The French publisher Lattes has sent “warning letters” to publishers it feels are infringing on the copyright of Fifty Shades of Grey.

The Telegraph had this quote from editorial director Laurent Laffont: ”Some of these titles, which pick up on elements of the book, are clearly parasitical … We would like those planning new releases next year to know that we are watching very closely to ensure they are not parasitical.”

Online authors should never forget that readers can travel backwards in Internet time and explore their earlier work. Author E L James scored a seven-figure book deal to publish the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy and a movie deal quickly followed.

This erotica bestseller began as a work of Twilight fan fiction called Master of the Universe, earning a massive fan fiction following years before the book deal. Most traces of this fan fiction history have been removed from the Internet. Using the Wayback Machine, we were able to take snapshots from James’ old work–getting a peek into the book’s previous incarnation as an X-rated version of the Twilight story.

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We’ve included more excerpts from the filing below. According to this proposed settlement document (PDF link via Publishers Weekly), HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster will settle the case and end the agency agreement.

Follow this PDF link to read the DOJ complaint. Here is an excerpt (via Jane Litte): “Publisher Defendants took steps to conceal their communications with one another, including instructions to ‘double delete’ e-mail and taking other measures to avoid leaving a paper trail.”

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Almost one year ago, Australian publisher The Writer’s Coffee Shop Publishing House released the first book of the trilogy.  The book went on to sell over 250,000 copies in eBooks and paperbacks.

GalleyCat has obtained a copy of the original fan fiction manuscript (published under the name Snowqueens Icedragon). Below, we’ve compared the first few paragraphs of that book with the similar opening from The Writer’s Coffee Shop edition of the novel published last year (Publishers Weekly has a quote from the Writer’s Coffee Shop Publishing House publisher confirming the book’s fan fiction origins). What do you think?

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When Dear Author editor Jane Litte asked about eBook pricing, the CEO wrote back personally: “Hi Jane. The high mass market pricing is a legacy of the old model. Under the agency model trade paperbacks will be $9.99 and lower. Mass markets will probably be at the price of the physical book or lower. We may do some experimenting on price here since digtal will be paperback format agnostic. Some books exsist in both formats…”

Nevertheless, it soon appeared that answering comments could become a full-time job for the CEO. As the responses to his posts climbed past fifty, Sargent typed: “Thanks for the comments. I’ll get back to you as time allows. I’ll also try to gather groups of questions that indicate I have not been clear enough and answer them in my next post.”

What do you think? Read more responses to the post after the jump.

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As GalleyCat continues to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday, here are a few links to our favorite posts over the last week…

A few 2009 National Book Awards finalists shared recession-era advice for writers.

Penguin unveiled a trippy new “Vampire Academy” cover.

We spotted the airport-edition of the best books of the year.

The Romance Writers of America (RWA) cut off Dear Author co-editor Jane Litte for her online opinions that included “numerous posts on your blog and on the ‘romfail’ thread on Twitter that indicate you do not support RWA or romance authors.”

Tweetbookz helped people self-publish their Twitter feeds.

Finally, Harlequin renamed their self-publishing unit.

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A number of writers, publishers, and readers have organized a rogue digital conference on July 16 at 8 a.m. in the same hotel. Entitled “Think Fresh, Think Digital,” the line-up includes Sarah Wendell of SmartBitchesTrashyBooks, (who was quite recently profiled), Jane Litte from Dear Author, Angela James, executive editor of Samhain Publishing, and the authors Maya Banks and Lauren Dane.

Here’s more from the post: “While we have some great sponsors including: Books on Board, Red Sage Publishing, Samhain Publishing, Quartet Press, and Smart Bitches, this is a streamlined event and we would ask you to bring your own tea, coffee, hashbrowns or donuts. That’s right, it’s BYOTCH-D.”

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Added president Roy Blount Jr., “A publisher is meant to publish, to get out there and sell our books. A publishing house is not supposed to be a place where our books are permanently squirreled away.” It’s a sentiment that Jane Litte at Dearauthor.com wholeheartedly agrees with. “The publisher is signaling that it will no longer include minimum sales requirements for a work to be considered in print. Simon & Schuster is apparently seeking nothing less than an exclusive grant of rights in perpetuity. Effectively, the publisher would co-own your copyright.”

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