pla•gia•rism -[pley-juh-riz-uh m, -jee-uh-riz-] –noun - the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work.
Three years ago, I received an email for articles for a risk management trade magazine, a profession to which I am proud to belong. I deleted it. It got me thinking, though – why not send in an article and see what would happen.
So I wrote a humorous little piece on how invisible risk managers seem to be in the business world and how no one (not even my wife) had a clue what I do all day when I skip off to work. The article took me about two hours to write and another four hours to hit the send button, along with a note explaining that funny little articles would be good for the publication, since their lighter subjects included things like waiver of subrogation, environmental liability, and the pressures on the derivative markets.
So I send it in, and they print it!
So I sent another, and another, etc. and they printed them all. I started to send pieces to other publications, and they printed them as well. Then I decided that if I wrote 25 articles of about 2,500 words, I would have a book.
So I wrote a book. And I published it.
Hide! Here Comes the Insurance Guy, a text that uses humor and simple language to explain business insurance and risk management to the masses was accepted for publication by a print on demand publisher, iUniverse, in June 2006.
Why self publish? Imagine the sales pitch:
“Hey, I have a humorous yet substantive book on insurance and…”
CLICK!
So I have this book, and it’s all over the Internet, but it’s hidden in plain sight. So, to help raise my visibility, I do some press releases and get some local and national media attention, and I start The Insurance Guy Blog.
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Article comments
1 - duane
Wow. That's pley-juh-riz-uhm alright. I don't see how some people can sleep at night.
2 - Brad Schader
This may be a blog, but there are copywrites (copyrights?) applied. Blogcritics goes it automatically as do most blogger sites. You may have a case with this.
3 - Vikk Simmons
Plagerism has always been a problem but with today's global internet publishing it's rampant. It doesn't help that so many appear to be growing up with the attitude that everything is fair game rather than fair use. Good luck.