Thankfully we’ve never had a problem with plagiarized work here at Dagan Books, but it does happen. An author thinks that they can steal sentences, paragraphs, or even whole stories, and pass it off as their own original work. Not a good author, of course, but someone convinced they can’t create anything better than what they could take from someone else.

In light of some recent problems at other publications, we’ve included a new clause in our contracts from here on out:

If the Publisher chooses to cancel publication of a story less than 30 days before the release of the anthology, for any reason other than having received evidence of plagiarism within the affected story, the Author will receive payment for the work, even though it will not be published. Evidence of plagiarism will render the story unpublishable, the Author will not be paid, and will further be prevented from working with Dagan Books in any capacity for a period of at least one calendar year from the date of notification.

We like transparency here at Dagan Books, so we’re sharing this clause with you. It’s also a warning, in its way. If we can prove that you even submitted something plagiarized to us, you’ll go on a “do not hire” list for a least a year. Depending on how egregious your use of someone else’s work, you may stay on that list indefinitely, and never be accepted for publication by us, ever again.

Hopefully this is simply a routine notice, and we won’t ever have to use it.

- Carrie Cuinn, Publisher