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How Kaavya stole, got caught and made her moolah

Plagiarism is proving to be good for business

Any publicity, good or bad will do a world of good to sale of a book. This seems to be the conclusion of bookshop owners as they count the money from the sale of James Frey's Million Little Pieces (a fictional account masquerading as non-fiction), Kaavya Viswanathan's now-notorious How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, and Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code (plagiarism charges, since dismissed).

"On the first day, we sold two books, the next day four, now we are averaging 10 books a day," says Lingam Prasad at Walden about the sale of Kaavya's book from the day her plagiarism of 40 passages and storyline from Megan McCafferty, Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings

was revealed by Harvard Crimson. The university where she was studying but now has taken a break.

The booming sale is not just a Hyderabad phenomenon, the online retailer amazon.com is reporting that Kavvya's book has jumped from 178th position to 68th position in its bestseller list.

Even James Frey's Million Little Pieces which talks about a junkie coming good in a first person account and was saluted in the Oprah Winfrey's show did some great business after the fraud was unearthed in another blog. "We did good business with Million Little Pieces and Opal Mehta... as soon as the controversy broke out. But we cannot link the sale of Da Vinci Code to plagiarism charge or the release of the movie. It is selling at a constant pace," said Asif of A.A. Husain Books at Abids about the tizzy in book world due to plagiarism.

SERISH NANISETTI

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