It’s Cocky Week! | Jerusalem Mortimer: Between the Lines

The patent Faleena Hopkins took out on the word “cocky”, as used in a book title, is now marked as “Cancellation pending”.

I understand that Hopkins is now trying to find someone prepared to say that they love her “the Ball-Cocky Plumber” series, and they accidentally bought a book called something like “the Cocky Spaniel”, thinking it was one of hers. Without looking at the author’s name.

I think that’s going to be her argument against trademark cancellation. So for that and other reasons that I’m not going into here, trademark cancellation is a certainty.

I’m pleased about this. I’m never likely to use the word “cocky” in a title or, except when I’m talking about #cockygate, in a sentence. But bullying does annoy me.

Here’s Faleena Hopkins’s threatening letter to the romance writer Jamilla Jasper.

Hi Jamilla,

My name is Faleena Hopkins, author of Cocker Brothers, the Cocky® Series.

The Federal Trademark Commission has granted me the official registered trademark of the workmark “Cocky” in relation to romance books, no matter the font.

Trademark Registration Number: 5447836

This is romance writer Jamilla Jasper. I know it’s irrelevant, but I think she’s quite good-looking. Update: It’s a stock photo, the rights licensed by 123RF. Oh well.

I am writing to you out of professional respect so that you may rename your book “Cocky Cowboy” which shares the same title as my book, and republish all the versions (ebook, paperback and audible) on Amazon to keep your ratings and money earned.

My attorney at Morris Yom Entertainment Law has advised me that if I sue you, I will win all the monies you have earned on this title, plus lawyer fees will be paid by you as well.

I will do that – but I’d rather give you the option.

[…]

Thank you,

Faleena Hopkins.

There’s real evocation of character in that letter. The mix of pious, I’m only doing this for your own good, and the threatening, I will take all the money you earned on your book, would be good character-drawing, if she were a competent fiction writer.

In her fiction, she writes like this:

I toss the phone onto my dresser, I strip naked glancing to the mirror positioned across from my bed as I check out my body. […] I like my body looking this good, and that takes work– just like anything else worth having.

Reflexively, my gaze flicks up next to where my favorite mirror is– the ceiling.

As I pull boxer briefs down my thighs and my freed cock bounces out, I begrudgingly mutter to its sleepy head, “Been way too long since I’ve made use of you, buddy.”

Leaping on my bed I stretch naked limbs over the goose down and enjoy my yawning muscles.

So, as a character, this guy likes run-on sentences, and he’s naked. He also seems a little narcissistic, so I don’t know why he doesn’t look at his ceiling mirror, only next to it. Astigmatism, possibly.

But her threatening letters are definitely better writing than her books. I’m sure there’s some sort of living to be made from that fact.

Anyway, the actual cancellation of the “cocky” trademark may take weeks, because of the dazzling speed of bureaucracy, but the issue, it seems to me, is over and done with. Which is to be celebrated.

I’m off to exercise my yawning muscles. Guess they must be in my face, somewhere.

By the way, Jamilla Jaspers reacts to threats real well. Her book, The Cocky Cowboy is now called, “The Cockiest Cowboy who Ever Cocked“. It’s on Amazon!

The wheels of chance have spun, and I wanted champagne and runny cheese, or possibly money. But what I got was “natural light” and “toys”.

“Well, all right,” she said, “at least about the natural light. But that damn paddle is never a toy.”

I picked up the paddle, and slapped it on the wooden table, which really was there, just out of shot in this image. The impact of leather on wood made a noise like a Presidential assassination. With an old-fashioned 303: they were loud. It made a noise that discouraged further argument with the man who held that paddle.

“I say it’s a toy,” I said. Cockily. “Discuss?”

No. There was no more discussion.

It was time for percussion.

Note

The title of this post includes a word I think I’ve never actually typed before. It’s there because a romance writer of modest gifts, Faleena Hopkins, took out a copyright on the word “cocky”, and is using that as the basis for sending threatening letters to other writers who’ve used the word “cocky” in book-titles.

The letters threaten to take all the proceeds from any book written with the word “cocky” in the title.

As a former magazine editor, if I got a letter on those lines I’d laugh, show it round the office so others could have a snort, and glue it to a sheet in the crank file. (We used to keep the threats we received, to look through and cheer ourselves up if we ever thought we were being boring.)

But writers who don’t have access to legal advice, and are living hand to mouth, can easily find such letters alarming.

The Romance Writers of America is now preparing a case to have the copyright over the word “cocky” overturned. But for this week, in support of writers threatened by Faleena Hopkins, my every post will have the word “cocky” in the title.

You can follow this story by checking #byefaleena on Twitter.