mention of Dailey plus bankruptcy in both newspapers and court records that I've personally seen comes up with Bill Dailey purchasing the Cash Country Theater in the early '90s. And the reason bankruptcy comes up for that is because the person who was initially trying to fund the theater went bankrupt. I think the tackiest part of this piece is an aside they have about Sylvie Summerfield. So she was a beautician, and her husband dared her to write a romance novel, and she ended up being a fairly prolific historical romance writer.
Chels
I think you might recognize some of her covers. She has some really, really beautiful covers. Her husband, John, was an investment banker, and when Sylvie got successful, he left his job to manage her career. She also had a plagiarism dust up in the early '90s that she attributed to a researcher gone rogue. So there are definitely similarities there. But the romantic times when they bring up Sylvie, and it's very brief, but they're implying without explicitly stating that Sylvie Summerfield died by suicide because of her financial woes from her husband's bad investments. And And I just thought that was really tacky.
Emma
And I just- And are they... They're just completely... They're just like, Oh, this is context of another plagiarism dust up, but we're going to besmirch this woman?
Chels
Yeah. They were doing it for two different ways. They're talking about how some writers don't have... They bring up constantly, some writers don't have a head for business, but also it's better for your husband to stay out of your business. So that's why they keep bringing up Nora Roberts' husband's job. So they're drawing... They don't do it directly, to their credit. But it's pretty obvious what they're doing. They're talking about Bill Dailey, they're talking about bad investments, they're talking about how writers need to keep that separate line, like some husbands overstep, and then they move into talking about Sylvie Summerfield and then make this imply that her husband is partially responsible for her woes. Yeah, and in her death. So it's just very tacky. It doesn't seem like it's coming from a place of sympathy. It feels like it's salacious. Another quote. Somewhere along the way, Janet Dailey's direction faltered, and it's said to be when she left pocketbooks after her Alaskan saga failed to earn back her $1 million advance. Her new agent secured a contract with Little Brown, who was attempting to break her out into mass market women's fiction. I just want to point out the bad journalistic practice of it said.
Chels
Like, who said? Head. I think this is such a big issue with this piece. They'll cite rumors, but they won't even say who the anonymous source is. So they'll be like, People are saying this.
Emma
This is the scuttlebutt.
Chels
Yeah. I feel like it's quite egregious, especially because a lot of the things that they're printing are pretty big accusations or pretty big claims. So if you were going to say it, you need to say why you're saying that. So the Alaska saga they're talking about is The Great Alone, and it wasn't with pocketbooks. But with a different Simon & Schuster imprint called Poseidon Press, which was focused on literary fiction rather than genre fiction. So The Great Alone was definitely her stepping out of her comfort zone and trying for something big. It didn't really pop off, and reviews were mixed, But I don't really feel like it's this devastating loss, the romantic times is making it seem. Poseidon Press was specifically for the type of book that she was writing. She didn't just come out of left field and pitch historical saga to pocketbooks. Other inaccuracies here. Richard Curtis wasn't a new agent by the time she moved to Little Brown. He was hired in the early '80s when she was in pocket. And B, she has a $10 million contract with Little Brown in the late '80s. So even if the grade alone wasn't all that it was cracked up to be, this is not some time of great financial stress.
Chels
She bounces back very quick. The Romantic Times also questions Janet's ability to write outside of category romance and go mainstream. And then they apply that this is why she's supposedly falling off, which is wild. They're not saying like, Janet can't go mainstream like general fiction. They're saying Janet can't write out of category romance. Dailey published her first mass market, Touch the Wind, in 1979, and it was a bestseller. Her Calder books, which are just as much family sagas as they are romance, are what she's arguably best known for. 1987's Aris and 1990's Masquerade are both little brown hard covers that are not technically genre romance. I think you could make an argument that they're women's fiction, and they're New York Times bestsellers. And these are all before Dailey published any work that's flagged for plagiarism. So this idea that Dailey is outside of her scope, that just seems like you're just being mean, I think. I don't see why you would think that. I just feel so pedantic looking through this piece, but there are so many inaccuracies. It's driving me crazy. It says that Janet experienced a professional decline during the Wildwood flower shooting.
Chels
It's not true. That happened in 1985 and dropped in 1986. They also said a witness changed their story, which reduced the charge against Bill Dailey. The way this is framed, I feel like, is a bit misleading. Steve Goodwin, the man who shot, was the one who changed his story and asked for the charges to be dropped. In the vein of Janet Dailey's time has ended, they give examples of other famous authors that have dropped off. They're making this point that if you want to continue to write for a long time, you have to be adaptable because all these famous writers, times are changing. And this is what they say, Many names that once spearheaded the New York Times bestseller lists, Irving Wallace, Laurie McBain, Joyce Verrett, Judith Krantz, have disappeared, or like Rogers, Woodwiss, Verrett, and Sydney Sheldon, now appear sporadically. It's harder to stay on top than to get there, says one editor ruefully.
Beth
It feels like they're just listing off these names, but there's no context. Dailey is publishing a huge number of books every year. Are these authors doing the same? Do you know what I mean? What is the publishing schedule for each of these authors?
Chels
That's actually a very funny answer. Oh, sorry. No, no, I'm glad you asked. It's a very funny answer. So first of all, did you notice that they said Verrett twice? Like, first in the has disappeared from the New York Times list, and then again, and then now appears sporadically? So Verrett's last book was published in 1985. So I actually think it's pretty normal not to have a book make the bestseller list 12 years after you put it out into the world.
Beth
You don't have booktok to launch a backlist.
Chels
They also had a Laurie McBain, and her disappearance from the New York Times is because she also literally stopped writing books. She retired in 1985 after writing only seven bestselling historical romances. I'm not sure why Irving Wallace made the cut of authors falling off because he wasn't a romance writer, but he also died in 1990. So it's, again, not that weird that he's not making the New York Times bestseller list.
Beth
He's a ghostwriter. Where is his ghostwriter?
Emma
I just feel so I mean, people should fact-check their stuff. But also, it's like they were fact-checking departments in newsrooms. But it feels like they were looking at... You can imagine the research process. They were looking at New York Times bestsellers list, and it was like, Oh, they're here, they're here, they're here, they're not here. And then the process stops. And nobody is asking the fact-checking person to be like, Hey, when did Irving Wallace die? Look that up in the who's who.
Chels
Another quote from the Romantic Times wrapping things up. Could you write romances with Happy the endings if your life was continually plagued with health problems, a constant struggle with lawyers, bankruptcy, dissatisfied publishers, and embarrassment over your husband's behavior? For whatever or all reasons, Janet became known as a recluse. Furthermore, her husband screens and monitors all of her calls, according to one newspaper reporter.
Emma
There are so many issues with this.
Beth
Yeah, I feel like if I was caught up in a plagiarism scandal, I'm having my husband also answer the phone.
Emma
When does he start screening her phone calls? After people call, start calling her to be like, Why did you plagiarize your friend, Nora Roberts? And also, maybe he's just the one who picks up the phone because she's writing.
Beth
Also, he's the business guy. I don't think this dynamic has changed. He probably was answering the calls before this. I don't know. And then also the embarrassment over your husband's behavior. What is that?
Chels
That's projecting.
Emma
Has Janet ever expressed that she's embarrassed of Bill? No. It's like, Y'all are embarrassed of Bill. Like, yeah.
Beth
He's the blueprint for all of her romance heroes.
Chels
Yeah, she likes him a lot. The article ends with the equivalent of a bless your heart. It says, When the legal matters are settled, everyone could be compassionate to both writers. They both suffered. I hope good can come out of this because Janet was an admired and much loved pioneer of the genre at its infancy. And for a woman who has written so many happy endings for so many people, it's time she had one of her own at long last.
Emma
Because it sounds like they're like, Oh, maybe she could get rid of Bill? That's what we're trying to imply.
Chels
That's the only conclusion I can think they would want you to come to.
Emma
Right. Which this is the weird thing where it's like, I could see where Nora Roberts was frustrated with coverage of this because it's like, we want to put a bow on Dailey's behavior. And it's like, I think I do have sympathy for Dailey, but in a way that's different than the articles. I have sympathy for Dailey in a human empathetic way. She did something that's so terrible and fucked up her life and probably something she regrets deeply doing. And it's like, I've never plagiarized my best friend, or not my best friend, not that Nora Roberts and Dailey were best friends, but I've never plagiarized a friend in a novel that I've written. But it's like, I have done things that have hurt people, and I'm like, Oh, I have to sit with that regret, and it is upsetting. I have empathy for Dailey in that vector. But these articles all want us to come up with this reason for Dailey behavior that is sympathetic. They want to put a bow on it. I think the thing that's the kindest both to Roberts and Dailies is to not have this conclusion. It's just Dailey did something bad.
Emma
She had to live with it. Roberts experienced pain. She had to move on from it. This is tragic because it's like people were harmed. And that is ultimately an unsatisfactory answer, but it's like, that's the nature of life and harm, is that we don't get bows at the end of things. And I could see what Roberts would be frustrated with an article that ends with like, Janet should have happily ever after. It's like, that's not That's not how life works.
Chels
And I didn't realize this until recently, but Bill also spoke about his reaction to finding out about Janet's plagiarism with the Columbia Dailey Tribute. He said, She just cracked and fell to pieces. He said it might have been pressure from deadlines and strict self-discipline. And then he's later quoted a saying, I was just as shocked as anybody else, and I've lived with her for 34 years. Personally, I did not realize what she was going through. There was no way of knowing what was inside her head. Thanks, Bill.
Beth
Interesting.
Emma
Yeah, it's weird because this feels like so exemplary of Bill. Personally, I did not realize what she was going through. It's like, well, she's your wife. Maybe you should have asked. I mean, what she's going through is him being diagnosed with cancer, so I don't want to blame him too much. But then he's right, and it's like, there's no way of knowing what's inside her head. It's like, those are two different things, right? Like, what she's going through is something she can externalize, and what her thought process is something you don't have access to. So it's weird.
Beth
Right. Also, he's the one going through cancer, so it would be weird to be him having a hard time taking care of you. Do you know what I mean? It's counterproductive to the person you're caring for, to be like, by the way, this is hard for me. I don't know. Obviously, I think he could imagine a world where it's hard for her, but it seems like he didn't know what was going on.
Chels
I think that's one of the things where we're talking about, of not rap a bow on it. I feel like we've been trying to recontextualize Bill and Janet's relationship. But we're doing this to tell you what we know. We're not doing this to be like, Bill was a good husband, or you should like Bill.
Beth
I think it's just questioning the critiques or the way that it's been framed before. But yeah, I don't think we're trying to come out the other end and be like, he was stellar, the best husband ever. But I think just because he was a bit rough around the edges and was unlikable, that he's been ascribed way worse intentions than I think we're probably there. Right.
Emma
And sometimes you just have to sit with not knowing. It's like you just have to be okay with not knowing the intricacies of Bill and Janet's marriage. You can know what's documented, And you can look and see what is a framing and a projection. And the end of that, maybe you're like, I will never know what it was like to be in that marriage. And we also never know why Janet plagiarized. None of us will ever be inside of her head. Even if she gave us so many details, we wouldn't know what's inside of her head.
Chels
Right. So I guess we're going to move on a little bit. We're still in the year 1997, so we're going to read another reaction. So this is from All About Romance. This is from Laurie's News and Views, Issue Number 30. So, Beth, if you want to read this quote right here.
Beth
What undoubtedly made things worse was Janet Dailey's rationale for what she did. Psychological stress made her do it. While in no way am I belittling her losses, her blaming the deaths of family members, her cat, and the illnesses of her husband for her actions, seems as ludicrous to me as the rapist in Houston who sued the woman he assaulted for defamation of character? Oh, my God.
Emma
That even seems almost as ludicrous. Seems as ludicrous. These are equal behaviors in this person's mind.
Chels
So is Jane Dailey the rapist? Like, is that- Yeah.
Beth
What is going on in this
Emma
Yeah, it's not a one-to-one-
Beth
Attempted this correlation here. I don't even- The cat. It was a dog, actually.
Emma
She's not doing Nora Roberts for defamation. She's three steps away from at least... This is...
Beth
Okay. Sorry. That was a quote.
Chels
That was something someone said. Yeah. And I think why I wanted to bring this up is, we're going to talk about this a little bit more with some other message board stuff, is that I think when we talk about reactions to this scandal, it gets very... There's an escalation in the way we talk about it, where we have to compare Janet Dailey to someone who did something physically violent. And I am personally not comfortable with that. And it continues. And I think that if we're looking back on this, I think that could also be a thing where we could look back on that and being like, maybe this was a little bit much. Maybe when we're talking about scales of harm, we should keep violent crime to violent crime.
Beth
Yes, right. Plagiarism is not at the level of violent crime.
Chels
Just quick aside. Yeah, I don't think that's that crazy. So in August of 1997, Roberts sued Dailey for copyright infringement. She told the Associated Press it was not for financial compensation, but to discover this full scope of the copying and to prevent it from occurring in the future. Dailies said that the plagiarism occurred in the early '90s, since that's when she wrote Notorious, that's when Aspen Gold came out. But the plagiarism in Scrooge Wore Spurs, that was going to come out in 1997. So there's something happening in the mid '90s as well. She comes back to doing that. And then, yeah, Emma, I don't know if you're able to explain, we've been talking about plagiarism so much, but now we're talking about copyright now.
Emma
Yeah, We talked a little bit about this in our Barbara Cartland episode, and it comes up in bookish spaces a lot, I think, because I think people really want to conflate copyright and plagiarism because they think that they're the same thing. But they really are like, it's like a Venn diagram with some stuff in the middle. I think the important thing to remember about copyright is that copyright is really limited in what it protects. Copyright protects the expression of ideas, not the ideas. And this is what we talked about with Cartland in that when she was writing things that were very similar in their plotting or in their where the plot beats of a Georgette Heyer book, that's not really copyright infringement because you can't copyright the plot of a book. You can't copyright the scenes-en-faire is the phrase where it's like, this is the stuff that makes up a romance novel. A Duke falling in love with a maid is not copyrightable material. What's copyrightable is the expression. So when we read the passages earlier, those similar turns of phrases and the beats being so similar in that one scene, that's how you express the growing intimacy these two characters, that gets closer to copyright infringement.
Emma
You can plagiarize anything. You can plagiarize a plot. You can plagiarize turns of phrases. It's copyright is a niche thing that's protected underneath it. And I think it's important to remember because I think sometimes we have this intuition about what should be copyrightable because sometimes the plot and that aesthetic within a book feels more indicative of what makes a book a book, but that actually has a lower copyright protection. And I think an important thing to remember about plagiarism is plagiarism, when it comes up in its origin, is that it comes up in an institution. What is plagiarism? It's often defined by the publishing entity, at least in academics. The journal or the institution will determine How do we require people to do their references? Like Chicago style, MLA. If you don't meet that threshold, you are plagiarizing. When it comes to fiction, it's harder to do because we don't have this institutional body that is saying, This is plagiarism. This is not. And so we have copyright instead, but then copyright doesn't protect the same things that plagiarism does. And one more concept I wanted to point out to people is that in copyright litigation, there's this concept of de minimis copying, where...
Emma
Because I guess, mostly to encourage people not to be looking for copying in romance novels. So de minimis copying is where we acknowledge that there is a limited number of ways to express things. And so certain turns of phrases don't rise to the level of copying that we care about. So I think a good example of this would be any popular phrase of affection. You could say, I burn for you. I burn for you comes from... It's in Anthony's book in the series, right? It's from the Viscount Who Loved Me. But I Burn For You, I think, has come up in other romances since Bridgerton has come out. It's like, Oh, this is a sexy phrase that we can use. Or sometimes in romances, they'll do a reference to Star Wars, I love you, I know. And it's this clear reference. It's like, That's definitely being copied from Star Wars, or that's being copied from Bridgerton. It's not not copying. It's just copying that we're saying, This is so small of a phrase that we're not going to give it... We're not going to give the person who's been copied standing. And so you might recognize phrases from romance novels, pick one and it comes up in another one.
Emma
That doesn't mean that your favorite author is committing copyright infringement. I think actually, I think the example with Dailey and Roberts is a good example of, Oh, this is the level of extent that has to happen for there to be standing to even have the discussion of is this copyright infringement? But yeah, copyright infringement, plagiarism. Think of them as like a Venn diagram. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don't. And just because you don't have a copyright case doesn't mean that you haven't been harmed by plagiarism. But just because you've been plagiarized doesn't mean you have a copyright case.
Chels
That's how good to know. So the case closes after a year with an undisclosed settlement amount that Roberts donated to charity. So I guess, Emma, if you wanted to explain what it means when somebody settles a case.
Emma
Yeah. So it just means that the Both sides have decided. They've come to an agreement in the middle. And so sometimes that involves an admission of guilt, sometimes that involves an admission of wrongdoing, or they will decide the amount of damages. And so usually in any civil or criminal case is there's two sections of a trial. There's who's at fault, and if there's wrongdoing, what's the case? And then there's the damages case. And so sometimes you'll settle the who's at fault case so that you can also control the damages. And both sides maybe were motivated to... Both sides would have motivations to settle both for... Litigation is very expensive. Copyright litigation, especially, is very expensive. It's also very unpredictable. And so if Roberts and Dailey knew They knew what they wanted out of the case, they might not want to let it go to a fact finder, which in this case would be a federal judge, because a federal judge is not a romance novel author and could make any decision, make Dailey pay a lot of money or maybe find that there weren't There wasn't copyright violation. Settling is advantageous because it's predictable.
Chels
So after the settlement, Roberts, of course, as I mentioned, donates the amount to charity. And then the dailies sell the Belle Reeve mansion in 1998 to an evangelical organization. I think they did it at auction. It wasn't like they picked them. But they're selling their mansion. And so Bill told the newspapers at the time that it has nothing to do with the plagiarism, but that they wanted to live somewhere smaller since they don't entertain as much and they're getting older. Harper Collins still had another Dailey Book slotted after Notorious, and they go ahead and publish it. It's called Calder Pride, and it comes out in 1999. So it's quiet for Dailey for a while until Kensington announces that they're going to publish four of her books. Richard Curtis, who is maybe the best agent in the world, gets her a seven-figure deal that's announced in 2001.
Beth
I do like that he's a former author. I feel like that... I like that was Bill's decision to hire him based on that. And I think that lends some insight into the industry or even just empathy for your client. Hey, this industry is rough on you guys.
Chels
He's very funny because he has a full interview in the Janet Dailey companion. I don't want to say he's like Bill, but I could see how Bill and him would be able to talk to each other.
Beth
I guess I'm assuming they get along, but...
Chels
Yeah, I feel like they do. Based on his quotes about them as a couple. So when this new book deal gets announced, someone wrote into an All About Romance message board being like, What do you think of Dailey's first post plagiarism deal? And this thread is still up. So we're going to read some of the responses.
Emma
Subject, read Janet Dailey News from LLV. Message. Well, I know that when people go to jail, they go for punishment. A secondary goal is rehabilitation. So since what Janet did was stealing the work of another, my thoughts are, was she punished sufficiently and has she been rehabilitated? Personally, I couldn't answer the former, although my sense is that she never fully owned up to what she did. And I don't know how any publisher would be able to trust that the words she writes are her own in the future. Do I think this sends a bad message to other writers that plagiarism is not an important crime in the romance community, which furthers the idea that romance isn't as worthy a form of writing as other forms? That's the sense I got when another author pilfered the work of Gina Wilkins. As for me, I I never read Janet Dailey before, and certainly don't plan to read her again. Okay. The effects on her crime on Nora Roberts were devastating. And I think it's telling that Kensington is the publisher that took a second chance on her. Only time will tell if it was a smart business decision, stunt promotion, or a bad idea.
Beth
From Phyllis to LLB. Message. Did she go to jail, Lori? I didn't know that. Well, she hasn't profited.
Chels
Spelling.
Beth
From the few books that I read her since I got them second-hand, I agree that plagiarism is stealing and should not be tolerated. What I'm surprised at is the fact that I have heard a number of times on these boards about how one book very closely resembles another one, and yet few people are ever brought up on charges. Well, I hope that Janet Dailey has been rehabilitated. She has certainly paid with a loss of her reputation because I assume that no matter how well she conducts herself from now on, there are people who would not consider reading any of her books. It's what I call the off with her head syndrome that I see quite often in public life. Smiley face.
Chels
So someone steps in here and explains to Phyllis that it's not just similar plots, but taking text and passages from a book.
Emma
From LLB to Phyllis. Message, Phyllis. No, she did not go to jail. As far as I know, only civil charges were made against her. The point is, if you do something illegal, rehabilitation is only a secondary concern. The primary concern is punishment.
Beth
Subject, crime and punishment. From Susan. Crime and Punishment is an interesting thing. I watched E. True Hollywood's story last night on the Menendez brothers killing their parents, and it reminded me of the more frequent theme in our society of, Well, I did it, but this is why, so it doesn't really count. And how people can buy into that sympathy with the perpetrator when Fame or good looks are involved. I haven't seen anything on Robert Downey Jr, but that one seems like a bizarre cry for something. Help? Attention? I was skeptical when the Ally McBeal show put him on so quickly after the release, and then he did something last fall almost immediately, and then again last week. I don't understand that at all. With Janet Dailey, I enjoyed her HP books, and I may still have all the Calders, but I'm not sure. What is very ironic is that she's a very talented writer in her own right, and this did not need to happen. To realize she did it to an author that would definitely make her get caught makes me also wonder what was going on in her head. I I didn't read her books for a couple of reasons.
Beth
Plagiarism. I agree that this is her crime, and you don't know what reform and rehab has gone on. Therefore, did she really write it? I wouldn't want to read it or pay for it. It's my little way of punishing. Okay. That was me, not a message. Also, her last books were not that good, independent of any other issues. It is sad, though. Unfortunately, we are all human. Even those of us that have great talent and go on to big things in life. I never saw any of her response, but wish she had understood what she had done.
Chels
So at the end of this thread, Nora Roberts chimes in, basically to correct the record on a few points. The Dailey didn't donate any money. The charitable donation was made by Nora Roberts after the settlement. And then Nora Roberts also says that she doesn't believe Dailey wanted to get caught. She said that the idea was absurd since the plagiarism happened over the span of many years. Like Aspen Gold, published in 1991, and Scrooge Wore Spurs, 1997. Seven. But yeah, let's talk about this message board thread.
Beth
Yeah, people need to go to jail for their plagiarism and be rehabilitated for their crimes.
Emma
Wait, this happens a lot with copyright stuff online, and I still see it, where people are like, That's illegal. And they say it like a got you, like it's a crime. It's like, Okay, things can be illegal without being criminal. Do they realize that? I don't know if people realize that, but things can be against the law. You can be subject to suit without it being a crime. It's this idea that anything other than her blood will be satisfactory. It's so weird to me. It's also it's weird coming at this, I'm a prison abolitionist. It's the idea that people have this hunger for justice in their minds of justice being this-
Chels
It's punishment. They bring it up. They want that for...
Emma
A civil infraction is very foreign to me because it's like this carceral impulse, I try to tamp down in myself when it comes to things that I think are really terrible. I'm like, I still don't think incarceration is going to solve a problem. It's also, I mean, this focus, I think this is endemic of carceral logic, is that the focus is on Dailey and what does Dailey have to do rather than what can we do to help Nora, who's the victim of this?
Emma
And it's like that's endemic of carceral logic. It's like, what can we do in my own little way to punish Dailey? No one's saying, I I make sure to buy Nora Roberts books because she had this thing happen to her. It's like, that's the nature of carceral logic is that you're always going to be focused on the perpetrator and how you can poke at them. And it's not victim-centering at all.
Chels
I also wanted to talk about Susan's last message, where she's talking about both the Menendez brothers and Robert Downey Jr. That does also vary 2001. But the way that this aged is so interesting Because those are two examples of things that we have, we've looked at with time and are like, Oh, yeah, maybe that's not... Maybe we should have been... Maybe we should have reacted different. The Menendez brothers, specifically, they've had several documentaries where it's making the case that they shouldn't be... They shouldn't be a laughing stock for their abuse allegations. Those are things that we should be taking seriously.
Emma
Right. The good looks thing. It's like, and I don't know what the content of the E! True Hollywood story on the Menendez brothers in 2001 was, but the Good Looks thing is like people... That was this compounding effect with the Menendez Brothers. It's like they were saying they were sexually abused by their parents, and people are doing... They're sexualizing them while they're on trial. It's like, Oh, these boys are so sexy. It's like, this is actually doubling the harm to them. And Robert Downey Jr.
Chels
He just won an Oscar.
Emma
Right. We've forgiven him. And also, Robert Downey Jr. Was in pretty acute crisis when he was immediately before Ally McBeal and after Ally McBeal. He talks all the time. He's like, I can't believe that I'm alive. And I'm only alive because people cared about me. I'm only alive because people were giving me second chances and checking in on me and not writing me off. It was a time capsule.
Chels
Yeah. And I think just looking at that and these are the people we're going to be comparing to Dailey, I'm not saying that you should look at Dailey and be like, Oh, she didn't do anything wrong. I'm saying that maybe your really carceral impulses that you have towards these other people that you are also applying to Dailey, where you're saying, It is my little way of punishing. Maybe that's not very productive. Because I like what you said, Emma, about how it's like, what would we be doing to support Nora? Would seem like a more logical question. And yeah, I realized, too, I know that as a podcast, we all have this very specific point of view about incarceration that may not be shared from romance as a whole. But I think that informs how we view conflict and apologies and harm. And it just seems like I don't think people need to express... I don't think people need to compare Dailey to a violent criminal to express Like, how deeply hurtful the thing that she did was. Like, I don't think you're... I think that you're just being cruel in general if you do that.
Beth
It's still a thing that goes on. I feel like there will be an infraction in the book community, and then all of a sudden every potentially bad, half-heard rumor or thing that this person may or may not have done gets brought up as reasons why they're actually bad. We're not good at just keeping the context of things or just being like, Hey, that's enough for that person. I guess they did the bad thing, but that's enough punishment for that person.
Chels
Right.
Emma
I'll just point out, this has changed since 2001, but a goal of prison is no longer rehabilitation. This is from the BOP down, so from carceral institutions to sociologists who are abolitionists, nobody thinks prison is for rehabilitation anymore. It is a goal that is faulty. You cannot rehabilitate people in prison. Because prison is not rehabilitative. We've known this since the '70s. And so the goal of prison pretty exclusively is retributive. And that's why we have things like truth in sentencing. It comes from this idea that your sentence should match the crime that you did. That doesn't happen. Mandatory minimums have screwed over a bunch of people for other reasons. But the goal of prison is not rehabilitation. And rehabilitation comes from something else. But even on the BOP's website, they say stuff like, Our rehabilitative era is over. They frame it slightly more like BOP friendly than that. But yeah, we're no longer... '90s is really the rehabilitative period, and then we've come out of that area where we just don't think... That's not how we justify prison to ourselves anymore.
Chels
And then so where we're talking about punishment a lot in these message boards. And I think this is like, there's this pervasive idea, not just there, but like an all of romance that Janet Dailey didn't suffer any consequences from her plagiarism. And so I've been thinking about that for a while because to me, there are some pretty clear consequences, like settling a lawsuit and having a very tarnished reputation, having your marriage being publicly mocked by major newspapers. That is a consequence. You could argue that it's not sufficient, which I think those message boards are doing. But to me, that is a consequence. Also, Notorious got pulled. That's a consequence. You could argue the levels, but to say that nothing bad happened to Dailey because of this. Honestly, I think the reputation was probably the biggest blow after being darling of the industry for decades.
Beth
Well, this is also the main thing people know about her now.
Chels
Yeah, people don't remember her.
Beth
She's been dead for at least 10 years. It's plagiarism. It's not what she did, not all the books she published or any awards she's gotten.
Emma
You can think that's justified. You can think Janet Dailey, this is all the way we should remember her for her. But it is a consequence. Unless you just pick up one of her books randomly, if you have access to the Internet and you know her name, you're going to see stuff about this.
Beth
Exactly.
Chels
I guess continuing on We're still after the scandal. So Bill Dailey is still doing his thing in Branson. He buys what will later become the new Shanghai Theater, which is for an acrobatic show. I think I've been to this, actually, at a family reunion. I've been to Branson a few times. So I don't think I mentioned that last episode. But I lived in Arkansas for a while, so we went to Branson a lot. Before the theater opens, Bill is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and then he dies in 2005 at the age of 76. So Bill knew he was dying, so he planned his funeral and turned it into a big event. It feels like it was a very fitting send-up to his life. His friend, performer Jim Stafford, played My Way on guitar at Bill's request. Shoji Tabuchi performed, and another one of Bill's friends played, Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette, because he smoked a lot. While covering the funeral, the Springfield newsletter notes that Bill was blunt and known for his salty language. And then Janet dies in 2013 due to complications from heart surgery. So she has many obituaries and major publications, and they all mentioned how she was a romance pioneer, how much she sold, how popular she was in her lifetime, and of course, they also mention scandal.
Chels
This quote from the Los Angeles Times obituary really stuck with me. There's a formula in women's fiction called "Sin, suffer, and repent," said Dailies' agent Richard Curtis. "Well, she sinned, suffered, and repented. And then she went on."
Emma
Richard, I'm tearing up.
Beth
For better or for worse, Richard Curtis is a real one.
Emma
Yeah.
Beth
Such a good quote.
Chels
So this is where you think I'd end the episode, But there is one more thing. In 2021, Lindsay Hobbes publishes Janet Dailey and the Curious Case of the Missing Author on Topaz Literary. So Penquin Random House publishes a new Janet Dailey Calder book. It's called Calder Brand in February 2021. This gets Hobbes attention because they work in a library, and the book is in high demand. But in a conversation, someone brought up like, Janet Dailey died in 2013. Hobbes thought this might be an unpublished manuscript at first, but upon closer inspection, it was the first in a Calder spinoff series. So Dailey's website and Facebook page, and the Facebook page has since disappeared. But they also didn't mention that Dailey had died. Hobbes asks professionals, Is this abnormal? And it's not abnormal for an author who is a big brand name to have ghost writers to continue on in that tradition. But if they have died, it is bizarre not to have mentioned that. So that's something... That is weird to not have that she died on her website or to be continuing on in that vein.
Emma
It's also odd. It's odd to do this with Dailey because you think that the scandal would supersede the brand, but I guess it hasn't. Someone at Penguin Random House made the decision and said, It's worth the investment in this brand.
Chels
Right. I've went a few different ways when thinking about this because I think the conclusion, This is weird, and then me being like, Yeah, this is And then I don't know what to do with that.
Beth
I don't- Just that there's no mention of the death. You think on her book, it would be more like Janet Dailey with the Ghostwriter's name? Yeah. That's what Patterson, James Patterson does?
Chels
Yeah, I think that's definitely more common. I don't know.
Beth
Maybe they just didn't want to... Yeah, I think it would make sense to put it on the website. I guess I'm not that surprised that it's just Janet Dailey's name on the front. It looks like they're just trying to make more money on this or just keep the brand going. The book is called Calder Brand. It feels like a good name, honestly, if they're doing a spinoff series. Yeah.
Chels
I think also, too, it's just after all of this, after all that we've gone through in the past, two episodes talking about all of this, this is the one thing where I'm like, I don't have the energy for this.
Emma
To care about those. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so much of the stuff between Bill and Janet and Janet and Nora is like, oh, these people. And we're trying to suss out like, something has happened to people. People are doing things. And this is something that is totally removed from people. Like, some ghost writers writing these books, Penguin House is making, Penguin and Random House is making money off of it. Yeah. Okay. It's like, this is, whether you think it is good or bad, it's so far removed from the concerns that we've had for the past two episodes, which is a very person-focused concern.
Chels
Right. So this is where our tale ends. Did you all have any final thoughts?
Beth
It feels like the end of an era.
Emma
We spent a lot of time with Janet Dailey. Chels more than any of us, but Beth and I have been there for the ride.
Beth
Yes, it's been a good ride. I was always excited to get Janet Dailey quotes and fun facts. And I feel like it's an interesting juxtaposition in my mind where it's like, we read all these quotes from these journalists who are stripping the context from Janet's life, trying to spin a narrative. And I feel like Chels really has gone through and been like, actually, here's context. Here's more context. Here's reasons, potential reasons, motivations for why Janet did this. And also that she's more than this. I'm glad the first part of our episode was just about her life and growing up and who she was.
Emma
Yeah. Nobody is the worst thing that they've ever done And I think- Yes. I imagine this is probably Janet Dailey's worst thing she ever did. At least if we paint the arc of her life that we're publicly aware of. And we can all be aware of the bad things that people do. It's uncharitable to define anyone by the worst thing they've ever done, whether it's a violent crime or it's plagiarism. There's always going to be more to that person. That's a core tenet of prison abolition. I think you can apply it to any person. Practicing empathy is never a bad thing.
Chels
Well, I am so grateful for you both for doing this with me. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for listening to Reformed Rakes. If you'd like bonus content, you can subscribe to our Patreon at patreon. Com/reformedrakes. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram for show updates. The username for both is at reformedrakes. You can also email us at reformedrakes@gmail. Com. We love to hear from our listeners. Please rate and review us on Apple and Spotify. It helps a lot. Thank you again, and we'll see you next time.
