Using co-authors to up the output

[Montero]

BBC News article on big name authors like Wilbur Smith using co-authors (uncredited) for producing more books per year.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20664571

 

[thaddeus6th]

Hmm.

I rather dislike this, to be honest. Co-authoring it absolutely fine, but people deserve credit (assuming they want it), and it's disingenuous to present a book as being written by X, if X just came up with the premise and Y and Z did the actual writing.

 

[stephen.samuels]

It does feel somewhat fraudulent, however it has been a common professional practice for many a year.

Thomas Edison, anyone?

 

[Gordian Knot]

Co-Authoring is huge on this side of the pond. Although here they are generally credited. Some of the big names like Patterson and Cussler, to name the first two that come to mind are both working with multiple co-authors to double or even triple their output.

 

[James Coote]

Coming from an engineering background, I don't understand why there is so little collaboration in the creation of novels. Pooling ideas and talent, where one author might be better at constructing prose, another dialogue seems obvious.

Doing it just to speed up production and you lose that hand-crafted aesthetic

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Coming from an engineering background, I don't understand why there is so little collaboration in the creation of novels. Pooling ideas and talent, where one author might be better at constructing prose, another dialogue seems obvious.

Doing it just to speed up production and you lose that hand-crafted aesthetic

There are some fine collaborations in the field of science fiction, to be sure -- Pohl and Kornbluth, Pournelle and Niven, Kuttner and Moore, and so on.

What concerns me are books that have a credit like "BY JOE FAMOUS (with Mary Unknown)." In such a case, the reader is probably buying the book because of the name Famous; but the book may have actually been written almost entirely by Unknown, from an outline by Famous. That seems somewhat misleading to me.

Take, for example, the huge number of paperback horror novels that say "By V. C. Andrews" on the cover, published many years after she died. If you look inside one of these books, you'll see, in small print, the explanation that these are written by a fellow who is working from the late author's notes.

 

[J-Sun]

This thread and especially the last post relate to another thread about SF collaborations. This particular form of "collaboration" came up as what gives the real kind a bad name. It's a shame and a con and I strongly disapprove. But there are good collaborations, too.

 

[Gordian Knot]

I don't think the kind of situations we are discussing here can be said to be collaborations in any traditional sense. The books with the Big Name author in 48 point letters on the cover and the co-author in 12 point is not a collaboration. It is a gimmick by the big name authors to put out more product to make more money.

What I find interesting about this situation is that, as far as I can tell, most readers don't seem to mind very much. No longer is the writing the product. The Big Name has become the product.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Having ghost writers write up novels for famous authors just feels so much like cheating. It's wrong, and nothing to do with writing. It's selling a name, and whoring the industry: by diminishing the importance of new writers to satisfy the old rich.

It feels so political - the rich exploit the poor for their own gain - and this is exactly what Wilbur Smith and James Patterson are doing - exploiting others to take all the credit for themselves.

Stinks.

 

[alchemist]

What I find interesting about this situation is that, as far as I can tell, most readers don't seem to mind very much. No longer is the writing the product. The Big Name has become the product.

I'd mind, if I knew. I agree with Brian's stink-calling.

I wonder if this accounts for the differing quality of books by the same author (can't think of an example right now)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I believe it was a common practice in the 19th century. The elder Dumas had collaborators and assistants to help him churn out his great output of plays and novels.

And not just for his lesser works. How many of us know (I didn't, until I just looked it up) that The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers were written by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet?
.




.

 

[Gordian Knot]

I agree the tactic stinks. It is not, however, underhanded as the co-author's name is right on the cover with the Big author's name. They are not hiding the fact that it is co-written, so no one can claim ignorance. And anyone with a lick of sense should be able to figure out that the co-author is doing most of the writing. How could the Big name suddenly triple their output otherwise????

As I mentioned above, what has happened is that the author has become the product. Not what they write.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I grew up reading the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew - I didn't and still don't care that Franklin W Dixon and Carolyn Keene are syndicates. The stories were good and I spent happy hours reading them.

I am sure that the unnamed coauthor gets rewarded financially and knows what they are getting in to when they write.

 

[J-Sun]

I grew up reading the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew - I didn't and still don't care that Franklin W Dixon and Carolyn Keene are syndicates.

That's a slightly different issue, IMO - like Tom Swift or Mack Bolan, you're buying "The Hardy Boys" there. It's basically the same thing as the more up-front Star Wars/Star Trek/Dr. Who stuff. With those series they have whatever author write it and put the name on the cover but it hardly matters who writes them and with the Hardy Boys they put the same name on the cover but the series (of dozens and hundreds of books) is the thing. This sounds more like a thing where the author is being falsely used to sell completely generic product that is nevertheless supposed to be a unique (or small series) aesthetic creation. I mean, IOW, who's Victor Appleton besides Swift? So, indeed, who cares if the name is a house name? But here you're having "famous author X who wrote book Y is now co-writing a new masterpiece A with co-author B" and B is some schmuck, A is not really doing any work, the reader isn't getting the work of A and C can't publish because he's not A and won't prostitute himself to work with A. Which, as has been said, stinks.

 

[James Coote]

I agree the tactic stinks. It is not, however, underhanded as the co-author's name is right on the cover with the Big author's name. They are not hiding the fact that it is co-written, so no one can claim ignorance. And anyone with a lick of sense should be able to figure out that the co-author is doing most of the writing. How could the Big name suddenly triple their output otherwise????

As I mentioned above, what has happened is that the author has become the product. Not what they write.

You could argue the big name author is giving a leg up to the unknown sub-author by allowing them to get their name on bookshelves and in people's minds.

Even the bookshelves are ordered by author surname. What if you had author teams that went by their team name? Tolkien & Son, Arrakis Studios. Musicians sell under all sorts of names and labels. Under a band name, as a solo artist, as x feat. y.

For example, the In Search Of Sunrise series of trance mixes were released as by DJ Tiesto, but the last couple in the series before Tiesto left the record label were mostly mixed by his understudy Richard Durand. Such that the record label continued the series under Durand's name when Tiesto left (despite Tiesto being probably the most recognisable name in the genre).

 

[biodroid]

Doesn't James Patterson produce some ridiculous amount of books a year with the help of co-authors? I still don't understand the reasoning. Stephen King and Peter Straub collabed on The Talisman and Blackhouse but that was a once off. I understand the Dragonlance series having 2 authors and it would be strange not to hear the words Weis and Hickman when mentioning those books. Patterson I think is just trying to cash in.

 

[Boneman]

When I read this, I thought "WHAT....?' Wilbur Smith is a multimillionaire, and some of his early books are fantastic reads; rattling stories with great characterisation, and plotlines. Why TF would he need to do this?? It smacks of greed by him, at at time in his life when he surely doesn't need those extra milions. But the publishers apparently need the (tainted?) profits. When the writing turns out to be sub-standard, what then? Does he really want his legacy as a writer to be tarnished by this? I'm gobsmacked.

 

[Gordian Knot]

Well as far as the money goes, apparently the more money one has attained, the greater the need to have even more of it. Plus, as you suggested, I wonder how much of this is being pushed by the publishing industry rather than the authors.

James comment on giving a leg up for the unknown sub-author may or may not have any merit. That would depend, I suppose, on whether these unknowns have ever, or will ever, be allowed to write books under their own name. Does anyone know if any of these co-authors have graduated to full author status?

 

[Gumboot]

I don't really have a problem with them plastering a big name on the front with the actual author's name underneath; in that instance I basically consider the big name author to be a brand name.

But have a big name and not crediting the actual author is an entirely different kettle of fish; and frankly I think it goes against the principals of the Berne Copyright Convention.

And having small print inside the cover saying "Actually, John Bloggs wrote this book" isn't good enough in my opinion. The real author's name should be on the cover.

 

[JunkMonkey]

And most of the Pre 19C Great Master painters were factories. With the Master, Rubens say, providing an outline and sketches and a team of pupils and students doing the grunt work on the big canvas - mostly uncredited.