The Great Black Plant Scandal of 2009 (Black Plantergate?)

After a less than pleasant exchange with an author last July, I vented on Twitter and jokingly said, “FYI. If you even think of mentioning black plants, author Karen Platt will demand that you cite her book. Apparently she invented them.” I’ve gone back and forth about publishing a more detailed post, because quite frankly, this really isn’t my fight. But Ms. Platt’s blog post about how she is supposedly being ripped off by a publisher is absurd, and now she is publishing reviews on Amazon and Powell’s trashing other black plant books and pimping her book. NOT COOL. Since she won’t stop emailing me every time I mention black plants, here ya go, the full story….

On July 21st, Ms. Platt left this comment on a post I had written about black plants that was inspired by a post I had found on Mr. Brown Thumb’s blog:

“Mr Brown Thumb’s Black garden was probably inspired by the book “Black Magic and Purple Passion’ now in its glorious third edition. It describes over 2750 dark plants many darker than those shown here. The author is the only person to have researched black plants for over twenty years and is also the founder of the International Black Plant Society.

So check out the website and go buy the book and create the garden for your dark side.”

[emphasis mine]

I decided not to publish the comment because it was so blatantly self promotional, and made unverified (and probably incorrect) claims regarding Mr. Brown Thumb’s inspiration. I sent Ms. Platt an email explaining that I generally don’t publish self-promotional comments.

Ms. Platt responded saying that she thought my readers would find her book to be a valuable resource, and that without her, no one would even know about black plants:

“Without me, few would have any interest in black plants. When I started over twenty years ago, no-one wrote about them, spoke about them or anything else. I published all my own books, which are currently being copied by Timber Press.”

She then went on to outline how she thought three of her books were being plagiarized by books published by Timber Press [to which I want to say right now that I think her allegations are the half-crazed rants of an author who thinks way too highly of herself]. I responded by asking her if I could forward her email to Timber Press so that I could hear their side of things. I also said that if what she was alleging was true, that I would be happy to help her publicize what was going on.

She responded with this email that was so over-the-top in love with herself that I just couldn’t help but laugh when I read it. This is the first paragraph of her diatribe:

I wrote you because you mentioned black plants, and I was so instrumental in bringing black plants into cultivation. Seeing everyone writing little snippets about black plants without mentioning me is rather annoying to say the least and often the information on blogs is inaccurate. Some bloggers do thankfully talk about me and my work, and give full mention of my book. Without this, people like Timber Press get away with claiming that their silver book was the only book on the subject.

[All emphasis is mine]

Apparently everyone who mentions black plants is supposed to cite her book. Yeah right. Most of you reading this are also put on notice that you are a member of a lowly class that doesn’t know what you’re talking about and don’t have the common courtesy to cite your sources (probably because you had no idea that all interesting ideas seem to originate with Ms. Platt). Also, if she was “so instrumental in bringing black plants into cultivation,” then how did she find nearly 3,000 black plants to discuss in her book? She really developed that many black plants all by her lonesome? It seems hard to believe. But hey, I guess anything is possible.

She then went on to claim that a well-known plant developer had wronged her by putting out a line of black plants without her name on them. She claims that she originally worked with them but that the plant developer committed atrocity after atrocity and finally severed the contract. To be honest, not working with Ms. Platt was probably the smartest thing they ever did. She then closed that email with a paragraph about her plans to contact Timber and possibly sue them, but that she had been told that it would cost, “at least 40,000 GBP (around a 100,000 dollars) to do so.”

She over-inflates the pound to dollar conversion. Last July, £40,000 GBP was more like $65,000. I guess little details like that are beneath her. I don’t even get how she knows that the new book plagiarizes her when the new book wasn’t published at the time of this conversation. Big details like that also apparently elude her.

Furthermore, how can an author plagiarize a general idea like writing a book about plants of a certain color? Even assuming that her story is true (she was in negotiations with Timber, couldn’t reach a deal, so they told her they’d find a different author to write a book about black plants), who cares? How does what Timber did violate her intellectual property?! She doesn’t own the idea of black plants. As a friend pointed out to me on Facebook, according to Ms. Platt’s definition of plagiary, every biography after the first one published about a person is plagiarism.

Anyway, I had had enough by then and sent this admittedly harsh email back to her:

You know, I’d be more inclined to believe you if you weren’t so full of yourself. Every time someone mentions loving black plants, they’re supposed to cite your book or mention that you are the Queen of all Black Plants?! Your first email was a little pompous, but I empathized with your situation, so I figured that you were probably just frustrated. But this email is over the top.

Sorry, but I’m not interested in getting involved anymore than I already have. There isn’t any need to contact me further or leave any future comments on Life on the Balcony.

To which she responded:

look who’s talking – if you were not so full of yourself you’d give credit to someone who has actually done something instead of create a minor little blog and try to look like she knows something about plants. If you were not so pompous you would not assume you could take it on yourself to intervene in the way you tried. I didn’t see too many subscribes to your little effort.
And no don’t reply because you are labelled as JUNK mail.

– Karen or should I call myself a plant name

So, just to recap:

1. I am full of myself because I didn’t cite her book when I published a post about black plants. [I didn't know her book existed, sorry!]
2. I created “a minor little blog” where I pretend to know something about plants. [LOL. I'm not a gardener, I just play one on the internet!]
3. It was pompous of me to offer to help her if her story could be verified [Oops. Sorry for offering.]
4. I don’t have very many blog subscribers [744 people subscribe to the RSS feed and another 166 receive LOTB posts by email.]
5. I made up my name [I guess my mom will have to pipe in an confirm that she did in fact bestow upon me a little-old-lady name like 'Fern']

I used to participate in a large women’s message board that had lots and lots of funny drama. Ms. Platt’s last email would qualify as a first rate hairflip. Brava Ms. Platt. You’re right up there with the best of the internet trolls and wackos.

I don’t know about you guys, but I am boycotting anything written by Karen Platt. It is bad enough that she thinks no one should mention black plants without citing her, but trashing other authors is just plain mean spirited and goes against some of the best values I’ve learned from participating in social media and blogging. Another author writing about the same subject isn’t competition, it’s community! We should all be helping to promote the good work of others in our niche, not just because it’s the nice thing to do, but because it helps build interest in our subject.

This is the comment I left on her Amazon review:

Karen Platt is on a vendetta to trash anyone who dares to write about one of “her” topics, like black plants. I seriously doubt she even read this book before reviewing it, as she was emailing me and libeling this author and his publisher before the book was even published. Considering that she is the only reviewer that has thought poorly of this book, and in light of who she is, I think everyone can agree that her review isn’t worth the server space it’s stored on.

If you also feel that it is wrong to trash other authors merely because they deigned to cover the same topic that you have written about, then I encourage you to leave a comment on Amazon too.

UPDATE: A couple of weeks after I originally posted this, Karen Platt threatened to sue me and other bloggers who had reported on her bad behavior. I laughed at her threats, as they had absolutely no legal merit. Then, on November 18th, Karen posted a ridiculous response that–funnily enough–makes inaccurate statements about me. She accused me of libeling her by quoting her emails (not sure how that’s possible?) but she responds by making false statements about me? Everything I said Karen said, and all of my responses to her can be verified by our email correspondance. Karen can’t say the same. I guess if she ever does find a lawyer who will sue me on her trumped up charges, I’ll have a decent countersuit.

Oh, Amazon also removed Karen’s reviews of Timber Press’s “competing” books. I guess that is some validation that Karen Platt’s behavior was totally out of line.

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