Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. It’s Mother’s Day Weekend and I’m excited to celebrate my mom. We’re all gathering at her house because she’s lives kind of in the center of all of us siblings. That means I won’t be able to spend as much time writing as I would like, but it’s always like this at the end of the school year.
Anyway, today I thought I’d talk about a big blow up in the writing community. This is one of those stories that is stranger than fiction and it’s totally true. We’ll call it The Faleena Hopkins Story.
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To get the full scoop check out Jenny Trout’s post on it here. She has written so eloquently what everyone in the writing community is feeling and she gives you the facts on how it all came about. I’ll give you a quick run-down. Faleena Hopkins is a self-published author who has a series on the market with the word “Cocky” in her titles because her characters are the Cocker brothers. She has trademarked the word “Cocky.”
Now everyone in their right mind knows they can’t trademark titles or even words for that matter. Because if you can, I’m going to trademark the words “The” and “And.” Do you see why you can’t do this?
Photo credit: cheerfulmonk on Visual hunt / CC BY-NC-SA
We all know Faleena is mistaken. Her biggest mistake is that she doesn’t understand the difference between her brand and her title. “Cocky” is a word she is using in the title of her books. It is not a brand. Titles cannot be copyrighted and neither can names of characters.
To protect her “brand” she has sent cease and desist orders to other authors with the word “Cocky” in their titles. This has caused quite an uproar in the writing community and we have to question her motives. After all, I’ve never heard of Faleena Hopkins until this transpired. Now, all of a sudden her name is in blog posts and tweets have exploded on twitter discussing this issue. Could this be a publicity stunt that has gone hopelessly awry?
Photo credit: Steve Crane on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-SA
No. I don’t think it is. I believe Faleena actually believed she was protecting her brand. She misunderstood what a brand was and unfortunately, this misunderstanding has hurt her writing career. Most likely ruined it. I know there are many readers who’ve been put off by Faleena’s actions. So if she’s hoping to ever get a traditional publishing deal…yeah…well that bridge has been burned. The RWA (Romance Writers of America) has joined this battle to help some of these authors who now have to engage in costly legal battles to keep their titles.
We can all learn from Faleena’s mistake. When you start marketing your books, set some goals and figure out a way to reach them. If you have questions on how to do this, talk to other authors who are doing it. The writing community is filled with people who are willing to lend a hand. It’s such an amazing group of people and for God’s sake make sure you understand the difference between a brand and a title. It’ll save you all kinds of money in legal fees if you do.
Photo credit: m_shipp22 on VisualHunt/ CC BY
Thanks for stopping by and reading my post. What are your feelings on the Faleena Hopkins saga? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you!
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