Two things came to my notice this week.
The first was an email from another writer. Please buy my book now, he said, if you’re going to, because I’m withdrawing it from sale.
Why, I wondered? It was quite a successful book.
Well, the reason, he said, is that another multi-million selling author wants to buy his plot. And the offer from the novel magnate was just too good to refuse.
In one way, it’s quite insulting – it says ‘I can write your plot better than you can’. In another way, it’s quite flattering to be chosen by a mega-selling phenomenon. And no doubt there’s a feature film in the planning with the big name writer’s name all over it.
The money is a careful deal to avoid the more expensive cost of being sued for plagiarism, and is at least more honest than the now notorious practice of just copying someone else’s file and changing the names of the characters.
In the same week, in The Society of Authors Magazine, I read that Wilbur Smith, who is now 82 years of age, has just signed a contract for 8 books with Harper Collins. According to The Times, a team of authors will ‘flesh out’ his plots. Ghost writers have of course always existed, but usually for people who are not writers.
So there you have it – the answer. Buy a successful plot from someone else, and get a team of other writers to flesh it out for you.
Of course that only works if you’ve done your apprenticeship and built a name for yourself. So, better give me a few more years before I can sit back and buy a plot and a team of writers! Would it still be a Deborah Swift book then? Would readers feel cheated to find I was just a name and hadn’t even thought of the idea for the novel, let alone written the book? Over to you!
I don’t know why but this makes me cross. Laziness on the part of the ‘successful’ author, perhaps? And how much of their success is due to the hard work of other writers, because if he/she has done this once they might very well have done it lots of times…
Yes, I somehow think of it as cheating, though I think there’s always been a measure of this type of thing going on. Though I hope like Smith I’ll still be wanting to write at 82. Better start saving now to pay my team!!
Gosh, so you have some big name writers buying plots from lesser-known writers, and other big names writers not even writing their novels at all. Hm? I’d much rather be told the truth. There’s a bond between the reader and writer, we expect the story to be the fiction, not the author. I wonder, too, if these writing teams will create books even faster than ever and this will put even more pressure on the solitary writer to produce more and more in less and less time. Sounds like it’s going to be survival of the richest. And so the answer to your question, yes, I would feel cheated to find Deborah Swift was just a name and you hadn’t even thought of the idea for your novel, let alone written the book.
Yes Marianne, I agree about the pressure. We are under quite enough already. Once writers buy their content from other writers it could become about the writer with the most puchasing power, rather than the one with the best ideas. But i suspect publishers have no such qualms. To them, it’s just good business.
I don’t think readers realise 🙁 which is one reason I find the practice somehow a cheat, although I understand the publishing practicalities – and the money side!
Yes. I think readers still think of the writer as being sole author of the work. When I tell this to readers at Library talks that many authors have pseudonyms (me included as I’m also known as Davina Blake), and that Norah Robersts is also JD Robb they are surprised. Though I think they have heard of Currer Bell for the Brontes etc.but don’t realise there is still a necessity for it.
If you don’t write it yourself, then it’s not your book. So please keep on writing them yourself!
Thanks Anna, I will. But probably not as quick as you! I don’t know how you do it, you’re a phenomenon!
Saw a programme about Ian Rankin who at least writes the basic plot and is honest about it. Says he only writes about 30 pages and the rest is done by ghost writers. However famous you are in my eyes it’s still cheating!
Oh, that’s interesting, to just write the beginning! That’s the easy part! About 30,000 words in is where I get stuck….any volunteers?!