# Extreme Write to the Market



## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

http://www.moneyearningideas.com/success-stories/not-writing-ebooks-generated-100000-profits/


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## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

I watched a video on her months ago. Here she is:


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

LilyBLily said:


> There are people who make a living off other people's creative endeavor, and there's a word for them.


Entrepreneurs. The ghost writers are getting paid. It's their choice. There's a guy named James Patterson who invented this model.


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## Erratic (May 17, 2014)

From the article:  "I am a romance ebook publishing expert and coach. I spend most of my time now consulting with clients and helping them improve their self-publishing businesses."

She doesn't call herself an author. She sells her success story to hopefuls.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

LilyBLily said:


> There are people who make a living off other people's creative endeavor, and there's a word for them.


Are ghostwriters to be condemned for supplying their work to people like Blocka, or is it okay for them to do what they want with their writing? If people like Blocka didn't want ghostwritten work, it wouldn't be possible to work as a ghostwriter, and some folks prefer to use their writing skills in that way.


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## Guest (Dec 10, 2016)

James Patterson didn't invent the model.
Probably the most successful one was the publisher who created Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, etc.
John Jakes broke into the big time when he was hired to write The Bastard as the first in a series about the American Revolution. On his own, he went on to write North and South.
There are other examples.


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

What is this propensity to denigrate people for finding their own paths in selling books? I  thought that's what being indie was all about.

Not everyone wants to walk to school barefoot, in the snow, up hill, both ways.

Are authors really threatened by this business model?


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## Zaitsev (Feb 21, 2016)

Sickening. Depressing. I hate it.


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## Lefevre (Feb 1, 2014)

Zaitsev said:


> Sickening. Depressing. I hate it.


Well said!


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

berke said:


> What is this propensity to denigrate people for finding their own paths in selling books? I thought that's what being indie was all about.
> 
> Not everyone wants to walk to school barefoot, in the snow, up hill, both ways.
> 
> Are authors really threatened by this business model?


I think people confuse being an author, writer..."artist", with selling stuff on the internet. Some people like the idea of selling books, ghostwritten or otherwise, but at the end of the day, it's just a product. It's cool to be involved with The Arts and the literati, but if kites become super popular next year, there's a good chance they might decide to sell kites instead. Books are popular as investment opportunities because, if one chooses, there is almost zero upfront expense, no inventory, no carrying costs, very little risk, and again, with the right process, you can never "lose" money.

Writers write because...we're writers. It's what we do. It's what we did before self-publishing, it's what we do even if we don't sell well, and if the whole Indie thing crashes and burns...we'll still write.

On the other hand, entrepreneurs building mini-publishing businesses are opportunists (and I use that term with the best of intentions, that's what good business is all about), which is a separate endeavor, regardless of their ability to write or make kites. Their self actualization is centered upon improving revenue - making money, not about having something to say or trying to tell better stories.

One is not better than the other, however, we end up with "Artists" v "Entrepreneurs", and while much of the day to day work, the writing and the marketing, is essentially the same, they are still two very different emotional and philosophical approaches to monetizing books.

Entrepreneurs preach writing to market to satisfy consumers, just like Johnson and Johnson and iHop and Secret Antiperspirant - it's business, and catering to your core audience is how you build your brand. This strategy has repeatedly been proven to work through the retail channel for decades. I think the "art" aspect of books changes the messaging and the product in ways that negate much of business 101, but that's my (rather strong, hence doing everything "right" and still failing) opinion, not necessarily a fact. (I also believe that this entire business is woefully short on marketing facts because there are far too many variables to account for, so drawing meaningful conclusions from other people's strategies are "iffy" at best.)

Writers preach having something new and unique to say...something they feel is important (not that it necessarily is). For example, Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs were writers. So were Atwood, Lee, Woolf and Tolkien.

While both sides often discuss anecdotes as industry truths and outliers as trend setters, (absent any meaningful business analysis), the problem is exacerbated because neither side can agree upon the basic objective assumptions that define our industry; the two positions seem to fall along these diametrically opposed lines:



> If you are a Writing To Market author entrepreneur you have sold out and have no integrity as a writer; your work is essentially as disposable as greeting cards, so why bother with pretending anything you write actually matters? Follow the trends and formulas and crank out the mediocre prose, after all, the books don't matter - they're just a means to an end, the cash at the other end.


Or...



> Sure, follow your muse, write the story in your heart, just don't expect to sell anything, and don't b*tch and moan and complain because your books aren't selling, we could have told you they wouldn't sell right out of the gate. Where's the genre tropes? Who is your core audience? So what, $2,000 worth of editing and proofing services with no prayer of ever getting any of it back? Why not just publish on Watt-pad, self-publishing is business. The grown ups are talking now, go play at your hobby in silence.


Neither attitude is totally "right", but then both have a kernel of truth in them, so they're not completely "wrong" either. And most importantly, neither approach is more or less likely to result in financial success than the other, regardless of how loud or self-righteously defensive (vindictive) the shouting gets.

Perhaps we need to focus more on the day to day similarities rather than the differences, and accept the reality of our personal choices, you can't have it both ways.

I'm trying to say something with my books, I'm not following genres, not following tropes, I don't even have plots per se...but on the flip side, while I'm still trying to get readers through traditional marketing methods given the product at hand, I'm not complaining about sales, because the WTM crowd is right - temper expectations accordingly.

Just an opinion.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

I wouldn't call what she's doing writing to market.

She's a savvy marketer/publisher masquerading as an author. When I think of writing to market, I think of an actual writer figuring out what's selling and trying their hand at it, not outsourcing the writing and then selling it as their own.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

P.J. Post said:


> I think people confuse being an author, writer..."artist", with selling stuff on the internet. Some people like the idea of selling books, ghostwritten or otherwise, but at the end of the day, it's just a product. It's cool to be involved with The Arts and the literati, but if kites become super popular next year, there's a good chance they might decide to sell kites instead. Books are popular as investment opportunities because, if one chooses, there is almost zero upfront expense, no inventory, no carrying costs, very little risk, and again, with the right process, you can never "lose" money.
> 
> Writers write because...we're writers. It's what we do. It's what we did before self-publishing, it's what we do even if we don't sell well, and if the whole Indie thing crashes and burns...we'll still write.
> 
> ...


Very well said, P.J. I think you're right about the two "camps" and the mutual suspicion in which they sometimes hold one another.

If I can riff off your idea ... perhaps one way to envision the situation is as a Y shape -- people who view books solely as product are one arm of the Y, and those who view them solely as art form the other arm. The closer you get to the arms' meeting point, the more one side takes on attributes of the other. So, someone far up the "art" arm of the Y might be producing experimental literary fiction while someone far up the "product" arm might be doing what Blocka's doing -- hiring ghosts to produce material to publish. Someone far down the "art" arm might be writing somewhat atypical genre fiction. Someone far down the "product" arm might be writing strongly to trend and pragmatically jumping genres to find their most lucrative niche. Those writing to market in a genre they love might share properties of both arms pretty evenly. But then the two sides of the Y come together in the stem as both types offer their books for sale: publishing work is the one thing all of us have in common, whether we think of it as art or as product or as both.

KB is a "stem" space -- people of every type come here to figure out how to publish and/or market their books. That means we're a space where the two different approaches can easily come into conflict. That's why a live-and-let-live mindset is important here, I think. We should call out illegal or unethical behavior, but "art" folks should not be calling out "product" folks as soulless sellouts who debase literature, and "product" folks should not be dismissing "art" folks as hoity-toity elitists who don't care what readers like. Both approaches need their space; people in both camps need to be able to ask questions and discuss things with others.

And despite my having just argued for two types, the categories themselves shouldn't be iron boxes we try to stuff one another into. I think people get to view their own work however they want.


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## BGArcher (Jun 14, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> Or...
> 
> Neither attitude is totally "right", but then both have a kernel of truth in them, so they're not completely "wrong" either. And most importantly, neither approach is more or less likely to result in financial success than the other, regardless of how loud or self-righteously defensive (vindictive) the shouting gets.
> 
> ...


I like where you two have taken the conversation, and wanted to add to it. One of the most successful writers I know online has done both. They have written a ton, but they also now employ ghost writers. They however heavily edit those books themselves, making sure they work for their various series etc. I have no problem calling that person a "writer". They also are a business owner, and a damn good marketer.

I personally love to write, and my main series will always be written by me. However, down the road I have a TON of series ideas, all based on my world I'm creating. I would have no problem in the long run having a writer or two that I worked with CLOSELY writing a draft of a novel or two from outlines that I wrote to help contribute to that world. I would also still edit and add to those books myself, hypothetically speaking. That is my dream in a few years. It would still very much be my brand, and my overall creative ideas. I would consider it more like show running rather than just being an entrepreneur, or a savvy marketer. It's not like I wouldn't be still writing my own books too. It just means I would be working even more, and working my A$$ off.

As for the "artist" tittle, or "hack," or "sellout," I think this is one of the many dis-services that the modern higher education system has done to a large generation of writers. I often times hear "being a great artist" and not wanting to "sell out" but I don't think there's really anything romantic about going hungry to produce great works of literature. As far as I'm concerned, it's never been easier to make a living being a writer. Having to write something that's "main stream" to pay the bills doesn't seem to me like selling out, it just seems practical. Besides, I love what I write. Down the road, of course I have a great American novel or two I want to write, and I will do so, but right after I'm sure I've paid off my mortgage first. I just wish practicality was taught more often in colleges. The less they act like every book has to be some great work or that anything other than _literature_ is something less than and the more we accept that what we are really doing is the equivalent of being carpenters, the better I think the whole industry will be off.


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## Fel Beasley (Apr 1, 2014)

Zaitsev said:


> Sickening. Depressing. I hate it.


Why?

I don't get this attitude. It's not like she's scamming anyone, readers or ghostwriters. It's not like it's easy work either. A lot goes into publishing as any author who publishes knows, it's not just writing. She has to study the market, outline, probably edit, and then there's the whole marketing thing. If she's making money with this, then she's satisfying reader expectations. Again, not a scam in any way. And definitely not distasteful. (Or unique). Plenty of publishers do the same thing.

I do write my own stuff because writing is my passion. However I have a gazillion more ideas than I can ever write and many of those are in different genres than I publish in, so in the future it's possible that I will utilize ghostwriters just so I can see those stories unfold.

You do you. Unless someone is scamming, I don't see how they run their business is any of yours.


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## Zaitsev (Feb 21, 2016)

Felicia Beasley said:


> You do you. Unless someone is scamming, I don't see how they run their business is any of yours.


I'm not allowed an opinion? My personal opinion is that I am repelled by the whole notion of these conveyor-belt book factories. I know integrity doesn't pay the rent, but I don't associate this mass-production of 'widgets' with all I love about reading and books. I know publishing is a 'business', but there is no heart in this particular approach -- only the love of money. The division of labour aspect unsettles me too and I can see that increasing (in general) as writers become under more pressure to speed up production if they want to secure a place in the market. As a reader, I've no interest in books produced in such a manner. Others don't mind -- fair enough. I still despise it and the entire mind-set that goes with it.

I don't associate this with 'write to market', which I'll admit I'm not that keen on either, but I can see elements that are useful, and I've used them to good effect. The 'extreme' approach is different -- it is soulless and somehow saddening. I suspect the video was more about the 'courses'.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

From the video: "Most of my income comes from Kindle Unlimited." Yep, sounds about right.


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## Zaitsev (Feb 21, 2016)

P.J. Post said:


> Entrepreneurs preach writing to market to satisfy consumers, just like Johnson and Johnson and iHop and Secret Antiperspirant - it's business, and catering to yo For example, Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs were writers. So were Atwood, Lee, Woolf and Tolkien.
> 
> Just an opinion.


Sorry -- meant to say you make some good points. Always. I love Woolf -- she's in the line-up for my dead people at a dinner party list.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

This woman is a publisher, not a writer. There is nothing wrong with being a publisher so there's really no need to avoid the label.

As a fellow business woman, I applaud her.

As a romance reader, I despise everything about this. I hate that so many people peddle romance writing as the easiest way to make a buck from writing. I genuinely love reading great romance novels, the ones with the x-factor that can only come from an author's passion. Unfortunately, the romance section is full of soulless books that feel like they were rushed or otherwise [email protected] Can we please tell people to make their money by publishing thrillers or cozy mysteries instead?

(I didn't see anything to indicate that this particular publisher puts out low quality books, but I think we all know those publishers exist).


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Crystal_ said:


> Unfortunately, the romance section is full of soulless books that feel like they were rushed or otherwise [email protected]


This is somewhat OT, but to me this is exactly what has happened (IS happening) with the annual parade of Christmas movies on Hallmark, Lifetime, ION channels, etc. Years ago, there were a lot of good, or at least decent, movies on during December. But they became too popular for their own good, and now the networks (epecially Hallmark) churn them out at an alarming rate, so that these movies run about 20 hours per day, from even before Thanksgiving, I think. A real example of quantity mushrooming while quality diminishes.

Anyway, sorry for the digression. I now return you to your regularly-scheduled discussion of this person about whom I have no interest in reading, one way or the other.


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## Fel Beasley (Apr 1, 2014)

Zaitsev said:


> I'm not allowed an opinion? My personal opinion is that I am repelled by the whole notion of these conveyor-belt book factories. I know integrity doesn't pay the rent, but I don't associate this mass-production of 'widgets' with all I love about reading and books. I know publishing is a 'business', but there is no heart in this particular approach -- only the love of money. The division of labour aspect unsettles me too and I can see that increasing (in general) as writers become under more pressure to speed up production if they want to secure a place in the market. As a reader, I've no interest in books produced in such a manner. Others don't mind -- fair enough. I still despise it and the entire mind-set that goes with it.
> 
> I don't associate this with 'write to market', which I'll admit I'm not that keen on either, but I can see elements that are useful, and I've used them to good effect. The 'extreme' approach is different -- it is soulless and somehow saddening. I suspect the video was more about the 'courses'.


You're right. You're entitled to your opinion. Sorry, I was dismissive.

Ignoring the publisher (the woman this article was about), what about the ghostwriters? How do you know they don't put their heart into their projects? I've done some ghostwriting before and I took my job seriously and put as much passion and heart into it as possible. Yes, I did it for money. I needed to feed my family and the guarantee of a fast paycheck, but I still put as much of myself into the book as possible.

Does every ghostwriter? Probably not, but there is no way to know which books were "churned" out and soulless.

Stepping back, I do see the frustration and dislike for this mindset, even if I don't agree. Readers ultimately decide what they are going to buy and if her books hit them in the right places, then her system will continue to work. It sounds like she's moving away from publishing into training other authors. 
(I just had the image of her making little clones of herself, who make clones of themselves, and so forth until they take over the whole publishing world and we are all out of jobs!)


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

Crystal_ said:


> This woman is a publisher, not a writer. There is nothing wrong with being a publisher so there's really no need to avoid the label.


When it's implied she's a scammer, I think there is a need to avoid a label. She's doing what some in this thread disagree with and that's fine. That doesn't make her a scammer.



Crystal_ said:


> As a fellow business woman, I applaud her.


Agreed.



Crystal_ said:


> As a romance reader, I despise everything about this. I hate that so many people peddle romance writing as the easiest way to make a buck from writing.


Also agreed. Part of the allure of writing, to me, is the actual act of doing the plotting, writing and selling myself. This fast turnover, especially in romance, makes it hard for a writer who doesn't employ ghostwriters to keep up and compete.



Felicia Beasley said:


> Ignoring the publisher (the woman this article was about), what about the ghostwriters? How do you know they don't put their heart into their projects? I've done some ghostwriting before and I took my job seriously and put as much passion and heart into it as possible. Yes, I did it for money. I needed to feed my family and the guarantee of a fast paycheck, but I still put as much of myself into the book as possible.
> 
> Does every ghostwriter? Probably not, but there is no way to know which books were "churned" out and soulless.


Exactly.



Felicia Beasley said:


> Readers ultimately decide what they are going to buy and if her books hit them in the right places, then her system will continue to work.


Well said. In the end, unless an author specifically states what they've done (hire ghostwriters, buy plots, pay someone to handle their marketing, written to market or written the story in their heart) or why, the end result is that we don't know judging by looking at a book alone.

Some writers are good enough to put out something they don't believe in and the readers clearly can't tell judging by the ranks in the charts, other writers simply don't have the writing skills to put out a quality product but they're trying their best with what they can do.

This assumption that anyone knows the heart of a writer and their motivations for doing anything when they haven't gone on record is baffling to me.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

brkingsolver said:


> Entrepreneurs. The ghost writers are getting paid. It's their choice. There's a guy named James Patterson who invented this model.


James Patterson doesn't use ghost writers, he writes with co-authors.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> James Patterson doesn't use ghost writers, he writes with co-authors.


Supposedly he writes the outlines and hands them over to his "coauthors" who then do the actual writing, so they're pretty much "coauthors" in name only.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

Dude, I say good on her! People like this lady paid my bills when I was ghostwriting. Nothing wrong with being a mini-publisher if that's how she wants to make a living for her family.

I'd have more to add but PJ said all my thoughts beautifully.


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

Zaitsev said:


> Sickening. Depressing. I hate it.


Triggering. Makes me depressed for being a loser. That's why I hate it.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

LilyBLily said:


> Interesting and wide-ranging discussion.
> 
> My lack of admiration for this businesswoman is based on a lifetime of hearing about the miseries of people who have sold their creative work for peanuts and ended up broke and sick because they had no significant equity stake in what they had created. I've worked in an industry based on cheating creators out of their brilliant ideas, and even on cheating business partners, too. By no means do I put down anyone who ghostwrites or sells work for hire; I fear for them. People who are willing to sign on to benefit someone else's entrepreneurial endeavor run this risk. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but I understand the lure--and the necessity--of earning enough today to pay the rent this month. Traditional publishing contracts today now contain rights grabs that thirty years ago were only seen in work-for-hire agreements. It's not enough to shrug off the potential risk writers take. We should preemptively warn writers not to sell themselves short.


I think you're right to be concerned about possible abuses, but I also think it's probably less of a risk nowadays, since anyone can self-publish their writing if they so choose. If someone is choosing to ghostwrite instead of publish directly, they probably have a reason for it. Immediate and risk-free, albeit finite, income may be preferable for some people who are highly skilled but find themselves in financially precarious positions, as you mention. Maybe for others it's a confidence-builder before they strike out on their own. I'm sure there are other reasons as well. People who don't have bank accounts and therefore have no way to receive payments from Amazon and other retailers?



Zaitsev said:


> I'm not allowed an opinion? My personal opinion is that I am repelled by the whole notion of these conveyor-belt book factories. I know integrity doesn't pay the rent, but I don't associate this mass-production of 'widgets' with all I love about reading and books. I know publishing is a 'business', but there is no heart in this particular approach -- only the love of money. The division of labour aspect unsettles me too and I can see that increasing (in general) as writers become under more pressure to speed up production if they want to secure a place in the market. As a reader, I've no interest in books produced in such a manner. Others don't mind -- fair enough. I still despise it and the entire mind-set that goes with it.


Of course everyone's allowed an opinion. But it's worth keeping in mind that you have colleagues here who practice the very thing you're so repelled by: several posters have said they've ghostwritten.

I mean, let's say I hated lawyers. (I don't. My Dad was a lawyer. I love lawyers. But let's say I didn't.) If someone posted about lawyers, I could chime in to mention how they're a bunch of ambulance-chasers who destroy all vestiges of trust and honor in our culture, or whatever. But I'd probably think twice about it because there are surely more than a handful of lawyers on a forum with tens of thousands of members. Some of them might even be folks I like.


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## Zaitsev (Feb 21, 2016)

Becca Mills said:


> I think you're right to be concerned about possible abuses, but I also think it's probably less of a risk nowadays, since anyone can self-publish their writing if they so choose. If someone is choosing to ghostwrite instead of publish directly, they probably have a reason for it. Immediate and risk-free, albeit finite, income may be preferable for some people who are highly skilled but find themselves in financially precarious positions, as you mention. Maybe for others it's a confidence-builder before they strike out on their own. I'm sure there are other reasons as well. People who don't have bank accounts and therefore have no way to receive payments from Amazon and other retailers?
> 
> Of course everyone's allowed an opinion. But it's worth keeping in mind that you have colleagues here who practice the very thing you're so repelled by: several posters have said they've ghostwritten.
> 
> I mean, let's say I hated lawyers. (I don't. My Dad was a lawyer. I love lawyers. But let's say I didn't.) If someone posted about lawyers, I could chime in to mention how they're a bunch of ambulance-chasers who destroy all vestiges of trust and honor in our culture, or whatever. But I'd probably think twice about it because there are surely more than a handful of lawyers on a forum with tens of thousands of members. Some of them might even be folks I like.


Whoa -- I didn't expect that -- and from a mod. I'm usually very careful not to offend anyone here and this is probably the first time I've felt relaxed enough to voice a fairly strong opinion. I know others do. Some of them may be folks you like? I get the message.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Zaitsev said:


> Whoa -- I didn't expect that -- and from a mod. I'm usually very careful not to offend anyone here and this is probably the first time I've felt relaxed enough to voice a fairly strong opinion. I know others do. Some of them may be folks you like? I get the message.


My point was that some strong opinions, the ones that might make other members feel despised, could be reserved for other spaces. I guess it's a matter of who the target is. I don't worry so much about Jeff Bezos feeling despised by someone who loathes Amazon's practices. Guys like him are well cushioned. If they feel a little wounded by someone's opinion of them, they can massage the bruise with million-dollar bills. But some ordinary member who did some ghostwriting? It makes me sad to think of them seeing the business they've participated in labeled sickening and hate-worthy.

But you'll note I didn't alter any of your posts. Giving me the personal sads is not the same as breaking a forum rule.


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## Chinese Writer (Mar 25, 2014)

Crystal_ said:


> Can we please tell people to make their money by publishing thrillers or cozy mysteries instead?


As a cozy writer, I'm offended by this comment. Romance is not the genre with rushed and poorly written books.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Supposedly he writes the outlines and hands them over to his "coauthors" who then do the actual writing, so they're pretty much "coauthors" in name only.


Well, they're getting co-author credit on the cover, and I would assume a percentage of the royalties. And Patterson's outlines are fairly detailed, and he rewrites them multiple times to get the pacing tight. I got to see one when I took his Master Class.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Well, they're getting co-author credit on the cover, and I would assume a percentage of the royalties. And Patterson's outlines are fairly detailed, and he rewrites them multiple times to get the pacing tight. I got to see one when I took his Master Class.


And it all adds up to the coauthors actually writing the books. I doubt they get royalties from sales. Patterson sells a lot of books and I doubt he wants to share royalties from every book sold. I would guess they probably get a flat fee and their name on the cover as a perk. The articles online say as much (they say he pays the coauthors out of his own pocket). Another article mentions that his most extensive outlines are 50 pages triple (!) spaced.

So yeah, the man is not writing these "coauthored" novels at all, hence why he's basically paying these writers to do it for him. Unless you think all one coauthor needs to do is write an outline while the other does the grunt work of actually writing the book.


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## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

Didn't James Patterson write all his early novels? So how is this the same set up or business arrangement. These people do not write their own books.



Crystal_ said:


> This woman is a publisher, not a writer. There is nothing wrong with being a publisher so there's really no need to avoid the label.
> *
> As a fellow business woman, I applaud her.*
> 
> ...


I feel the same way Crystal does. This is a smart business decision which is helping to support her and her family. Nothing wrong with that.

From reading around and talking to authors, I think what makes some authors annoyed by someone like this (who pay ghostwriters and then go out and teach others how to do it) is that some authors work really hard to come up with ideas, to outline and then write really engaging stories. Then they spend time, money and effort to get those stories published in a professional way. Then they have to market and promote their books. These authors are passionate about their work and they feel proud of what they have achieved. For some this is a lifelong dream.

I am struggling to finish my first book and sometimes I wish I could pay a ghostwriter but I know I would not be pleased with myself if i paid someone else to write a story for me. I've wanted to write for a long time and the idea, outlining and writing part is the only part that I have total control over. I remember hearing Stephanie Meyer talking about the same thing in an interview.

I agree that the romance genre is full of some soulless paint by numbers books that have not even been edited. When I see the author name as a publishing company or some ridiculous pen name, i roll my eyes. However, I think there are much more authors who are writing engaging books and running their own business, than people paying ghostwriters.

This woman has done three or four interviews. I listened to two more interviews with women who pay ghostwriters to write romance stories and I really don't get anything of value from their interviews. _Just my opinion._


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

I don't know if any of you ever visited Santa Fe, New Mexico. I grew up there. Thirteen major museums, over two thousand art galleries. My classmates included sons and grandsons of world-famous authors, and when I grew older even more authors moved to town. An old joke is, "How do you find an artist in Santa Fe?" Answer; "Waiter!"

I made jewelry for a living. I've sold precious-metal sculptures. Now I write stories that some people would call throw-away trash. Whether I produce good art or bad art is a matter of my talent. No one has the right to judge whether what I make or what I write is art. People only have the right to decide whether they like it or not.

I personally think it's sickening for someone to tell an artist or a writer that "'Tis more noble to starve than to pursue the filthy lucre." Only people who've never missed a meal feel that way. A lot of people on this forum would welcome a ghost writing job that kept their kids fed.


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

Interesting topic. 

I don't think the publisher in question is doing anything harmful or dishonest. She pays people to write mildly entertaining romances. She then sells those romances for a profit. The writer gets paid for a 20-30k that probably took them a week to write. Readers get to read something in their favorite genre. These probably aren't books with a long-tail or long lasting sales value. They are virtual candy bars, meant to be consumed and discarded quickly. 

That's basically what she's selling and buying --- brain candy.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

The father of a close friend of mine growing up trad-published 45 MG boy's cowboy stories. Obviously they sold or the publisher wouldn't have kept doing it. He made more as a mid-level bureaucrat and after retirement, more from his pension than from his royalties.

God bless anyone who is hoping for billions from their writing. I assume they still believe in Santa Claus.


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

LilyBLily said:


> That's exactly what all of us self-publishing are trying to achieve--an income stream we don't have to keep working as hard to produce as the years roll on.


All?

I see this so distressingly much these days. This assumption that we all write for the same reasons. That we all want the same things out of writing. Self publishing is not a one-size-fit-all endeavor. Some write for money, some write for pleasure, some have a varying mix of both. Some enjoy the writing but hate the social media aspect. Some don't enjoy the writing but enjoy the marketing. Some enjoy just creating covers. Some enjoy just writing the plots and not going any further in the process. Some enjoy writing the blurbs, others would rather outsource it. Again, a varying mix across a spectrum.

It's no longer a "you have to do it all yourself because there's no one out there to help' business. There are all sorts of things to outsource to fit all models of operating.



LilyBLily said:


> I'm well aware that you can't tell 25-year-olds they'll be tired of working some day, or too sick to work some day, or unable to click with the current market of a future day (that happens a lot; that's when you know you're over the hill). It's hard to imagine how wretched you can be when you can't work anymore and there's no money coming in because you sold all rights, and that piece you tossed off thirty years ago for a few dollars has made billions for some soulless corporation.


Or maybe they will have moved on, found other work, more rewarding/profitable work, and look back fondly at what their experiences taught them.



LilyBLily said:


> Unlike the artist selling piecework, *writers can command an income stream into the future, if we strategize.* I want people to think long and hard about the long game, and not the current play.


I'm sure many writers who are writing _now_ don't agree. They never figure out how to "strategize" and give up because they believe they're pouring good money after bad.

I've lurked here for years and I've lost count of the writers who finally gave up because they couldn't seem to get it together to work for them. It's not a business that is suited for just _anyone_. But it is developing into a business that people can engage in that maximize their strengths and their desires.

tl;dr I guess I'd like to see more "live and let live, not what I want to do but whatever" than the sneering I've encountered so far.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Anne R. Tan said:


> As a cozy writer, I'm offended by this comment. Romance is not the genre with rushed and poorly written books.


There are bad books in every genre, but people who position themselves as experts always reccomended writing romance because it's profitable and "easy." I've seen so many variations in this statement: *other genre* can be profitable too but those readers are smarter and they actually need quality books, not like those romance readers who will devour any trendy trash. There's usually a bit about how romance is easy to write, unlike those real genres that need actual quality.

Okay, I'm exaggerating, but not by much. People peaching writing just for money nearly always say romance and they nearly always suggest that romance is easier to write than other genres. I'm not actually suggesting ppl go churn out cozy mysteries. AFAIK, no one is. But we could use some people telling mercenary writers to publish in other profitable genres to even things out.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Crystal_ said:


> There are bad books in every genre, but people who position themselves as experts always reccomended writing romance because it's profitable and "easy." I've seen so many variations in this statement: *other genre* can be profitable too but those readers are smarter and they actually need quality books, not like those romance readers who will devour any trendy trash. There's usually a bit about how romance is easy to write, unlike those real genres that need actual quality.
> 
> Okay, I'm exaggerating, but not by much. People peaching writing just for money nearly always say romance and they nearly always suggest that romance is easier to write than other genres. I'm not actually suggesting ppl go churn out cozy mysteries. AFAIK, no one is. But we could use some people telling mercenary writers to publish in other profitable genres to even things out.


As a huge romance reader, I totally agree with you there. Its actually the reason I have completely stopped reading romance books by unknown authors. I now stick pretty much with known name that have been writing romance for some time, or have backlist titles I can look up. Or those that have a publisher I know. Same for titles I pick to read in KU. I cannot browse anymore for romance for anything as its a sea of churned out stuff with some good stuff sprinkled in. I don't have that time. Contrary to popular opinion, I like to read good books, even though I *gasps* read romance. I expect the same quality if I read romance, historical mystery or UF. The horror of it.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

Crystal_ said:


> There are bad books in every genre, but people who position themselves as experts always reccomended writing romance because it's profitable and "easy." I've seen so many variations in this statement: *other genre* can be profitable too but those readers are smarter and they actually need quality books, not like those romance readers who will devour any trendy trash. There's usually a bit about how romance is easy to write, unlike those real genres that need actual quality.
> 
> Okay, I'm exaggerating, but not by much. People peaching writing just for money nearly always say romance and they nearly always suggest that romance is easier to write than other genres. I'm not actually suggesting ppl go churn out cozy mysteries. AFAIK, no one is. But we could use some people telling mercenary writers to publish in other profitable genres to even things out.


I totally agree with most of this--not the last bit about sending mercenaries to other genres. Spare them! 

But seriously, it's tought navigating the Amazon site in search for romance books. I read mostly fantasy romance and everything upon first sight are mass produced books with weird pen names and men with their shirts off. It takes some real digging to find the books I like to read, like Jaclyn Dolamore's (what's up! hi!). There does seem to be this idea that writing romance is freaking easy and I get this from other writers, too. "Oh it's just kissy books anyone can write those."


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Atunah said:


> As a huge romance reader, I totally agree with you there. Its actually the reason I have completely stopped reading romance books by unknown authors. I now stick pretty much with known name that have been writing romance for some time, or have backlist titles I can look up. Or those that have a publisher I know. Same for titles I pick to read in KU. I cannot browse anymore for romance for anything as its a sea of churned out stuff with some good stuff sprinkled in. I don't have that time. Contrary to popular opinion, I like to read good books, even though I *gasps* read romance. I expect the same quality if I read romance, historical mystery or UF. The horror of it.


This is exactly the problem I have with the linked here business model. It's the equivalent of someone swamping the market with cheap, low-quality copies of something I would like to use or have in normal quality, and making it in consequence much more difficult for me to find. As she packages these cheap books like the much more invested and better authors and publishers package theirs, there is nothing to discern one from the other. Except of course reading these books, which squanders my precious free time. Like Atunah I have grown very wary of new names in the romance and erotica genres.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

berke said:


> tl;dr I guess I'd like to see more "live and let live, not what I want to do but whatever" than the sneering I've encountered so far.


Good luck with that. Opining on the baseness of others' business practices is a favorite pastime on KB.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> The articles online say as much (they say he pays the coauthors out of his own pocket). Another article mentions that his most extensive outlines are 50 pages triple (!) spaced.


Yeah, but did HE say this?



NeedWant said:


> So yeah, the man is not writing these "coauthored" novels at all, hence why he's basically paying these writers to do it for him. Unless you think all one coauthor needs to do is write an outline while the other does the grunt work of actually writing the book.


I think that if they're happy with the deal they've worked out between them, it's no one else's business what the deal is.

Also, I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of people who would consider the outline to be the grunt work, and putting the words on the page to be the easy part.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Yeah, but did HE say this?


One of his coauthors did.



> I think that if they're happy with the deal they've worked out between them, it's no one else's business what the deal is.


We're not talking about whether they're happy with the deals or not. You said that he doesn't hire ghost writers but that's basically what he does except that he gives them credit on the covers and calls them "coauthors."



> Also, I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of people who would consider the outline to be the grunt work, and putting the words on the page to be the easy part.


And plenty more who wouldn't.

It's okay to admit when you're wrong.


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## jchance (Oct 15, 2016)

Anarchist said:


> Good luck with that. Opining on the baseness of others' business practices is a favorite pastime on KB.


Kboards has become a one-stop shop for Real Writers (tm) happy to insult you and your integrity because you don't do things the way they do. I think back to just 5 years ago and wonder what happened.


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## MiriamRosenbaum (Nov 30, 2016)

Why are so many people angry at this woman? She's just an e-publisher. It's not like she's breaking a law or anything.

Not everyone can be J.K. Rowling (good storytelling _and _mad earnings).


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

People were doing this back in the 1800s. It's not exactly a new thing. Modern publishing is full of it. Pretty much every major publishing house has "house names" cranking out books that are written on spec by ghostwriters for a set fee. 

And despite what you hear in the Kboards Echo Chamber, there are a whole lot of people out there who enjoy writing and making some money doing it, but they don't want anything to do with self-publishing. They're happy to make a few hundred dollars here and there doing ghostwriting without all of the headaches of dealing with editing, covers, formatting ebooks, setting up mailing lists, setting up websites/blogs, dealing with social media, marketing, and all the other non-writing bits of what we do.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> We're not talking about whether they're happy with the deals or not. You said that he doesn't hire ghost writers but that's basically what he does except that he gives them credit on the covers and calls them "coauthors."
> 
> And plenty more who wouldn't.
> 
> It's okay to admit when you're wrong.


Ghostwriters don't get credit. They don't get to take credit for what they wrote. That's the very definition of a ghostwriter.

Plenty more, but not all. I'm one of the people who considers plotting to be the hard part.

I would if I was, but by the very definition of the word, I'm not.


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## AkariaGale (Aug 28, 2016)

Karla Marie looks shady and it has nothing to do with ghostwriting. The interview doesn't list any of her pen names so there's no way to see her books and tell if they are best sellers or languishing at the million mark on Amazon. It reads like a press release. Her website only offers a $2000 class. I'd bet my left big toe this is where her money comes from. 

Ghostwriting is a legit business and authors are paid between 10-20k for their work, not a couple of hundred. You can write the most trendy billionaire bad boy romance on the planet and it won't guarantee big sales. If this was possible, the Big Five would buy Karla's $2000 course and every romance they published would be a bestseller.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Ghostwriters don't get credit. They don't get to take credit for what they wrote. That's the very definition of a ghostwriter.


If it walks like duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Someone coming along and calling it a chicken doesn't change that fact.

Coauthors share workload and royalties equally. Patterson does no such thing. You're welcome to believe anything you want though. It doesn't make it true.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> If it walks like duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Someone coming along and calling it a chicken doesn't change that fact.
> 
> Coauthors share workload and royalties equally. Patterson does no such thing. You're welcome to believe anything you want though. It doesn't make it true.


That isn't true at all. A lot of co-author ventures will partner a very high profile writer like Patterson with a much lesser known writer. The big name usually walks off with the lion's share of the money while the n00b gets stuck with the lion's share of the work. In exchange she gets her name paired with that of the star, which she hopes will boost her own sales and value as a writer to publishers.

Does anyone bother to study how things work in tradpub at all anymore? I mean, these are the kinds of things that have been complained about in writers' circles forever, back when people had to do it in person because there were no intarwebs.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

KelliWolfe said:


> That isn't true at all. A lot of co-author ventures will partner a very high profile writer like Patterson with a much lesser known writer. The big name usually walks off with the lion's share of the money while the n00b gets stuck with the lion's share of the work. In exchange she gets her name paired with that of the star, which she hopes will boost her own sales and value as a writer to publishers.


I'm well aware of how these things work. My point is that those aren't true coauthorships since only one of the authors is doing the authoring. They're glorified ghost writers at best.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

I think the goalposts almost broke the sound barrier as they went by!


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

KelliWolfe said:


> I think the goalposts almost broke the sound barrier as they went by!


Mine have remained where they always were. I'm not sure what planet yours are on though.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

I'm sorry, but you don't get to redefine what a common term in the industry means just because you don't like it. You're not Amazon talking about page reads. *rimshot*


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> If it walks like duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Someone coming along and calling it a chicken doesn't change that fact.
> 
> Coauthors share workload and royalties equally. Patterson does no such thing. You're welcome to believe anything you want though. It doesn't make it true.


I don't know about ducks. I just go by the definition in the dictionary.

And I know most of the time, when people are paid in 'exposure', it's a load of crap. But having one's name exposed to the millions of people who buy Patterson's books would definitely be worth it, IMO. That's definitely got more value to the author's name as a brand than being a ghostwriter whose name never gets attached to any of the books they write, no matter how successful those books are. Some of Patterson's co-authors have gone on to become successful authors in their own right, and I'd bet having their names attached to those co-written books contributed to getting them noticed by the right people.


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## The Bass Bagwhan (Mar 9, 2014)

For the record, and the sake of balance, in my How-to book and any blogs I always stress the opposite - that while the romance genres offer a very large and diverse market, and the chance of sustainable sales seems potentially higher, aspiring authors should _never_ make the mistake of assuming that writing romance is easy just because, apparently, everyone is doing it.

To the contrary, successful romance writers need to be very good at their craft and be skilled writers to attract faithful readers. Because those readers are becoming very wary of mass-produced titles that are poorly written to a tired formula.

However, a mass-market "book factory" approach is always going to exist and succeed to some extent, because of the voracious appetite of so many of the romance readers and the kind of "disposable" attitude to choosing books. People will gamble 99 cents on a good cover and clever blurb, and of course KU risks nothing, so it becomes a numbers game and churning out titles can provide a worthwhile result for some publishers.

I can understand the frustration of dedicated romance authors who are trying to gain, or maintain, visibility in a genre that's become flooded with titles aimed at a demographic, and produced by publishers with a business strategy rather than a passion for writing.

James Patterson... He is so far removed now from sitting at a word processor, and staring at a blank screen before creating a story - his concept these days of being an "author" has little relevance to anybody here. Hardly worth referencing, I reckon.

Happy writing everyone.


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Graeme Hague said:


> James Patterson... He is so far removed now from sitting at a word processor, and staring at a blank screen before creating a story - his concept these days of being an "author" has little relevance to anybody here. Hardly worth referencing, I reckon.


True. I always find it weird when people use JK Rowling to illustrate their point. If I owned a coffee cart, I wouldn't necessarily base what I do on what Starbucks does.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

KelliWolfe said:


> I'm sorry, but you don't get to redefine what a common term in the industry means just because you don't like it. You're not Amazon talking about page reads. *rimshot*


I'm not the one redefining any terms here.



ShayneRutherford said:


> I don't know about ducks. I just go by the definition in the dictionary.


A coauthor is "a joint author of a book."



> And I know most of the time, when people are paid in 'exposure', it's a load of crap. But having one's name exposed to the millions of people who buy Patterson's books would definitely be worth it, IMO. That's definitely got more value to the author's name as a brand than being a ghostwriter whose name never gets attached to any of the books they write, no matter how successful those books are. Some of Patterson's co-authors have gone on to become successful authors in their own right, and I'd bet having their names attached to those co-written books contributed to getting them noticed by the right people.


I've seen a few books by some of his coauthors and none of them were super successful. The only thing James Patterson fans care about is James Patterson, so I doubt they're getting significant crossover. They have nothing to lose by writing for him so I'm sure it's a good gig if you can get it and if the upfront fee is high enough.



Graeme Hague said:


> James Patterson... He is so far removed now from sitting at a word processor, and staring at a blank screen before creating a story - his concept these days of being an "author" has little relevance to anybody here. Hardly worth referencing, I reckon.


I'd have to agree. The Alex Cross novels still only bear his name though I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't writing those either.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> A coauthor is "a joint author of a book."


I was talking about the definition of ghostwriter.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> I'm not the one redefining any terms here.


"Coauthors share workload and royalties equally." 
"We're not talking about whether they're happy with the deals or not. You said that he doesn't hire ghost writers but that's basically what he does except that he gives them credit on the covers and calls them "coauthors."'
"My point is that those aren't true coauthorships since only one of the authors is doing the authoring. They're glorified ghost writers at best."

You're trying to redefine both _ghostwriter_ and _coauthor_ to suit yourself, rather than using them in the way that the rest of the world does.

A ghostwriter is *by definition* a writer whose work is credited to someone else. If your name appears in the writing credits on the cover, you're not a ghostwriter. This is what a ghostwriter *is*. How much of the writing work is hers and how much she gets paid are irrelevant to the definition. In most cases she is also not a co-owner of the copyright.

You're conflating the terms "ghostwriter" and "work for hire". They are not the same thing.

A coauthor relationship is _whatever is spelled out in the contracts the writers sign._ There is no requirement at all that it be a 50/50 relationship. Everything is negotiable, including ownership of copyright. "Joint author" has a very specific legal meaning in copyright law which certainly does not apply to all coauthored works. For instance, with "joint authors" both authors own the copyright to the finished work. Many times that's not how the contracts are written. This is what contracts are for - to specify who is responsible for which parts and what both parties get out of the deal.

Baen Books arranges collaborations like this all the time, pairing one of their top shelf authors with a newcomer. The big name outlines the story and reviews the work, while the newcomer does the bulk of the writing. Both get something out of the deal.


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## Disappointed (Jul 28, 2010)

I ran a search using "artificial intelligence writes romance novel" and that generates a very interesting list of links. This one is near the top:

http://thenextweb.com/google/2016/05/05/googles-ai-read-enough-romance-novels-write-one/

Their artificial intelligence read 2,865 romance novels so it could study how people communicate.

"Dai added that romance novels are great for training AI because they mostly follow the same plot - allowing the AI to focus on picking up nuances of language."

The next step is to get the AI to write a romance novel. It is currently writing poetry:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/17/googles-ai-write-poetry-stark-dramatic-vogons

Vogons!

Watch out romance writers, HAL is watching you!


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> I was talking about the definition of ghostwriter.


You're the one who said he works with coauthors.



KelliWolfe said:


> You're trying to redefine both _ghostwriter_ and _coauthor_ to suit yourself, rather than using them in the way that the rest of the world does.


No, I'm not. James Patterson is the one trying to redefine what a coauthor is.



> You're conflating the terms "ghostwriter" and "work for hire". They are not the same thing.


Ghostwriters do work for hire. That's the whole point.



> A coauthor relationship is _whatever is spelled out in the contracts the writers sign._ There is no requirement at all that it be a 50/50 relationship. Everything is negotiable, including ownership of copyright. "Joint author" has a very specific legal meaning in copyright law which certainly does not apply to all coauthored works. For instance, *with "joint authors" both authors own the copyright to the finished work.* Many times that's not how the contracts are written. This is what contracts are for - to specify who is responsible for which parts and what both parties get out of the deal.


Yes, and the definition of a coauthor is...

If the coauthors are only such in name only then they're not coauthors at all.



> Baen Books arranges collaborations like this all the time, pairing one of their top shelf authors with a newcomer. The big name outlines the story and reviews the work, while the newcomer does the bulk of the writing. Both get something out of the deal.


Those aren't coauthored projects.


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## JV (Nov 12, 2013)

Vintage Mari said:


> Dude, I say good on her! People like this lady paid my bills when I was ghostwriting. Nothing wrong with being a mini-publisher if that's how she wants to make a living for her family.
> 
> I'd have more to add but PJ said all my thoughts beautifully.


Exactly this. I worked as a ghost writer for a long time. I was doing academic papers and business plans for people long before others caught on and the websites started popping up with authors working for peanuts. I started on Craigslist, blew up, and got to the point where I only worked with an established pool of clients. I've heard the snarky remarks and I've seen the upturned noses and I care no more now than I did then. The only opinions that mattered to me came from the folks writing the checks.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> You're the one who said he works with coauthors.


Yes. And you're the one who keeps saying he works with ghostwriters. But the people he works with don't meet the definition of ghostwriters. Hence, my comment about the definition of a ghostwriter.

On the other hand, as KelliWolfe pointed out, the definition of a co-author is whatever the two people involved in the agreement say it is.


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## AuthorX (Nov 11, 2014)

The ghostwriters have made a conscious decision to ghostwrite, usually because they feel they will make more or faster money that way. The buyer of the ghostwritten work is taking a gamble that they can get get the book in enough hands to offset the cost of production, the marketing, editing, covers, etc.

More often than not the buyer gets shitty work from a barely interested ghostwriter and are lucky to break even. Sometimes it takes so long for them to turn the written work into something readable that they might as well have wrote the book themselves. 

But at the end of the day it's the readers that profit from all this. It doesn't matter to them who's name is written on the cover so long as they get a good story. I see nothing wrong with this.


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

AuthorX said:


> More often than not the buyer gets [crappy] work from a barely interested ghostwriter and are lucky to break even. Sometimes it takes so long for them to turn the written work into something readable that they might as well have wrote the book themselves.


Seems to me that this is the rub with selling ghostwritten fiction. If the goal is to release 50 ghostwritten books in a year (which really could be a good earner if you did it right), then you'd need potentially $100-200k (or more? I don't know) to invest in reliable ghostwriters you could trust. That's fine if you have the money (and if I did, I'd probably give it a go. Why not?), but if you don't... probably not worth doing.


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## jchance (Oct 15, 2016)

AuthorX said:


> More often than not the buyer gets [crappy] work from a barely interested ghostwriter and are lucky to break even. Sometimes it takes so long for them to turn the written work into something readable that they might as well have wrote the book themselves.


This isn't a universal experience. You always check the quality of the work, have a clear contract, and pay a decent amount for the work. It's the ones who hire the cheapest writer from India and want to pay $100 for a 60k novel written yesterday that typically have to deal with substandard work. One gets what one pays for.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Where that goes off the rails is when the goal of the publisher is not to produce a quality product, but to generate as much content as possible as cheaply as possible in hopes that some of it will stick.

I've seen ghostwriters from India and the Philippines advertising their services a lot cheaper than $100 for 60k. Buy a few of those, stick the books in KU, run some cheap promotions on them...


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

RightHoJeeves said:


> Seems to me that this is the rub with selling ghostwritten fiction. If the goal is to release 50 ghostwritten books in a year (which really could be a good earner if you did it right), then you'd need potentially $100-200k (or more? I don't know) to invest in reliable ghostwriters you could trust. That's fine if you have the money (and if I did, I'd probably give it a go. Why not?), but if you don't... probably not worth doing.


It is highly doubtful that she pays that much, or that we are talking about such a level of ghostwriter, given what she relates about her history.

As a reader who has stumbled across what I have to consider being ghostwritten books of the kind she peddles, I think we indeed are looking at a few hundred quid for each book, and ghostwriters who're most likely from India or "ghostwriters" plagiarising successful novels by the dozen a week, simply re-writing them. I've come across a lot of those, recently. I read a lot of LGBT romance, and I've come across such a huge wash of what are clearly rewritten hetero romances, that this has to have a scheme, a plan and an organisation, and it is not just one person.

I'm also sure that I'm not the only reader noticing such things.


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## AuthorX (Nov 11, 2014)

jchance said:


> This isn't a universal experience. You always check the quality of the work, have a clear contract, and pay a decent amount for the work. It's the ones who hire the cheapest writer from India and want to pay $100 for a 60k novel written yesterday that typically have to deal with substandard work. One gets what one pays for.


I have tried ghostwriters... I invested a significant sum of money into finding a good ghostwriter to take some load off my back. I only hired English speakers from either the US/Canada/UK who had high quality sample work.

Out of the 10 or so that I tried, only one really gave me anything usable, and I spent days cleaning up the book to make it marketable. Did I make money off of that 1 ghostwritten work? Yeah, for sure. But I also have 9 novels sitting on my desktop that are completely unusable. They're unusable because it would take me less time to write the book myself than to go through and try to fill the plot hole/grammar/wackiness that is there. The problem with their samples is that they will put only their best work out there for you to see, but once they start writing they are just trying to get their word count in allocated time frame. I tried coaching some of them to write better, but trying to coach another writer on how to write is awful, and sometimes they get offended.

And most of them gave me their work late... 3 of the ghostwriters only gave me partially completely work before disappearing off the face of the planet. Useless.

So a 10% success rate roughly. All that time spent outlining, interacting with the ghostwriters and reading their poor work could have been spent writing.

It was a good experiment to set my expectations, and I will turn to that 1 decent ghostwriter if I a great story that I don't have time to write (because I'm writing other things). But unless you're lucky, it will take you a while to find someone worth while. Either that or my quality expectations were just too high.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Nic said:


> As a reader who has stumbled across what I have to consider being ghostwritten books of the kind she peddles, I think we indeed are looking at a few hundred quid for each book, and ghostwriters who're most likely from India or "ghostwriters" plagiarising successful novels by the dozen a week, simply re-writing them. I've come across a lot of those, recently. I read a lot of LGBT romance, and I've come across such a huge wash of what are clearly rewritten hetero romances, that this has to have a scheme, a plan and an organisation, and it is not just one person.


Nic, it is a fairly common practice for people to "mirror" their books that way. They'll take a hetero version then release a MM version under another pen name, and then a FF version under another one figuring that the romance market is so huge and the crossover readership small enough that the odds of getting caught are minimal.

I'm not saying that what you're suggesting doesn't happen, but it's also something that writers do themselves with their own works.


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Nic said:


> It is highly doubtful that she pays that much, or that we are talking about such a level of ghostwriter, given what she relates about her history.
> 
> As a reader who has stumbled across what I have to consider being ghostwritten books of the kind she peddles, I think we indeed are looking at a few hundred quid for each book, and ghostwriters who're most likely from India or "ghostwriters" plagiarising successful novels by the dozen a week, simply re-writing them. I've come across a lot of those, recently. I read a lot of LGBT romance, and I've come across such a huge wash of what are clearly rewritten hetero romances, that this has to have a scheme, a plan and an organisation, and it is not just one person.
> 
> I'm also sure that I'm not the only reader noticing such things.


Sorry, I wasn't suggesting she was paying that much. That is what I assume someone like James Patterson would be doing. It's also how I would do it if I was in that game.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

KelliWolfe said:


> Nic, it is a fairly common practice for people to "mirror" their books that way. They'll take a hetero version then release a MM version under another pen name, and then a FF version under another one figuring that the romance market is so huge and the crossover readership small enough that the odds of getting caught are minimal.
> 
> I'm not saying that what you're suggesting doesn't happen, but it's also something that writers do themselves with their own works.


Oh, I am aware of several authors doing that themselves! I take note of them, and will never buy them again. It is extremely obvious when you want to read something of essential gay context, and instead you get heteronormative narratives which clearly originated from a heterosexual background. There is a marked difference between such hacks, and those LGBT authors who try to write genuine LGBT content.

What I was referring to, however, is a real waterfall of books of that pattern. I'd say that a mere year or so ago you had a ratio of 10 (genuine LGBT books) to 2 (rewritten heterosexual romance books). Today the ratio is at least 4:10, if not worse, and the LGBT romance field is teeming with author names no one has ever heard of before. This goes for the gay as much as for the lesbian sub-genre, and I've seen reviews from readers who read a lot of hetero romance who can even line them up with their hetero alter aliae.

The problem with this is, and that is so despite the consistent negation of there being any problem in this thread, that such an influx of very low-quality books takes away visibility from quality writers. Readers get tired fast of having to wade through such a huge slush pile of badly written books, and such "entrepreneurs" as "Karla Marie" are shovelling them into the market, where a single author has a much slower pace.

The problem with this business model is not whether or not publishing such drivel is legitimate, it is that this is creating a huge haystack with very few needles to find. As a result you will see more and more readers turned to trade publishers again, and less quality indies succeed.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Nic said:


> The problem with this business model is not whether or not publishing such drivel is legitimate, it is that this is creating a huge haystack with very few needles to find. As a result you will see more and more readers turned to trade publishers again, and less quality indies succeed.


I didn't realize it was so pervasive, and I feel exactly the same way about it that you do. Every time one of these "writers" burns a reader, that's a reader we've lost for good. They'll never bother to read another book by an indie again. But the ones doing this rarely think long term, or even past their sales for this month. To them it's essentially nothing but a smash-n-grab.


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Nic said:


> The problem with this business model is not whether or not publishing such drivel is legitimate, it is that this is creating a huge haystack with very few needles to find. As a result you will see more and more readers turned to trade publishers again, and less quality indies succeed.


I've often wondered about this... if someone pays a couple bucks to some people in India and gets a few dozen poorly ghostwritten books up on Amazon... does it really impact the legitimate authors? Obviously it does to a degree, but Amazon doesn't treat every book equally. There may be millions of books on Amazon, but if you self publish well, you're not really competing with them all in any meaningful way (like the guy who wins the New York Marathon is probably only really competing with 3% of the total runners).

If a legit author was doing all the right things with marketing, then it would be pretty unlikely for a scam book to have as much chance as being purchased I would have thought. Amazon wants its customers to buy good stuff, so it will show them stuff that has been selling/reviewed well.

Sure, if you can figure out how to game the algorithms (like those guys who 'bought' their own free books over and over and inflated the rankings), but putting out poorly written stuff seems like a scam/endeavor that's basically doomed to fail.

That's just what I've been assuming, so I'm happy to be told otherwise.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

RightHoJeeves said:


> I've often wondered about this... if someone pays a couple bucks to some people in India and gets a few dozen poorly ghostwritten books up on Amazon... does it really impact the legitimate authors? Obviously it does to a degree, but Amazon doesn't treat every book equally. There may be millions of books on Amazon, but if you self publish well, you're not really competing with them all in any meaningful way (like the guy who wins the New York Marathon is probably only really competi


I used to think so as well, but not anymore. Formerly you could tell the low-quality books apart by the covers and marketing equally as low in quality, but these days they do not look it anymore. That is what I see such people as Karla Marie doing, and as KelliWolfe pointed out some authors as well. I think this is a result also of those scamming teachers we saw last year, whose business models included professionally made covers and marketing.

Karla Marie also markets those ghostwritten books with "professional covers" and uses the typical marketing venues of solid indie authors. People fall for this, have been doing that for at least a year - going by myself. And then discover that the quality suggested is not actually in the book. You read such duds and you become angered. I have a very fixed amount of time in my day which I can spend recreationally. Usually reading, and then I want to read something I enjoy.

So yes, I do not see such business models as harmless. I don't think these people consider publishing as anything sustainable or which needs to be nurtured and sustained.


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Nic said:


> I used to think so as well, but not anymore. Formerly you could tell the low-quality books apart by the covers and marketing equally as low in quality, but these days they do not look it anymore. That is what I see such people as Karla Marie doing, and as KelliWolfe pointed out some authors as well. I think this is a result also of those scamming teachers we saw last year, whose business models included professionally made covers and marketing.
> 
> Karla Marie also markets those ghostwritten books with "professional covers" and uses the typical marketing venues of solid indie authors. People fall for this, have been doing that for at least a year - going by myself. And then discover that the quality suggested is not actually in the book. You read such duds and you become angered. I have a very fixed amount of time in my day which I can spend recreationally. Usually reading, and then I want to read something I enjoy.
> 
> So yes, I do not see such business models as harmless. I don't think these people consider publishing as anything sustainable or which needs to be nurtured and sustained.


Thanks for the reply. I guess it shows how important an author's own mailing list can be!


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Yes. And you're the one who keeps saying he works with ghostwriters. But the people he works with don't meet the definition of ghostwriters. Hence, my comment about the definition of a ghostwriter.


He does, but he prefers to call them coauthors. They do the exact same job as a ghostwriter (work for hire) but since they get credited as coauthors they can't technically be called that but they aren't coauthors either. He uses that term because it somehow makes it sound like he wrote the books as well. He didn't. It's very business savvy of him. He's a brilliant business man. An author or a coauthor he is not and hasn't been for a long time it seems.



> On the other hand, as KelliWolfe pointed out, the definition of a co-author is whatever the two people involved in the agreement say it is.


No it isn't. That would mean that you could redefine any word you like in the dictionary as long as two people agree to it in a contract. It doesn't work like that.

And I'm the one getting accused of redefining terms...


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> No it isn't. That would mean that you could redefine any word you like in the dictionary as long as two people agree to it in a contract. It doesn't work like that.
> 
> And I'm the one getting accused of redefining terms...


Well, you are, every time you use the term ghostwriter and try to say it means something that it doesn't.

That's not what I meant at all. Being a co-author means, basically, two (or more) people sharing the work that it takes to publish a book (researching, plotting, writing, revising, editing, proofing). But there's nothing that says those duties need to be split 50/50 between the people participating. Deciding how to split those duties is what would be defined by the contract, not the definition of the term itself.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Well, you are, every time you use the term ghostwriter and try to say it means something that it doesn't.


Can you quote me on that? I don't remember saying anything like that.



> That's not what I meant at all. Being a co-author means, basically, two (or more) people sharing the work that it takes to publish a book (researching, plotting, writing, revising, editing, proofing). But there's nothing that says those duties need to be split 50/50 between the people participating. Deciding how to split those duties is what would be defined by the contract, not the definition of the term itself.


Coauthors are equals. They may split the workload however they agree on, but once one person pays the other to do all the work and and there's no royalty split or shared copyright, that's no longer a coauthor-coauthor relationship. It doesn't magically become a coauthor relationship because a contract says it is. Coauthors are collaborators. Patterson hires writers to do the work for him. It's not a collaborative effort because he gets the final say in everything because he's the one paying for it.

*That would be like you claiming that you're a co-designer of a book cover when all you did was hire a designer and tell them what kind of cover you would like.* Sure, you could pay a designer enough money to agree to you being called the co-designer, but that doesn't make you a co-designer in reality. Only in words.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Can you quote me on that? I don't remember saying anything like that.


Every time you say Patterson uses ghostwriters. The people he writes with don't meet the definition of ghostwriters, but you keep saying they are.



NeedWant said:


> Coauthors are equals. They may split the workload however they agree on, but once one person pays the other to do all the work and and there's no royalty split, that's no longer a coauthor-coauthor relationship. It doesn't magically become a coauthor relationship because a contract says it is.


That's what you say it is. But when I looked up co-author online, the gist of the definitions that came up is 'someone who collaborates with others on a writing project'. There was nothing that said they had to be equals.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Every time you say Patterson uses ghostwriters. The people he writes with don't meet the definition of ghostwriters, but you keep saying they are.


I say they're ghostwriters in everything but words, which is quite different from saying they're ghostwriters. Obviously they're not since ghostwriters don't get their name on the cover.



> That's what you say it is. But when I looked up co-author online, the gist of the definitions that came up is 'someone who collaborates with others on a writing project'. There was nothing that said they had to be equals.


Did you catch my edit?



NeedWant said:


> Coauthors are collaborators. Patterson hires writers to do the work for him. It's not a collaborative effort because he gets the final say in everything because he's the one paying for it.
> 
> *That would be like you claiming that you're a co-designer of a book cover when all you did was hire a designer and tell them what kind of cover you would like.* Sure, you could pay a designer enough money to agree to you being called the co-designer, but that doesn't make you a co-designer in reality. Only in words.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

For what it's worth... Patterson doesn't just pay money for people to write books for him. He also provides a 50-80 page outline and does his own edits/rewrites on the books his co-writers hand in.  There's multiple articles about it from various co-writers of his out there detailing the process. So I don't think I'd call them ghostwriters, since they work WITH him (meaning he does some of the work, too) and they get a byline.

In my opinion, if you are hiring people to do all the work and then packaging the book up and publishing it under X author name you invented or who didn't write the book, you are a book packager. This is not a new concept. There have been trad publisher book packagers for a while, though I think the biggest ones folded in the last 5 years or so.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Annie B said:


> For what it's worth... Patterson doesn't just pay money for people to write books for him. He also provides a 50-80 page outline and does his own edits/rewrites on the books his co-writers hand in. There's multiple articles about it from various co-writers of his out there detailing the process. So I don't think I'd call them ghostwriters, since they work WITH him (meaning he does some of the work, too) and they get a byline.


They don't work with him, they work _for_ him. If he doesn't like what they're producing, they get fired. If he likes what they produce, all they get are two things: the upfront payment and the byline. (One article mentions that he provides "extensive" 50 page outlines that are *triple* spaced.)

Yes he's super involved in the process from what I've read, but that doesn't make either of them coauthors. He doesn't write the actual books and the writers themselves don't get any of the perks that coauthors get (split royalties, shared copyright).


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## crow.bar.beer (Oct 20, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> They don't work with him, they work _for_ him.


Sure, why not, if it really helps...


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Who cares what James Patterson does and whether they with him or for him as ghostwriters or coauthors?


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

I have friends who ghostwrite who are making a killing writing. They put out product that has their buyers coming back for more. One has recently had to take down his advertising because his _regular_ buyers are keeping him in money and he doesn't need new clients. He also has the writing speed to get it done quickly. They provide the outline, he writes to spec, they pay and own the copyright.

I asked why he doesn't write and put his own name on it and he admitted he didn't want the headache. It was easier to write, turn it over, get his money and move on to the next. The paycheck was pretty much guaranteed versus the shenanigans Amazon is pulling with the page reads.

Not all ghostwriters cut corners and regurgitate and repurpose other books. Some are stand up people. It's not a life I want because I do want to stand or fall on my own success and doing it myself. It's what attracted me to self-publishing in the first place.

It is rather frustrating to have to compete with this business model because I can't put out books at that rate. I think like all other fads that have come and gone, it will reach its tipping point and will (hopefully) go away or the impact will be minimized. Especially if Nic is correct that the books are getting worse as in LGBT romance (I don't know because I vet my reading in romance very carefully so I'm either not buying them or I have bad taste in general and am blind to it .) Readers won't be fooled by bad quality for long.

I am curious, though, if this is an issue in non-romance genres. Do other genres see this sort of fast to publish ghostwritten books?

Also, I wanted to add this. I watched both her videos. They were good interviews. She's running what appears to be a solid business. At the end of the second video, she plugs her course. When she talked about the things she covered in the course, I was struck by something.

Everything she apparently covers _most_ indies know how to do already. Or know they need to do them. I know them and haven't had much of an opportunity to put them into action as I ramp up my own writing endeavors, but all that information can be found here on many writing business boards (here, DirtyDiscourse, reddit, etc). The only thing she could provide that was new for me was how to revitalize an older book. Not worth the pricetag she's asking to find that one bit out.

In the end, whether she's a book bundler, or publisher or whatever, I can't help but be struck by the fact that her biggest business model right now is coaching others how to do it.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Nic said:


> The problem with this is, and that is so despite the consistent negation of there being any problem in this thread, that such an influx of very low-quality books takes away visibility from quality writers. Readers get tired fast of having to wade through such a huge slush pile of badly written books, and such "entrepreneurs" as "Karla Marie" are shovelling them into the market, where a single author has a much slower pace.
> 
> The problem with this business model is not whether or not publishing such drivel is legitimate, it is that this is creating a huge haystack with very few needles to find. As a result you will see more and more readers turned to trade publishers again, and less quality indies succeed.


Yep. I can speak for myself and hanging around other readers that do this now. I have shifted largely back to trade published romances and I am much happier for it. My average rating has gone up again and I don't have to spend frustrating time trying to sift through the store full of garbage to find actual well written romance.



Nic said:


> I used to think so as well, but not anymore. Formerly you could tell the low-quality books apart by the covers and marketing equally as low in quality, but these days they do not look it anymore. That is what I see such people as Karla Marie doing, and as KelliWolfe pointed out some authors as well. I think this is a result also of those scamming teachers we saw last year, whose business models included professionally made covers and marketing.
> 
> Karla Marie also markets those ghostwritten books with "professional covers" and uses the typical marketing venues of solid indie authors. People fall for this, have been doing that for at least a year - going by myself. And then discover that the quality suggested is not actually in the book. You read such duds and you become angered. I have a very fixed amount of time in my day which I can spend recreationally. Usually reading, and then I want to read something I enjoy.
> 
> So yes, I do not see such business models as harmless. I don't think these people consider publishing as anything sustainable or which needs to be nurtured and sustained.


Those are good points too. I remember a time where one could tell apart the slush stuff from the decent stuff. The covers where bad period on many of those slush books. I think some of this goes back to when KU first came about, time frame wise, not meaning it was because of it. The time were everyone jumped on the romance bandwagon. Often dissing romance right here, while they said they had pen names they are pushing into the store all the while. I saw that all over the web. At first you could tell by the cover that looked like a cut out, paste job. But now in recent months what I have seen with KU books especially are marketing campaigns, paying good money for covers.

So you see those books with the same ads than the good romance. You can't tell them apart until you read them. And with romance, one can't always tell until you get further in the story. You wouldn't believe how much garbage is out there that isn't actually romance, but its branded and marketed as such. So I guess the ghost writers of those don't even know what the genre is. Much of it is just romance branded porn.

How in the world would I ever find the unknown author in this sea that actually has respect for readers, writes the good stuff. There is no way. So I don't bother anymore. I know many good writers use pen names to tell apart the genres, but by doing this now, you eliminate potential readers like me. If I don't know who you are, no trail, no record, I won't touch you anymore. I am reading a historical mystery right now that is self published. A series, I love it. But I know who's pen name it is. There is no secret and the author usually writes historical romance with a publisher. There are many such examples. You cut off your readership when you have secret pen names. We readers aren't dumb, we know what genres are and if there are different ones written by the same author.

Its amazing how many "new" romance authors there are suddenly. So many names. How many of them belong to the same person or marketer. They each have 10's, maybe 100's of names they cycle through. Ignoring unknown names is right now the only way to mostly guarantee not to fall into the "I read yet another bad romance book" trap. When I say bad, I mean bad. Not that I didn't like characters or such thing which happens with some of my beloved authors. I mean bad.

For me and many readers, reading romance is a trust issue. I wouldn't trust someone that doesn't love the genre to write books I could trust. I have to trust that author to have respect. I don't like having my emotions played with. 
Considering the amount of ghost written books this marketer and others are pumping out, I don't believe for a second that those ghost writers are all romance writers and even like or know the genre.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Is this one of her books?


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

I have to admit that I've shifted to the reading mostly trad pub romance bc so many indie romances I pick up feel as if they were written just for the dough. They're lacking the magic of a great romance. They feel empty, like they were written from the outside in. Then there are the indie books that are good in terms of story and charcter but bad in terms of prose. That doesn't bother most people, but I can't stand it. I still read a few indie authors, but I deliberately avoid reading indie books in trendy niches (even though I enjoy the occasional billionaire romance from time to time).

I'm a particularly picky reader, but I've gotten to the point where I often can't stand the books I pick up for research, so I do think this is a legitimate problem.


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## AkariaGale (Aug 28, 2016)

berke said:


> Also, I wanted to add this. I watched both her videos. They were good interviews. She's running what appears to be a solid business. At the end of the second video, she plugs her course. When she talked about the things she covered in the course, I was struck by something.
> 
> Everything she apparently covers _most_ indies know how to do already. Or know they need to do them. I know them and haven't had much of an opportunity to put them into action as I ramp up my own writing endeavors, but all that information can be found here on many writing business boards (here, DirtyDiscourse, reddit, etc). The only thing she could provide that was new for me was how to revitalize an older book. Not worth the pricetag she's asking to find that one bit out.
> 
> In the end, whether she's a book bundler, or publisher or whatever, I can't help but be struck by the fact that her biggest business model right now is coaching others how to do it.


In those interviews, does she share any of her pen names? Because as of now she looks like someone who makes money off of authors paying $2000 for stuff they could learn for free on writers forums or buy a RWA membership for ~100 bucks AND make some connections in the industry.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I have trouble understanding why anyone cares about this. As long as this person is not hurting other people (for example, stealing books and rewriting a few pronouns, changing names and slapping a new cover on it and calling it original work) what's the big beef? If you don't want to use ghostwriters, don't. No one is making you. I wouldn't want to use them because I'm a control freak and enjoy the creative process. Other people aren't that way. I don't worry about what others are doing unless it affects me personally (like scammers, etc.). Otherwise ... meh. There's only so much time in the day and worrying about others hiring ghostwriters instead of getting my words done seems like an unproductive way to spend the day.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

Crystal_ said:


> I have to admit that I've shifted to the reading mostly trad pub romance bc so many indie romances I pick up feel as if they were written just for the dough. They're lacking the magic of a great romance. They feel empty, like they were written from the outside in. Then there are the indie books that are good in terms of story and charcter but bad in terms of prose. That doesn't bother most people, but I can't stand it. I still read a few indie authors, but I deliberately avoid reading indie books in trendy niches (even though I enjoy the occasional billionaire romance from time to time).
> 
> I'm a particularly picky reader, but I've gotten to the point where I often can't stand the books I pick up for research, so I do think this is a legitimate problem.


Yes to Crystal and Atunah's posts. And Nic, thank you for explaining your POV which has allowed me to see deeper into this. I do agree that these sorts of mills flood KU, for example, making it difficult to find the books we want to read. Finding true fantasy romance takes some serious searching.

When I ghosted, clients rarely had me change anything in the manuscripts. I self-edited and then sent them the stories, but luckily I understand how to write romance. But it did always strike me as weird that they just said, "thank you" and moved on with the payment. They didn't vett my stories to see if they were any good. :/


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Atunah said:


> Yep. I can speak for myself and hanging around other readers that do this now. I have shifted largely back to trade published romances and I am much happier for it. My average rating has gone up again and I don't have to spend frustrating time trying to sift through the store full of garbage to find actual well written romance.


It's a relief to see I'm not the only one having this problem. Though of course it also is mindblowing to have proof how far-reaching it is, because I suspect we're reading completely different sub-genres of romance and erotica.

Unfortunately your solution doesn't work for me. My preferred reading matter is not being published by trad publishers. I try to get an idea about what I'm in for reading reviews, and I think we may come to see much more importance for reviewers soon.



Amanda M. Lee said:


> I have trouble understanding why anyone cares about this. As long as this person is not hurting other people (for example, stealing books and rewriting a few pronouns, changing names and slapping a new cover on it and calling it original work) what's the big beef?


This poses mainly a problem for readers, and eventually also for indie authors not yet well-known or launching anonymous pen names.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

Nic said:


> It's a relief to see I'm not the only one having this problem. Though of course it also is mindblowing to have proof how far-reaching it is, because I suspect we're reading completely different sub-genres of romance and erotica.
> 
> Unfortunately your solution doesn't work for me. My preferred reading matter is not being published by trad publishers. I try to get an idea about what I'm in for reading reviews, and I think we may come to see much more importance for reviewers soon.
> 
> This poses mainly a problem for readers, and eventually also for indie authors not yet well-known or launching anonymous pen names.


How does it pose a problem for readers? Isn't it like reading anything else? You read it and if you like it you go on to read something else by the author. If you don't, you toss it and keep searching for a new author. There's always going to be competition and there's always going to be the case of one person's "best book ever" is another person's "that's a huge pile of crap" That's the way of the world as long as people have opinions.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> How does it pose a problem for readers? Isn't it like reading anything else? You read it and if you like it you go on to read something else by the author. If you don't, you toss it and keep searching for a new author. There's always going to be competition and there's always going to be the case of one person's "best book ever" is another person's "that's a huge pile of crap" That's the way of the world as long as people have opinions.


I suggest you read what Crystal, Atunah and I posted further above on this page. That will answer your questions.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Nic said:


> It's a relief to see I'm not the only one having this problem. Though of course it also is mindblowing to have proof how far-reaching it is, because I suspect we're reading completely different sub-genres of romance and erotica.
> 
> Unfortunately your solution doesn't work for me. My preferred reading matter is not being published by trad publishers. I try to get an idea about what I'm in for reading reviews, and I think we may come to see much more importance for reviewers soon.
> 
> This poses mainly a problem for readers, and eventually also for indie authors not yet well-known or launching anonymous pen names.


I do see this as a wide spread issue among readers. I don't hang out among writers as writers outside of KB. So I see the readers views on that. It has affected all subgenres of romance now. I think it started with CR. As a result, I read very little CR at this point, unless its a very well known author. If I did feel like some billionaire type, I'd go to the original source and pick some older good harlequins where at least I'll get something other than whiny man-bun wearing emo alpholes.

But even I can't find some subgenres with publishers, at least not yet. SFR is one of those. But that genre has been completely butchered by miscategorizing and flooding of just garbage. I read mostly historical now and even there it has come flooded in now. Just look at the store and the masses of garbage bundles being stuffed in. Basically a porn short with a cowboy/laird/lord followed by 30 other porn shorts in any other genre but romance. The covers look just like any other cover of legitimate books. And KU books show along non KU books when one browses. You can search for only KU books, but you can't filter them out. And I have KU still.

I have also gone back in time a lot. Books published in the last 20 years in romance actually give me overall a more diverse reading pleasure than a lot of the stuff being put out now. Which is baffling to me. Its now publishers that are trying things and giving a more varied read option. While so many of the marketers just keep pumping out yet another flood of sameness alpholes. That leaves the romance author that is doing all right in the dust. Or a prawn in the sea.

So yes, this is a huge problem for readers. I see it among readers everywhere. Course there is only a handful of us posting here so authors aren't as exposed to reader only folks if they mostly hang out among themselves.

I can read a book a day. I don't have the time or patience to sift through all this stuff to find something. Why should I. I can just stick with publishers and known names and be very very happy reading this way. Will I miss some great new authors this way? Sure. But I'll also read great books along the way, so I guess that is all that matters. I am a bit sad about this having been on this board since 2008 and having been exited about indy publishing and what books I might be able to read. But oh well, it is what it is.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I have trouble understanding why anyone cares about this. As long as this person is not hurting other people (for example, stealing books and rewriting a few pronouns, changing names and slapping a new cover on it and calling it original work) what's the big beef? If you don't want to use ghostwriters, don't. No one is making you. I wouldn't want to use them because I'm a control freak and enjoy the creative process. Other people aren't that way. I don't worry about what others are doing unless it affects me personally (like scammers, etc.). Otherwise ... meh. There's only so much time in the day and worrying about others hiring ghostwriters instead of getting my words done seems like an unproductive way to spend the day.


With all due respect, that is a very easy thing to say when this isn't a huge problem in your genre. I don't worry about it as an author, per se, but it is something that affects me. More books in my genre = less visibility. I have a decent list of readers and a big ad budget. It hurts me less than it hurts other authors, but it still hurts me. I know people who do this, and lots of them rank high enough to knock other books off lists/to take those top also-bought spots, etc.

Have you ever tried to find an actual New Adult Romance? The category is flooded with books that don't fit the genre. That means, as a reader, I can't use the HNR or Bestseller list to find books. As an author, it means I have more competition for visibility.

It upsets me personally because romance can never seem to get any respect. IRL, no one respects romance authors. People are constantly painting it as a societal ill. Other authors (not all, but some) don't respect romance writers. Even some people publishing romance, don't respect romance. People like this woman (not necessarily her, we don't know from this article, but she does seem to suggest it's easy to publish romance) put out [email protected] books because they don't respect romance as a genre. I wrote romance screenplays for years. I got a lot of responses to that, but the subtext was always the same: we don't want to make a romance/it's not worth our time putting out a movie just for women.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Atunah said:


> I can just stick with publishers and known names and be very very happy reading this way.


I don't read much fiction anymore but when I do it's by trade published authors I already know or by trade authors I like that are trying their hand at self-publishing. As far as KU, I mainly use it for non-fiction titles, and I don't care as much if those are self-published or not. The only KU novels I've read are the ones I did for research and many of them I couldn't even finish.

Now, back when I used to read a lot I got really into the UF genre. I read a lot of truly awful, awful trade published books in that genre. Most of them were paranormal romances masquerading as urban fantasies. Now I'm aware that UF books can have romantic subplots but these books were all about the romance and the actual story was the subplot. Because of this, I haven't tried a new UF author in years. I just stick to the ones I know and love.

So yeah, I don't think KU and self-publishers have the monopoly on awful/miscategorized books. Maybe it's different in the romance genre? I don't know.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Crystal_ said:


> Have you ever tried to find an actual New Adult Romance? The category is flooded with books that don't fit the genre. That means, as a reader, I can't use the HNR or Bestseller list to find books. As an author, it means I have more competition for visibility.


I was flipping through the contemporary, NA, and Gothic lists last night and it made my head hurt. I honestly don't know how readers are able to find anything anymore. I'm to the point where I'm almost exclusively shopping off of Goodreads lists or the also-boughts lists of my favorite authors, because the categories are completely broken.


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## Lefevre (Feb 1, 2014)

KelliWolfe said:


> I didn't realize it was so pervasive, and I feel exactly the same way about it that you do. Every time one of these "writers" burns a reader, that's a reader we've lost for good. They'll never bother to read another book by an indie again. But the ones doing this rarely think long term, or even past their sales for this month. To them it's essentially nothing but a smash-n-grab.


Absolutely. Internet marketers and authors are different, the former using the monicker of the latter is the problem. Whenever the poor soul who wrote (or repurposed others' work) all of her books reads that article they might decide to become a pirate too, which will essentially end her "career." It is time for Amazon to finally develop a plagiarism filter (like the "paper rater" site).

Plagiarism:the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. (Source:dictionary)


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## Ashley (Dec 12, 2016)

Atunah said:


> I do see this as a wide spread issue among readers. I don't hang out among writers as writers outside of KB. So I see the readers views on that. It has affected all subgenres of romance now. I think it started with CR. As a result, I read very little CR at this point, unless its a very well known author. If I did feel like some billionaire type, I'd go to the original source and pick some older good harlequins where at least I'll get something other than whiny man-bun wearing emo alpholes.
> 
> But even I can't find some subgenres with publishers, at least not yet. SFR is one of those. But that genre has been completely butchered by miscategorizing and flooding of just garbage. I read mostly historical now and even there it has come flooded in now. Just look at the store and the masses of garbage bundles being stuffed in. Basically a porn short with a cowboy/laird/lord followed by 30 other porn shorts in any other genre but romance. The covers look just like any other cover of legitimate books. And KU books show along non KU books when one browses. You can search for only KU books, but you can't filter them out. And I have KU still.
> 
> ...


I don't get this at all. I am a huge reader, as in I have book buying problem. But it's easy as can be to sample books before you buy them. It's not hard to tell a page or two in if you are going to like the writing/book. So I really don't see the GW stuff as a problem. It's all about the writing and the story.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Ashley said:


> I don't get this at all. I am a huge reader, as in I have book buying problem. But it's easy as can be to sample books before you buy them. It's not hard to tell a page or two in if you are going to like the writing/book. So I really don't see the GW stuff as a problem. It's all about the writing and the story.


I don't read samples. And no, its not possible for me to tell much about a book with a few pages, or even 10 percent. how an author paces a book is important. How do they develop the characters over time. In romance are they capable to get the emotions right, the pay off. Will it actually be a romance at the end. Is this author trustworthy to give a satisfying ending. In mystery, same thing, are they capable of having a satisfying ending. None of that is in a few pages. If I sampled everything I looked at, I would never be able to read any books. I cannot stand having partial stories floating in my head.

I never judge a book by a few pages, ever. Not even 10 percent. Takes me more like 1/3 to get an idea most of the time.

And also, many polish the first 10 percent for those reasons. Lots of books out there that the first bit is clean and then it all falls apart and all the errors pop in.

I want to spend my time reading, not trying to find something to read.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Ashley said:


> I don't get this at all. I am a huge reader, as in I have book buying problem. But it's easy as can be to sample books before you buy them. It's not hard to tell a page or two in if you are going to like the writing/book. So I really don't see the GW stuff as a problem. It's all about the writing and the story.


I've heard similar things from a lot of readers. They don't complain that there's not enough good books to read, they usually complain that there are too many out there.

I think some in this thread are making sweeping generalizations about all readers based on their own experiences or prejudices against certain books. It reminds me a bit of those readers who rail against indie books and complain that they're becoming virtually indistinguishable from their trade counterparts. I myself don't generally read indie fiction but I don't badmouth it either.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

NeedWant said:


> I think some in this thread are making sweeping generalizations about all readers based on their own experiences or prejudices against certain books.


Possibly, then again, as demographics and market segments go, we're not special snowflakes either.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

P.J. Post said:


> Possibly, then again, as demographics and market segments go, we're not special snowflakes either.


I don't doubt that. Thankfully there are still enough readers who don't have an aversion to KU titles that still make it possible for new authors to have successful launches.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I don't have an aversion to KU titles. I prepaid a 2 year subscription after all. I have an aversion to bad and mediocre stuff and marketer books that aren't what they say they are. I have already vetted many books in KU long ago and those wishlists are still there for me to read. That way I don't have to browse the store. 

This isn't really about KU though. Books aren't separated. So even if I didn't have KU, I would still have to sift through the same sea. I don't just read KU books as not everything I want to read is in it. 

I speak only for myself and what I see out there among other readers as I hang out on reader sites a lot, as a reader. So yeah, I see it. Obviously it also affects some authors.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Atunah said:


> I don't have an aversion to KU titles. I prepaid a 2 year subscription after all. I have an aversion to bad and mediocre stuff and marketer books that aren't what they say they are. I have already vetted many books in KU long ago and those wishlists are still there for me to read. That way I don't have to browse the store.
> 
> This isn't really about KU though. Books aren't separated. So even if I didn't have KU, I would still have to sift through the same sea. I don't just read KU books as not everything I want to read is in it.
> 
> I speak only for myself and what I see out there among other readers as I hang out on reader sites a lot, as a reader. So yeah, I see it. Obviously it also affects some authors.


I see it a lot as well. If you are a reader in reader spaces, and if the genres are romance and erotica, that is a thing which is on a steep rise currently. As for other genres, I have friends and relatives who read women's lit/chicklit, crime and science fiction, and they have started complaining similarly. Of course this is anecdotal, but if that very same anecdote is related by 9 out of 10 of your peers (= fellow readers in the same genre), then it isn't incidental.

I just went over the last 50 books I read in romance and erotica. Forty (indie) of them I never finished, they were that bad or soulless, six (indie) were barely okay, two (indie and trad) I liked at 3* level, and lastly, two were good, one 4* (indie) and one 5* (trad). That is just the reading of roughly the past six months. Which means that I had to read or half-read 50 books to read two good books. I already do filter by lists, reviews and recommendations, so for those who're going at it indiscriminately it has to be much worse.

Ten years ago I had my go-to authors, whose books I bought, read and enjoyed. Nearly all of them. That is what I call satisfying. Unfortunately I can't even read just them nowadays, most of them have vanished, aren't being published anymore, or have new pen names I don't know.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

NeedWant said:


> I don't doubt that. Thankfully there are still enough readers who don't have an aversion to KU titles that still make it possible for new authors to have successful launches.


It's not a KU aversion, I loved the idea of one huge library. Lately though, all the titles I was interested in reading have begun to drop out of KU, and what stays seems to be the mass market and mass production not worth reading. I am contemplating letting the subscription go. If I only get to read 6 average to good books per 6 months, that means I am buying them at a rate of roughly 10 $$ apiece. It would be far cheaper to drop the subscription and buy 3 good books per month.

I've turned to my local library's online library, which has a surprisingly decent selection of most genres, and a solid offering of audiobooks as well, and the majority of that content is trad published.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Nic said:


> It's not a KU aversion, I loved the idea of one huge library. Lately though, all the titles I was interested in reading have begun to drop out of KU, and what stays seems to be the mass market and mass production not worth reading. I am contemplating letting the subscription go. If I only get to read 6 average to good books per 6 months, that means I am buying them at a rate of roughly 10 $$ apiece. It would be far cheaper to drop the subscription and buy 3 good books per month.
> 
> I've turned to my local library's online library, which has a surprisingly decent selection of most genres, and a solid offering of audiobooks as well, and the majority of that content is trad published.


If not aversion then extreme dislike as a result of poor experience with KU and/or indie titles? There are a lot of authors still in KU and more joining in every day. I find it hard to believe that none of them are worth reading. I guess it depends on the genre. I don't follow romance or erotica and I'm not even sure what niches you personally like so that very well may be the case. I'm most familiar with cozy paranormal mysteries since I write those and most of the authors are in KU as far as I can tell. A lot of indie UF authors are in KU as well. In my personal reading, all the indie titles I was interested in reading weren't in KU and never were to begin with, which made me kind of sad. Thankfully I mostly use my KU subscription for non-fiction titles and I can find plenty of those. If I had your poor experience with KU I would have ended my subscription long ago.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

NeedWant said:


> If not aversion then extreme dislike as a result of poor experience with KU and/or indie titles? There are a lot of authors still in KU and more joining in every day. I find it hard to believe that none of them are worth reading. I guess it depends on the genre. I don't follow romance or erotica and I'm not even sure what niches you personally like so that very well may be the case. I'm most familiar with cozy paranormal mysteries since I write those and most of the authors are in KU as far as I can tell. A lot of indie UF authors are in KU as well. In my personal reading, all the indie titles I was interested in reading weren't in KU and never were to begin with, which made me kind of sad. Thankfully I mostly use my KU subscription for non-fiction titles and I can find plenty of those. If I had your poor experience with KU I would have ended my subscription long ago.


I work, on average a 70-80 hour week, shared between what I still call my day job, and writing. At least another two hours a day get spent on necessities, like cooking for myself, cleaning, the odd pint at the pub, and meeting friends or family. The little time I have then left I want to have some recreation, which to me means to read a good book.

If I pick 50 books - which are already filtered according to genre, my likes/dislikes, reviews and recommendations - and am left with only 10% which are readable at all, and an actual 2% which are satisfying my recreational needs in quality, then this is a losing position right there. As most of these books actually are indie books picked both from KU and bought outright, I would be a moron not to look at things and have a raincheck when noticing such a disparity.

If, for example, this ratio of 50:2 applied to restaurants I'd have ceased going out long ago. If it applied to people I work with on projects, I would have a real problem earning my money. In daily, real life I know how to avoid the cheapskate products out of China or Taiwan which break or rip with their first use.

The only reasonable lesson this ratio teaches the current readers, just as Atunah pointed it out as well, is to avoid *all* indies to avoid being met with that ratio of 98% duds.

What I notice are more and more readers resolving to avoid indies because of this. In one of my sub genres a lot of the serious readers have turned to fanfiction and free online fiction, because the quality is far higher than what is put out for money or in KU. Others, like Atunah above, turn towards old books or trad publishers.

Speaking as an indie author myself, I say that we can play three monkeys and keep going while willfully ignoring what is happening there, or we can notice. That this is harming us, and will harm us more in the near future is to me very evident. I am as much a reader as a writer. I can't help noticing. I've no solution, not saying that. But I believe this will negatively affect many if not most indie authors soon. If we don't come up with a solution, it could put paid to the positive effects of indie publishing and turn it into a cheaper variant of vanity publishing for all of us, eventually.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Nic said:


> The only reasonable lesson this ratio teaches the current readers, just as Atunah pointed it out as well, is to avoid *all* indies to avoid being met with that ratio of 98% duds.


Thankfully your experience with indie books isn't universal, otherwise indie books wouldn't be selling so well. Maybe most readers just aren't that picky?



> Speaking as an indie author myself, I say that we can play three monkeys and keep going while willfully ignoring what is happening there, or we can notice. That this is harming us, and will harm us more in the near future is to me very evident. I am as much a reader as a writer. I can't help noticing. I've no solution, not saying that. But I believe this will negatively affect many if not most indie authors soon. If we don't come up with a solution, it could put paid to the positive effects of indie publishing and turn it into a cheaper variant of vanity publishing for all of us, eventually.


I personally don't think there is a widespread problem. At least not in the genre I'm writing in. Readers either aren't aware I'm indie or they don't care. Those who don't read indie books at all were never going to buy/borrow my books anyway, so I don't worry about them.

As long as readers are buying/borrowing indie books, I don't think we'll have to worry too much.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

NeedWant said:


> I personally don't think there is a widespread problem. At least not in the genre I'm writing in. Readers either aren't aware I'm indie or they don't care. Those who don't read indie books at all were never going to buy/borrow my books anyway, so I don't worry about them.
> 
> As long as readers are buying/borrowing indie books, I don't think we'll have to worry too much.


I think this is where some of the miscommunication is coming from. The story in the OP talks about romance and romance pen names. I think erotica also, but I can't recall that. From that, some posters, authors and readers alike have posted about what they see not just in the store, but also among readers of those genres. Its always been romance where stuff gets pushed in. As romance readers are known to be voracious readers. And its always the, its just porn for women so its easy to write. Cause we'll read anything. We hear this again and again and we see this. Now the romance categories are swamped with this stuff.

So good for you you aren't seeing it. You said you write cozy mysteries. This is the latest genre I see an upswing of marketers going in. It will never be as bad as romance. So unless you browse read or maybe write romance, you wouldn't see so much of this. You can't dismiss something just because it doesn't affect you yet. 
And again, this isn't just about KU. KU may be a cause of sorts, but even if one doesn't have a subscription, one must sift through the same stuff. I have KU, I have liked it so far. But I can't browse for books anymore and I am pretty much reading things I have had on wishlist for a long time, Amazon publishing, other smaller publishers and already well known indy authors.

But when I look just for romance, no matter if KU or not, its impossible to do in the kindle store. And I can't tell apart anything anymore as the covers are the same. So in order to eliminate wasted time reads, I have to make choices. I have to do what I need to, in order to ensure the highest like for a book I am going to read. I have to turn up the odds. Its working. And yes, out there among many romance readers it is being talked about. Just because one doesn't see something if one doesn't look in that corner, doesn't mean its not there.

Of course I also read other genres. Most romance readers do that. I don't really see any UF by indies though so those series I am reading are all trade published. I also don't see much of historical mystery with indies, besides the one I am reading now. But that is a hybrid author, well know in another genre with a big 5 publisher. I tried finding cozy mysteries, other than the ones I am already reading and kind of gave up. I can't find the stuff I want there so I have to go to the library or big 5. It might be there, but I can't find it in the way the store is right now.

These experiences are real and I am not some special reader snowflake here. I am not alone in this.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Atunah said:


> I think this is where some of the miscommunication is coming from. The story in the OP talks about romance and romance pen names. I think erotica also, but I can't recall that. From that, some posters, authors and readers alike have posted about what they see not just in the store, but also among readers of those genres. Its always been romance where stuff gets pushed in. As romance readers are known to be voracious readers. And its always the, its just porn for women so its easy to write. Cause we'll read anything. We hear this again and again and we see this. Now the romance categories are swamped with this stuff.
> 
> So good for you you aren't seeing it. You said you write cozy mysteries. This is the latest genre I see an upswing of marketers going in. It will never be as bad as romance. So unless you browse read or maybe write romance, you wouldn't see so much of this. You can't dismiss something just because it doesn't affect you yet.
> And again, this isn't just about KU. KU may be a cause of sorts, but even if one doesn't have a subscription, one must sift through the same stuff. I have KU, I have liked it so far. But I can't browse for books anymore and I am pretty much reading things I have had on wishlist for a long time, Amazon publishing, other smaller publishers and already well known indy authors.
> ...


Marketers and scammers have been publishing books in all popular genres on Amazon since KDP became a thing. Then KU came along and that was seen as easy money so even more showed up. Since romance is the most popular genre of course more marketers will go that route. But there are also more legit authors writing that genre as well. So yeah, I do raise an eyebrow when someone says that all indie books suck or that they can't find anything to read because of the marketers.

I don't read romance so maybe things are as bad as you claim in that genre. I do check out some romance best sellers from time to time and there are still readers reading new books and authors in droves.



> I don't really see any UF by indies though so those series I am reading are all trade published.


UF has been one of the hottest indie genres for a while now. If you aren't seeing it, you're not really looking.



> These experiences are real and I am not some special reader snowflake here. I am not alone in this.


You may not be alone but you aren't the majority either.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

James Duncan Lawrence. (aka "Victor Appleton II", "Frank W. Dixon", and "Shelly Lemmon")

_Tom Swift, Jr_, _Hardy Boys_, and _Nancy Drew_, respectively.

James Lawrence was a ghostwriter for the majority of his career. Under the pseudonyms above, he wrote for the Stratemeyer Literary Syndicate, the producer of the above series. Of the Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew series, both went on to be used for feature films and television shows. Many fans of mystery and suspense cut their teeth on those books.

It is no small debt I owe to Mr. Lawrence. If it wasn't for his stories, I would never have found a love for reading as a child. And from that, my love of writing. I hated reading as a child because I found the stories we were reading in school to be extremely boring. My reading skills lagged, as a result. It wasn't until third grade when i spotted a book that featured a flying submarine (_Tom Swift and his Diving Sea Copter_). For that story, I began to devour books looking for more and more that pushed my imagination farther and farther. (Aside: as I read through the _Tom Swift, Jr._ series, I did notice I liked some stories much more than others. Turns out, my favorites were all written by Mr. Lawrence.)

I will never, ever, disparage ghostwriting for that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with ghostwriting as a career. Yes, there is potential for abuse, but you can find that abuse of workers in any industry. What Karla Blocka is doing is no different than what the Stratemeyer Literary Syndicate has done---and is still doing---over the years.

Most of the time, ghostwriters are given a flat rate fee for their work. According to Writer's Digest, the average fee per project for ghostwriting is $36,000. This is out of a range from $5,000 to $100,000. The fee per project will be less if the ghostwriter asks for a royalty instead of a flat rate. What _you_ can demand for a fee depends on the quality of work you can deliver and what you negotiated with the author. If you have a good track record with a portfolio of hits, you can easily expect to demand and receive top pay for your work. If you are beginner, expect to find yourself at the bottom end of the pay scale. Most ghostwriters are very secretive about what they do because that is the nature of their work: _not_ to be in the spotlight.

I have a couple of friends who are outstanding writers, but neither come up with original story ideas to save their life. They look at me like I some kind of monster because of all these story ideas that come spewing out of my head at such a furious rate. One even put me to the test by handing me a stick he picked up and asked me to make up a story about it on the spot. I created three. The other got her start with writing fan fiction. Hand her some characters and a story idea, and she can crank out a good page turner. But she can't generate this stuff. (She would be an ideal ghostwriter.) (For those of you wondering: one is a technical writer, the other is an academic journalist. Both have excellent careers doing what they do, but neither can write a novel.)

A number of people above posted about the potential for abuse of the writers not getting their fair share. And one pointed out the problems from the other side where he was having trouble finding quality writers who would give him usable material to work with. Writers, you have to remember this is work for hire and you have to negotiate your compensation for the work you are going to do. You must also be aware of what is expected of you as part of that contract. As is the nature of the ghostwriting industry, don't expect credit for your work. If you prove that you are good at ghostwriting and that you can deliver the goods on a timely basis, you can expect to get more work and higher rates for your work. For the publishers, they have to make sure that the writers they are hiring can actually deliver quality material, and that the person is not an untalented hack whose opinion of their work is much higher than what they are actually capable of.

Ghostwriting can be a real ego bruiser for some people. It can be incredibly lucrative for others. If you have a talent for mimicking the voice and style of another writer, you can expect to be paid top dollar and be in high demand for the rest of your career. If you are an unpublished writer trying to break into the writing industry, you can expect what you are paid for a manuscript to be far less than what you wanted. But if you prove you can work quickly and deliver good material requiring minimal editing, you can expect that dollar amount to climb pretty quickly. Six good projects in a year can produce livable income, even at the bottom levels of pay.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

WDR said:


> Most of the time, ghostwriters are given a flat rate fee for their work. According to Writer's Digest, the average fee per project for ghostwriting is $36,000. This is out of a range from $5,000 to $100,000. The fee per project will be less if the ghostwriter asks for a royalty instead of a flat rate. What _you_ can demand for a fee depends on the quality of work you can deliver and what you negotiated with the author. If you have a good track record with a portfolio of hits, you can easily expect to demand and receive top pay for your work. If you are beginner, expect to find yourself at the bottom end of the pay scale. Most ghostwriters are very secretive about what they do because that is the nature of their work: _not_ to be in the spotlight.
> 
> I have a couple of friends who are outstanding writers, but neither come up with original story ideas to save their life. They look at me like I some kind of monster because of all these story ideas that come spewing out of my head at such a furious rate. One even put me to the test by handing me a stick he picked up and asked me to make up a story about it on the spot. I created three. The other got her start with writing fan fiction. Hand her some characters and a story idea, and she can crank out a good page turner. But she can't generate this stuff. (She would be an ideal ghostwriter.) (For those of you wondering: one is a technical writer, the other is an academic journalist. Both have excellent careers doing what they do, but neither can write a novel.)


I have a friend who ghostwrites. She charges .05/word (4k for an 80k word novel) with the publisher providing an outline and she's at the high end of indie ghostwriter prices. Most English speaking ghostwriters are charging between .02 and .05/word, less on sites like Elance. Some authors outsource their ghostwriting to countries where the cost of living is lower and pay as little as a few hundred dollars for a manuscript.

I don't think we are talking about ghostwriters who make five-figures a project. I'm sure they're out there, but they aren't the norm in the indie publishing world.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Crystal_ said:


> I don't think we are talking about ghostwriters who make five-figures a project. I'm sure they're out there, but they aren't the norm in the indie publishing world.


Exactly. The kind of stories ghostwritten and peddled by the likes of "Karla" can't cost her more than a few hundred quids, if as much. 100k yearly turnover would be laughable to any of the reputable publishers packaging books via high end ghostwriters. If she paid her ghostwriters 10+k or even just 5k she wouldn't be able to play the KU/Amazon system.

And as Atunah pointed out, this is extremely prevalent in the genres romance and erotica, though I would say it by now has also reached YA, SciFi and UF. This gels quite interestingly with the Marie Force survey quoted here the other day, which shows that legit Romance writers by now really have a problem with visibility.


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

Nic said:


> And as Atunah pointed out, this is extremely prevalent in the genres romance and erotica, though I would say it by now has also reached YA, SciFi and UF. This gels quite interestingly with the Marie Force survey quoted here the other day, which shows that legit Romance writers by now really have a problem with visibility.


I was reading Chris Fox's Write to Market and investigating a sub-genre to start writing in. I went to the top 100 chart to check out which books were trending to start looking for the tropes to make sure I understood the market for that sub-genre.

What I found was a top 20 page which held 75% romance that had zero to do with the sub-genre (but they shared _at least in name_ the umbrella SciFi genre) and 25% that met my needs. The 75% romance books were not what I was looking to write. The 25% started to bounce around the target. I had to dig deeper into the top 100 to find more of what I was specifically looking for.

It was, in a word, frustrating. Legitimate romance writers finding visibility is definitely an issue. It also appears to be slopping over into other categories now.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

berke said:


> I was reading Chris Fox's Write to Market and investigating a sub-genre to start writing in. I went to the top 100 chart to check out which books were trending to start looking for the tropes to make sure I understood the market for that sub-genre.
> 
> What I found was a top 20 page which held 75% romance that had zero to do with the sub-genre (but they shared _at least in name_ the umbrella SciFi genre) and 25% that met my needs. The 75% romance books were not what I was looking to write. The 25% started to bounce around the target. I had to dig deeper into the top 100 to find more of what I was specifically looking for.
> 
> It was, in a word, frustrating. Legitimate romance writers finding visibility is definitely an issue. It also appears to be slopping over into other categories now.


A question from me, to help me understand how one researches a market to write in. When you say you looked in the Top 100 list to check out the tropes of the genre, how did you do that? From reading the blurbs? Or maybe the Look Inside? Does that provide the info that you're looking for (or _enough_ info) about common tropes or themes? Or do you have to actually read all those books (which obviously would take weeks, if not months)? I've never quite understood how write-to-marketers learn the basics of their chosen market without buying and reading every single book in the top 20, much less top 100.


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## Stephanie Marks (Feb 16, 2015)

Jena H said:


> A question from me, to help me understand how one researches a market to write in. When you say you looked in the Top 100 list to check out the tropes of the genre, how did you do that? From reading the blurbs? Or maybe the Look Inside? Does that provide the info that you're looking for (or _enough_ info) about common tropes or themes? Or do you have to actually read all those books (which obviously would take weeks, if not months)? I've never quite understood how write-to-marketers learn the basics of their chosen market without buying and reading every single book in the top 20, much less top 100.


Read the books. Sometimes dozens of books. You'd be amazed at just how much time and writers are willing to dedicate to researching trends when they decide they want to write on trend to market.


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

Jena H said:


> A question from me, to help me understand how one researches a market to write in. When you say you looked in the Top 100 list to check out the tropes of the genre, how did you do that? From reading the blurbs? Or maybe the Look Inside? Does that provide the info that you're looking for (or _enough_ info) about common tropes or themes? Or do you have to actually read all those books (which obviously would take weeks, if not months)? I've never quite understood how write-to-marketers learn the basics of their chosen market without buying and reading every single book in the top 20, much less top 100.


A well-written blurb will give you pretty much everything you need to know about the tropes of a book. Romance writers are especially adept at this. Couple that with the cover and a glance at the content of reviews will tell a fairly accurate story for the target audience and thus the target I'm looking to hit.



Stephanie Marks said:


> Read the books. Sometimes dozens of books. You'd be amazed at just how much time and writers are willing to dedicate to researching trends when they decide they want to write on trend to market.


And this is the next step. I'm a pretty fast reader so it doesn't take me long to get through a book.


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## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

KelliWolfe said:


> I was flipping through the contemporary, NA, and Gothic lists last night and it made my head hurt. I honestly don't know how readers are able to find anything anymore. I'm to the point where I'm almost exclusively shopping off of Goodreads lists or the also-boughts lists of my favorite authors, because the categories are completely broken.


I agree with what Crystal wrote above about the NA romance cat being filled with books that are not even NA romance. Listening to some of these interviews I get the feeling that these people don't care about the readers and treat this like a conveyer belt operation. Lets just throw a bunch of average or below average romance stories out and see what ranks high enough. I am going to make a big assumption that some of these people who employ ghostwriters are putting their books in the wrong section and keyword stuffing the titles.

I also don't search through Amazon half as much as I used to. I now use Goodreads, recommendations from authors I have already read and some also-boughts.


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## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

berke said:


> Also, I wanted to add this. I watched both her videos. They were good interviews. She's running what appears to be a solid business. At the end of the second video, she plugs her course. When she talked about the things she covered in the course, I was struck by something.
> 
> *Everything she apparently covers most indies know how to do already. *Or know they need to do them. I know them and haven't had much of an opportunity to put them into action as I ramp up my own writing endeavors, but all that information can be found here on many writing business boards (here, DirtyDiscourse, reddit, etc). The only thing she could provide that was new for me was how to revitalize an older book. Not worth the pricetag she's asking to find that one bit out.
> 
> In the end, whether she's a book bundler, or publisher or whatever, I can't help but be struck by the fact that her biggest business model right now is coaching others how to do it.


That's the thing that annoys me about many of these people selling these courses. They are not teaching anything new that has not been talked about on here or all the self-publishing podcasts.

I have picked up so much information from listening to interviews with authors like Russell Blake, Zoe York, Jasinda Wilder and others. There is a ton of information on here that is free to anyone. 
Bookbub has a good blog.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Okey Dokey said:


> James Patterson didn't invent the model.
> Probably the most successful one was the publisher who created Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, etc.
> John Jakes broke into the big time when he was hired to write The [illegitimate person] as the first in a series about the American Revolution. On his own, he went on to write North and South.
> There are other examples.


Can we not say The [illegitimate person]? It's a classic and very good. Ha, I guess we can't. It fixed itself for me.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Crystal_ said:


> This woman is a publisher, not a writer. There is nothing wrong with being a publisher so there's really no need to avoid the label.
> 
> As a fellow business woman, I applaud her.
> 
> ...


The thing is, those soulless, books that are indistinguishable from each other hit the bestseller list all the time. Many readers like them, so I doubt they're going away. If the readers devour them, they've found something soulful in them they connect to. Some crank them out themselves while some hire ghostwriters, but either way, they'll keep coming because there's a market for them.


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## Disappointed (Jul 28, 2010)

Crystal_ said:


> ... Can we please tell people to make their money by publishing thrillers or cozy mysteries instead? ...


As a writer of (techno)thrillers, no, please don't!


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## The Misfit (Dec 12, 2016)

One person's "soulless" book is another writer's accomplishment. Or maybe it's their first publication. Or it's their tenth and they're happy to be able to pay their bills with their writing. Grats to them. If they're not doing anything wrong, not plagiarizing or stealing in any way, what's wrong with the way they run their business? A lot of the posts in this thread seem to be faulting and judging writers simply for giving readers what they want to read. And I'm not talking about ghostwriters, really, even though that's what this thread started over. Personally, I don't see any problem with ghostwriters, even if I don't use them myself. But if it works for someone's process--and if they are, as said above, not plagiarizing or stealing work--then more power to them. I know some ghostwriters, and they're good people. One of them is a university professor at a nationally recognized university who teaches creative writing to both undergraduates and graduate students. She's published novels of her own and received awards for them, but she supplements her income with ghostwriting. She's one of those who gets paid five figures for her work. She's definitely not stealing anyone's work, and if I ever decide to use a ghost writer, it's going to be her that I go to--that is if she'd even have room for me on her schedule.  I've talked to her extensively about this part of her career because it seems like a decent gig, not to mention that it's a guaranteed paycheck from a client, regardless of how successful the books is.

This seems to me that a lot of the focus in this thread is being put in the wrong place. They way I see it, and this might spice the pot a little too much for some (and I apologize for that as I'm not meaning to call anyone out), if your work isn't hitting the top 100 lists, then write better. It's a simple as that (and I say that with a little tongue-in-cheek). If you work hard on a novel, put your soul into it--_and if that novel hits important tropes that readers want to read_--it'll hit the charts. If it's not, though, don't sit on threads like this and throw around judgement and blame because another writer is doing better than you. Write better. And read more in your genre. Read your genre like it's the only books left on the planet. If you're not, you're not going to know what readers like. And, for those who want to break the genre conventions and write originally, you're not going to know what conventions there are to break if you haven't kept up with your genre. That's the only way. There is no secret sauce to writing. In the end, this is all about the people we write for, the readers. Give readers what they want, and they will reward you for it by buying your books.

Sorry for being opinionated, especially on my second post, but I've been at this writing thing for a long time. I'm not an expert or anything, but I don't think I'm a slouch either. I'm not saying anyone posting in a thread like this is bad or doing it wrong. I don't think that at all. I'd bet the farm on the fact that the lot of you are good people. You all are entitled to your opinion, and more power to you for it. I'm sure there is a lot of knowledge that each of you can share, even if we might disagree on the points brought up in this thread, and I look forward to reading it.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

The Misfit said:


> Personally, I don't see any problem with ghostwriters, even if I don't use them myself.


I don't have a problem with ghostwriters either but I would never use them myself because I'm a writer and that's my job. I don't have any respect for people who use ghostwriters because they're pretending to be authors. Do I think they should be banned from publishing? No. I don't think they're doing anything legally wrong. Morally? That's another story.



> if your work isn't hitting the top 100 lists, then write better. It's a simple as that (and I say that with a little tongue-in-cheek). If you work hard on a novel, put your soul into it--_and if that novel hits important tropes that readers want to read_--it'll hit the charts.


If it was only that easy. I believe marketing/promo are an integral part of getting successful for most of us. My books were mostly invisible until I did my first free promo on the first book in a series and I've been making decent money ever since. So yeah, I would say write books people want to read and learn how to market them.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

The Misfit said:


> Sorry for being opinionated, especially on my second post, but I've been at this writing thing for a long time. I'm not an expert or anything, but I don't think I'm a slouch either. I'm not saying anyone posting in a thread like this is bad or doing it wrong. I don't think that at all. I'd bet the farm on the fact that the lot of you are good people. You all are entitled to your opinion, and more power to you for it. I'm sure there is a lot of knowledge that each of you can share, even if we might disagree on the points brought up in this thread, and I look forward to reading it.


The point those who are criticising this business model have made - no, we weren't talking about ghostwriters worth 5k or 10k per commission - is not one of writing, it is one of reading.

The writer comes in at the point where readers begin to avoid indie published or self-published authors simply because they have been disappointed once too often, or angered once too often by not finding or getting what they want. That will impact indie authors without anyone plagiarising them, or doing anything legally 'wrong'. The 'wrong' will be the low quality driving away readers. No one wants to wallow in the slush pile.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Nic said:


> No one wants to wallow in the slush pile.


The beauty of indie publishing is that there are no gatekeepers. You'll find professionally edited books and you'll find drivel that somebody put out without even running it through spellcheck. If you want books that have gone through an extensive vetting process, stick to trad published books. Or learn how to vet your indie books better.

I myself am a very picky reader and I find most trad published books to be drivel as well. Usually better edited, but still drivel nonetheless.


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## The Misfit (Dec 12, 2016)

NeedWant said:


> I don't have a problem with ghostwriters either but I would never use them myself because I'm a writer and that's my job. I don't have any respect for people who use ghostwriters because they're pretending to be authors. Do I think they should be banned from publishing? No. I don't think they're doing anything legally wrong. Morally? That's another story.
> 
> If it was only that easy. I believe marketing/promo are an integral part of getting successful for most of us. My books were mostly invisible until I did my first free promo on the first book in a series and I've been making decent money ever since. So yeah, I would say write books people want to read and learn how to market them.


I don't think it's really fair to generalize like that, though. I'm sure there are those who do use ghost writers and _only_ ghost writers. I think in that case, I would agree with you. But I know of one writer who is far more successful than I am (and I actually do okay for what I'm writing, but we're talking upwards of six figures a year) who pushes out books of their own along with using ghost writers. They do this solely to have more market presence. I don't think you can say that this person is pretending to be an author. This person is an author and a publisher.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

The Misfit said:


> I don't think it's really fair to generalize like that, though. I'm sure there are those who do use ghost writers and _only_ ghost writers. I think in that case, I would agree with you. But I know of one writer who is far more successful than I am (and I actually do okay for what I'm writing, but we're talking upwards of six figures a year) who pushes out books of their own along with using ghost writers. They do this solely to have more market presence. I don't think you can say that this person is pretending to be an author. This person is an author and a publisher.


They are pretending to have written those particular books, so yeah I wouldn't really think highly of them for that. But I'm pretty sure they wouldn't lose any sleep over it and that's totally fine.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

The Misfit said:


> One person's "soulless" book is another writer's accomplishment. Or maybe it's their first publication. Or it's their tenth and they're happy to be able to pay their bills with their writing. Grats to them. If they're not doing anything wrong, not plagiarizing or stealing in any way, what's wrong with the way they run their business? A lot of the posts in this thread seem to be faulting and judging writers simply for giving readers what they want to read.


I have no problem with people writing romance to pay the bills if they do the work to write a great romance that readers will love. I object to people knowingly putting out shoddy work, regardless of the genre. I mostly read romance or trad-pub non-romances, so I really don't know what's up in the indie world in other genres.

There are many, many romance authors/publishers who have no respect for the genre, who call romance readers dumb, who call romance stupid. Romance/erotica forums are plagued with people saying "I don't like romance. I want money. How can I make money fast writing romance? What niche should I pick? BTW, I've never read a romance. I don't really like it." It happens on Kboards too, but not as often.



The Misfit said:


> They way I see it, and this might spice the pot a little too much for some (and I apologize for that as I'm not meaning to call anyone out), if your work isn't hitting the top 100 lists, then write better. It's a simple as that (and I say that with a little tongue-in-cheek). If you work hard on a novel, put your soul into it--and if that novel hits important tropes that readers want to read--it'll hit the charts.


The top 100 lists are literally the top 100 books, by ranking, in a subgenre. If the subgenre has more books, it's harder to hit the list. If people are pumping out low quality books and pouring ad money into them, or miscategorizing, it makes it harder for other authors to hit the lists. So it's not fair to say "ignore other people." Books flooding your genre directly affects authors.

As said upthread, it isn't *easy* to get visibility unless you get those initial sales from somewhere. You can do it from a fanbase or from advertising money, but the only time a book soars on its own is when there's a hungry group of readers. If a niche is flooded with books, the readers are no longer hungry.

I do well, and I don't have sour grapes about people who put out shoddy work doing better than me. Because they don't. Most people who use low-quality ghostwriters, don't make a lot of money per book. They make their money in volume.


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## The Misfit (Dec 12, 2016)

Nic said:


> The point those who are criticising this business model have made - no, we weren't talking about ghostwriters worth 5k or 10k per commission - is not one of writing, it is one of reading.
> 
> The writer comes in at the point where readers begin to avoid indie published or self-published authors simply because they have been disappointed once too often, or angered once too often by not finding or getting what they want. That will impact indie authors without anyone plagiarising them, or doing anything legally 'wrong'. The 'wrong' will be the low quality driving away readers. No one wants to wallow in the slush pile.


I think a lot of what you're doing is extrapolating your own experience to substitute for the generalized experience of readers everywhere. I don't think you can do that. You're one person, and readers are not monolithic. There are readers out there who lap up certain tropes in the romance category, for instance, who will continue to inhale those tropes regardless of how often they read them--and for many, regardless of how well the book is written. Take MPREG, a subgenre that I will probably never write, but that (to my endless perplexity and, I'll admit, a little annoyance) still stays strong. It ebbs and flows, but even now, on the M/M romance charts, you'll find a couple MPREG novels in the top 40. There will be ebb and flow in a market, for sure, but those books are there because readers will buy them, no matter how well or how badly the story is written, so long as it satisfies what they're looking for in a book. They'll buy it. I would never take my opinion of a genre and say that, just because I don't like MPREG, there's something wrong with it. Obviously there's something that those authors are doing right if they're still able to make a fair amount of money off it. (There's one MPREG right now in the M/M top 20 that's #712 in the entire Kindle store. I can say from experience that that book alone is probably making at least $300-500 per day, maybe more. That author is easily going to have a mid- to high-four-figure month with just that one book this month. And if that book is part of a series or if it is part of a larger library, that author probably paid for Christmas along with a few other hefty bills.) Again, it's really all about giving the readers what they want. If you do that, readers will reward you for it, and they won't care if your book is ghost written or if it took you ten years to write it all on your own.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

I think this discussion has hit its saturation point.  Each person has his/her POV and argument, and nobody is going to change anyone's mind.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

The Misfit said:


> I think a lot of what you're doing is extrapolating your own experience to substitute for the generalized experience of readers everywhere. I don't think you can do that. You're one person, and readers are not monolithic. There are readers out there who lap up certain tropes in the romance category, for instance, who will continue to inhale those tropes regardless of how often they read them--and for many, regardless of how well the book is written....And if that book is part of a series or if it is part of a larger library, that author probably paid for Christmas along with a few other hefty bills.) Again, it's really all about giving the readers what they want. If you do that, readers will reward you for it, and they won't care if your book is ghost written or if it took you ten years to write it all on your own.


You're still not catching on to what the readers here say, including myself. These ghostwritten books are not giving the readers what they want. They are creating readers who become unwilling to even just try reading any indie authors, good and bad alike.

I'm also not deducting this from the position of a lone special snowflake, because you ought to have noticed that already in this small group within a very small thread and but very few participants you get several readers who state the same thing. I'm not looking at just this forum either, what I am relating here, what others are relating here, is a current evolution and it is on a steep rise. Within my personal "reader sphere" and the genres I read "rise" means at least 30% plus fellow readers feeling the same kind of disenchantment. That's pretty serious. Atunah reports that there are others in her reader sphere, and it is separate from my own.

When incidents become common they cease to be of no import. It's just a matter of numbers.


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## The Misfit (Dec 12, 2016)

I think I'm catching on just fine. YOU are saying that YOU won't read any indie authors anymore. But YOU are not READERS. You are A reader.  Clearly there are authors who are burning their way up the charts even with some readers saying they aren't going to read indie authors anymore.

And lets take it to the extreme: Say a large group of readers decide that they aren't going to read indie authors anymore. It's just like anything else that is market driven. Those authors who are in it just for the money are going to stop publishing if there ceases to be the same level of reward. When they stop, other authors will move in to take their place, likely an up-and-coming group of them who do, in fact, care about their work and who value keeping control over their intellectual property and/or who don't like the idea of signing away rights to their work for a pittance of an advance that they'll probably never earn back. Then some of those readers who left the indie market before will return. And they'll post on their blogs about books they liked or they'll post them on FB or Goodreads, and we'll see those readers return, along with new readers. So then we'll probably see more make-a-buck authors returning to flood the market, and the process will probably start all over again. See, I don't think the sky is falling. I think maybe it's cloudy, and there's a chance for some rain, but eventually the rain will pass.


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## ♨ (Jan 9, 2012)

BellaJames said:


> That's the thing that annoys me about many of these people selling these courses. They are not teaching anything new that has not been talked about on here or all the self-publishing podcasts.
> 
> I have picked up so much information from listening to interviews with authors like Russell Blake, Zoe York, Jasinda Wilder and others. There is a ton of information on here that is free to anyone.
> Bookbub has a good blog.


People will pay for courses like that because they (at least the decent ones) will give you that information _all in one place_. They don't have to wade through hundreds of threads and dozens of posts on forums and blogs, often with conflicting information and sometimes offered by people parroting what others have said or what they think may be true, and they don't have to listen to podcasts, which frequently don't even have transcripts and thus are even more time-consuming because you can't as easily skip past any useless chatter. They get all the information packaged up and available in one place. If the course is good and the information accurate, that's a _huge_ time-saver over having to hunt for information and often resort to trial and error to see what's true.


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## Piano Jenny (Nov 30, 2016)

Dan C. Rinnert said:


> People will pay for courses like that because they (at least the decent ones) will give you that information _all in one place_. They don't have to wade through hundreds of threads and dozens of posts on forums and blogs, often with conflicting information and sometimes offered by people parroting what others have said or what they think may be true, and they don't have to listen to podcasts, which frequently don't even have transcripts and thus are even more time-consuming because you can't as easily skip past any useless chatter. They get all the information packaged up and available in one place. If the course is good and the information accurate, that's a _huge_ time-saver over having to hunt for information and often resort to trial and error to see what's true.


Exactly what I was thinking. Nothing wrong with that at all, and something that fits the bill perfectly for many people.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

The Misfit said:


> I think a lot of what you're doing is extrapolating your own experience to substitute for the generalized experience of readers everywhere. I don't think you can do that. You're one person, and readers are not monolithic. There are readers out there who lap up certain tropes in the romance category, for instance, who will continue to inhale those tropes regardless of how often they read them--and for many, regardless of how well the book is written. Take MPREG, a subgenre that I will probably never write, but that (to my endless perplexity and, I'll admit, a little annoyance) still stays strong. It ebbs and flows, but even now, on the M/M romance charts, you'll find a couple MPREG novels in the top 40. There will be ebb and flow in a market, for sure, but those books are there because readers will buy them, no matter how well or how badly the story is written, so long as it satisfies what they're looking for in a book. They'll buy it.


Assuming the books are equally tropey, 100% of readers prefer their idea of a well written book to their idea of a poorly written book. Some will look past certain things. Some won't. But I'm pretty sure there are no readers out there saying: if only this book had more typos, more plot holes, less well developed characters, clunkier prose, etc, it would be so much better.

I'm sure writers are among the most critical of readers because we can see the strings, but there are plenty of particular readers out there. Just check some non-ARC reviews on a bestseller (surprisingly hard to come by these days. No one seems to review anymore).


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Nic said:


> You're still not catching on to what the readers here say, including myself. These ghostwritten books are not giving the readers what they want. They are creating readers who become unwilling to even just try reading any indie authors, good and bad alike.
> 
> I'm also not deducting this from the position of a lone special snowflake, because you ought to have noticed that already in this small group within a very small thread and but very few participants you get several readers who state the same thing. I'm not looking at just this forum either, what I am relating here, what others are relating here, is a current evolution and it is on a steep rise. Within my personal "reader sphere" and the genres I read "rise" means at least 30% plus fellow readers feeling the same kind of disenchantment. That's pretty serious. Atunah reports that there are others in her reader sphere, and it is separate from my own.
> 
> When incidents become common they cease to be of no import. It's just a matter of numbers.


To those readers I say: good riddance and I hope you find what you're looking for from the trad publishers!

Oh, and while you're at it, try not to badmouth all indie books unless you're willing to badmouth all trad books because you kept picking duds to read.


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## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

Dan C. Rinnert said:


> People will pay for courses like that because they (at least the decent ones) will give you that information _all in one place_. They don't have to wade through hundreds of threads and dozens of posts on forums and blogs, often with conflicting information and sometimes offered by people parroting what others have said or what they think may be true, and they don't have to listen to podcasts, which frequently don't even have transcripts and thus are even more time-consuming because you can't as easily skip past any useless chatter. They get all the information packaged up and available in one place. If the course is good and the information accurate, that's a _huge_ time-saver over having to hunt for information and often resort to trial and error to see what's true.


I know all of this.
I am talking about my personal taste and opinion. I am someone who prefers to read around and watch podcasts. Yes some courses are good. Others are not worth the entry fee.

Some of these publishers or authors see an easier way of making money by teaching and making courses. I see it on reddit when someone says they wrote a how to book or a course but they are not selling many books themselves. They also just repeat the same basic advice.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> ... write books people want to read and learn how to market them.


That, in a nutshell, is how to succeed in this business.

1) Write books that people want to read.

2) Learn how to market them.

I would add a third and fourth:

3) Do it over and over again.

4) Do it as fast as you can because this is a very competitive market.

Now, if you don't care about money or income, then write whatever your little heart desires and publish it. It may not sell, even with promotion, but at least you did what you wanted. You expressed yourself and did your art.

That counts for a lot in the course of a lifetime even if it earns you nothing.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

NeedWant said:


> I myself am a very picky reader and I find most trad published books to be drivel as well. Usually better edited, but still drivel nonetheless.


"Drivel" is a stronger word than I would choose, since I tend not to think of aesthetic quality as a universal or objective trait. But yeah, I had a similar experience as a reader. In fact, it was the sense that _surely I could write something better than this_, with _this _being the traditionally published urban fantasy I was reading back in 2010-11, that prompted me to try writing fiction. Then I ... um ... discovered it was a lot harder to write a successful novel than I thought it'd be (no shit Sherlock, right?). But the fact remains: if formulaic plots; flat, incoherent, or type characters; and shallow, derivative world-building bother you, there's plenty of that stuff to be found on the traditional side of the aisle. I assume that's because these things, which bother me in a book, actually appeal to other readers. Those folks would look at the books I was reading and not see the things I saw, or see those traits and like them. I'm not that audience, but the audience is there. One can hardly blame indies or traditional publishers for writing to it. Readers who are more like me have always had to choose carefully to find the books we'll like. Fair enough, IMO.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Crystal_ said:


> I have no problem with people writing romance to pay the bills if they do the work to write a great romance that readers will love. I object to people knowingly putting out shoddy work, regardless of the genre. I mostly read romance or trad-pub non-romances, so I really don't know what's up in the indie world in other genres.
> 
> There are many, many romance authors/publishers who have no respect for the genre, who call romance readers dumb, who call romance stupid. Romance/erotica forums are plagued with people saying "I don't like romance. I want money. How can I make money fast writing romance? What niche should I pick? BTW, I've never read a romance. I don't really like it." It happens on Kboards too, but not as often.


A depressing consistency that I've found - and got burned again by yesterday - is that the majority of these books simply aren't romance. The books have romance covers and romance blurbs. They're categorized as romance. The first couple of chapters may even read like romance. They have some kind of HEA. But they're not romance.

When you actually read the book, it's just two characters having sex. A lot of sex. A lot of very explicit sex. There's a female MC who has no personality and no real characteristics at all except for her overwhelming sexual attraction to the male MC. The male MC is a hot, dominating alphahole who has no other characteristics, either. He's interested in the female MC because she's hot and he wants her. There's no love, just sexual obsession. There's no relationship building, just sexual tension. It's like someone too emotionally stunted to understand the difference between sex and love read a few romance books and then sat down at the keyboard to imitate it.

Often the writing is good, or at least competent. Some of them have a really, really good premise and it makes me want to throw my Kindle across the room when they completely destroy the story's potential that way. But ultimately what they're writing is erotica, not romance, because the real focus of the book is on the characters' sex lives, not about falling in love. There's nothing *wrong* with that. It just doesn't belong in romance.

This is where the "Look Inside" fails, too. It's often just not possible to tell from that snippet that the writer is going to do this.

I picked up two more books in KU yesterday that both did this. It made me want to scream because they had great premises and were hitting my favorite tropes, but I returned both of them about 1/4 of the way in. They had gorgeous covers and interesting blurbs and the writing was really good in both cases. But they simply weren't romances.

So you've got a lot of people who don't "get" romance writing it for money, but they've got good writing skills and they're great at marketing. If they submitted to any of the traditional romance imprints they'd get a quick rejection letter. But there are piles and piles and piles of them in Contemporary and NA and there's almost no way for a reader to tell them apart from the books that really are romances without getting burned. After a few of these, how many of them decide to just stick with tradpub from now on, where at least you know that if you buy a romance you know you're getting a romance?


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## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

KelliWolfe said:


> *A depressing consistency that I've found - and got burned again by yesterday - is that the majority of these books simply aren't romance. The books have romance covers and romance blurbs. They're categorized as romance. The first couple of chapters may even read like romance. They have some kind of HEA. But they're not romance.*
> 
> When you actually read the book, it's just two characters having sex. A lot of sex. A lot of very explicit sex. There's a female MC who has no personality and no real characteristics at all except for her overwhelming sexual attraction to the male MC. The male MC is a hot, dominating alphahole who has no other characteristics, either. He's interested in the female MC because she's hot and he wants her. There's no love, just sexual obsession. There's no relationship building, just sexual tension. It's like someone too emotionally stunted to understand the difference between sex and love read a few romance books and then sat down at the keyboard to imitate it.
> 
> ...


I blame the media for some of this because I saw someone mention this a few months ago on here or reddit. There was a video and some articles about this new NA romance genre and they focused in on the fact that it was smutty sexy books. They focused on Fifty Shades of Grey and I think many people who did not read early NA romance misunderstand what it is about. It's been talked about on here before. A ton of erotica books are put into NA romance because they can gain more visibility and avoid the Amazon heavy hand (throwing erotica in the dungeon)

NA romance is more complex than that.

This is the video


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

sela said:


> That, in a nutshell, is how to succeed in this business.
> 
> 1) Write books that people want to read.
> 
> ...


I'll quote the whole thing because it's gold but the bolded part is definitely where I have room to improve. My goal was to write and publish 12 novels (these are only 50k) this past year but I only ended up with 4. 2017 will be different!



Becca Mills said:


> "Drivel" is a stronger word than I would choose, since I tend not to think of aesthetic quality as a universal or objective trait. But yeah, I had a similar experience as a reader. In fact, it was the sense that _surely I could write something better than this_, with _this _being the traditionally published urban fantasy I was reading back in 2010-11, that prompted me to try writing fiction. Then I ... um ... discovered it was a lot harder to write a successful novel than I thought it'd be (no [crap] Sherlock, right?). But the fact remains: if *formulaic plots; flat, incoherent, or type characters; and shallow, derivative world-building* bother you, there's plenty of that stuff to be found on the traditional side of the aisle. I assume that's because these things, which bother me in a book, actually appeal to other readers. Those folks would look at the books I was reading and not see the things I saw, or see those traits and like them. I'm not that audience, but the audience is there. One can hardly blame indies or traditional publishers for writing to it. Readers who are more like me have always had to choose carefully to find the books we'll like. Fair enough, IMO.


Yeah, by drivel I mean the bolded part. Strong word for sure, but when I don't like something, that's the word that comes to mind.

It's funny (and kind of sad) that the few UF series I found that I loved were dropped by their publishers after 3-4 books! My tastes aren't what the general public is buying for sure. The few super popular series I tried I stopped reading after one book because they just weren't my thing at all. I just hope my upcoming UF series has more mass appeal than my favorite books ever did.


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## The Misfit (Dec 12, 2016)

Crystal_ said:


> Assuming the books are equally tropey, 100% of readers prefer their idea of a well written book to their idea of a poorly written book. Some will look past certain things. Some won't. But I'm pretty sure there are no readers out there saying: if only this book had more typos, more plot holes, less well developed characters, clunkier prose, etc, it would be so much better.
> 
> I'm sure writers are among the most critical of readers because we can see the strings, but there are plenty of particular readers out there. Just check some non-ARC reviews on a bestseller (surprisingly hard to come by these days. No one seems to review anymore).


You're absolutely right, and I probably extrapolated a little too far in my rush to post. But a lot of lesser-written books get by in subgenres, and I see tearing up the charts in some categories because they meet the tropes. I read a scifi book not long ago that made my head hurt. I'm outlining a scifi novel, so I went to the top-100 list to see what was selling, and I bought that book. Three-hundred pages of flat characters and a typo or grammatical error on every other page. But it's in the top ten of its subcategory with a ton of four and five-star reviews. People are buying it because it satisfying something for them. I'm just as flabbergasted as the next guy. But you're right, and I don't believe readers want more plot holes and poorly developed characters either. I never meant to suggest that. And truly, that scifi novel gave me hope, because I know that I don't write paper-thin characters, and I care about my stories enough to try to fill the plot holes and make everything internally logical. My thought was, damn, if I get this thing written and I put it in front of the right reader eyes, I just might actually make a few dollars off it.

And I do have to agree with some of what you said about romance getting the shaft. Romance is looked at a lot like screenwriting. Everyone thinks that screenwriting is so much easier because of all the white space on every page. They think 90-120 pages with all that space in between? Sure! I've seen movies. I watch TV. I can knock one of those suckers out in a weekend and pay off my mortgage! ...Except it's not that easy. There is still a lot that goes into writing a screenplay, and a good screenplay will take just as long to write as any picky novelist might spend writing her novel.

Romance is the same way. Its tropey and a lot of people think that tossing one out in a month to make the big bucks is super simple. Putting those month-long books out there with little to no editing and huge plot holes is a matter of mashing the Publish button. Trust me, I understand where some of the judgments tossed around in this thread are coming from. But I don't think it's nearly as bad as some are trying to peddle as truth. I don't think those month-long, get-rich-quick types will be around next year. Hell, they probably won't even be there next month. Because those of us who do this writing thing because we love it will far outlast them. If we do as Sela suggest in her post full of wisdom up above, and we write the books that people want to read, market them appropriately, and do it over and over, we'll be the ones who kick the short-lived writers off the lists. As I said before, I think it's a matter of ebb and flow. Nothing is constant in this industry, these days especially. If it was, traditional publishing would have best sellers every time they picked a book to publish. I guess I'm just not one who subscribes to all the doom and gloom and this idea that ghost writers and one-off indies are the death knell for us all.


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

KelliWolfe said:


> A depressing consistency that I've found - and got burned again by yesterday - is that the majority of these books simply aren't romance. The books have romance covers and romance blurbs. They're categorized as romance. The first couple of chapters may even read like romance. They have some kind of HEA. But they're not romance.
> 
> When you actually read the book, it's just two characters having sex. A lot of sex. A lot of very explicit sex. There's a female MC who has no personality and no real characteristics at all except for her overwhelming sexual attraction to the male MC. The male MC is a hot, dominating alphahole who has no other characteristics, either. He's interested in the female MC because she's hot and he wants her. There's no love, just sexual obsession. There's no relationship building, just sexual tension. It's like someone too emotionally stunted to understand the difference between sex and love read a few romance books and then sat down at the keyboard to imitate it.
> 
> Often the writing is good, or at least competent. Some of them have a really, really good premise and it makes me want to throw my Kindle across the room when they completely destroy the story's potential that way. But ultimately what they're writing is erotica, not romance, because the real focus of the book is on the characters' sex lives, not about falling in love. There's nothing *wrong* with that. It just doesn't belong in romance.


Yes to this. It's absolutely pervasive in self-published Historical Romance.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

KelliWolfe said:


> A depressing consistency that I've found - and got burned again by yesterday - is that the majority of these books simply aren't romance. The books have romance covers and romance blurbs. They're categorized as romance. The first couple of chapters may even read like romance. They have some kind of HEA. But they're not romance.
> 
> When you actually read the book, it's just two characters having sex. A lot of sex. A lot of very explicit sex. There's a female MC who has no personality and no real characteristics at all except for her overwhelming sexual attraction to the male MC. The male MC is a hot, dominating alphahole who has no other characteristics, either. He's interested in the female MC because she's hot and he wants her. There's no love, just sexual obsession. There's no relationship building, just sexual tension. It's like someone too emotionally stunted to understand the difference between sex and love read a few romance books and then sat down at the keyboard to imitate it.
> 
> ...


Yes this. All of this. I mentioned that reading samples doesn't do anything. For those reasons. One cannot explain to someone that doesn't know anything about romance what romance is. But how many times do we see threads right here on Kboards that equate romance with sex. Anyone saying that I know they do not know romance. And many of those people write what they think or want to think is romance but it isn't. Sex does not equal romance. It is not what defines the genre. Even just having a HEA or HFN in a book does not make something romance. But how does one explain this to those that don't care to know. Or don't read the genres. Heck some jump on the bandwagon, but as "research" they read those non romance books. So then we go in circles. 
So yes, its like many are packaged great, great cover, great blurb, interesting trope, etc. Yet one starts reading and finds out its not actually romance. When I want to read a romance, I want to read a romance. Period.

And like you said Kelli, its hard to tell the difference just by the visual things, even the sample wouldn't always tell me that. So what am I suppose to do. I go to any trade publisher that publishes romance and I know I will get a romance when I pick it. Its not a gamble of is it or isn't it. It is what it is. I know what it is. I know what it isn't when I read it. And I don't want to even get to that point anymore of reading it.



crebel said:


> Yes to this. It's absolutely pervasive in self-published Historical Romance.


Oh lard yes. My favorite subgenre and its just flooded with this stuff. Sorry, not cool to this reader.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

The Misfit said:


> Romance is the same way. Its tropey and a lot of people think that tossing one out in a month to make the big bucks is super simple. Putting those month-long books out there with little to no editing and huge plot holes is a matter of mashing the Publish button. Trust me, I understand where some of the judgments tossed around in this thread are coming from. But I don't think it's nearly as bad as some are trying to peddle as truth. I don't think those month-long, get-rich-quick types will be around next year.


And you would be wrong. They've been doing this since 50 Shades and there are more of them all of the time. A lot of them are making a lot of money doing it, so why would they quit? It works because there are just as many - and possibly more - people who want to read erotica as there are people who want to read romance, and by mainstreaming it into traditional genre fiction (they're also doing this with coming of age and women's fiction) it's being "legitimized" so the old erotica stigma isn't on the books that those readers are buying.

Don't believe me? Go look up the #1 erotica author on Amazon. Then look up the #1 contemporary romance author. And the #3 romance author. Look at the books used to get those ranks. Look at how many of the other books in the top 100 in those romance categories are just like them. Still think this is just overreaction? Get rich quick/internet marketer types see that and start drooling like a rabid pack of Pavlov's dogs.

It's already spreading into fantasy, and it's just a matter of time until the same thing happens in the other genres as competition in romance, the "easy" genre, gets stronger. And because so many of the people doing it are internet marketers, they'll have great covers and blurbs and it won't be until the Laurel K Hamiltonian 12-way interspecies gangbang kicks off in chapter eight that the reader will realize that she's been had. _Again_. And start thinking really hard about maybe it being worth spending the extra couple of dollars on that book from Tor or Baen instead of the indie titles.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

NeedWant said:


> It's funny (and kind of sad) that the few UF series I found that I loved were dropped by their publishers after 3-4 books! My tastes aren't what the general public is buying for sure.


Yeah, that happened to a few of my faves, too. Harry Connolly's Twenty Palaces comes to mind. Such a bummer.


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## The Misfit (Dec 12, 2016)

KelliWolfe said:


> And you would be wrong. They've been doing this since 50 Shades and there are more of them all of the time. A lot of them are making a lot of money doing it, so why would they quit? It works because there are just as many - and possibly more - people who want to read erotica as there are people who want to read romance, and by mainstreaming it into traditional genre fiction (they're also doing this with coming of age and women's fiction) it's being "legitimized" so the old erotica stigma isn't on the books that those readers are buying.
> 
> Don't believe me? Go look up the #1 erotica author on Amazon. Then look up the #1 contemporary romance author. And the #3 romance author. Look at the books used to get those ranks. Look at how many of the other books in the top 100 in those romance categories are just like them. Still think this is just overreaction? Get rich quick/internet marketer types see that and start drooling like a rabid pack of Pavlov's dogs.
> 
> It's already spreading into fantasy, and it's just a matter of time until the same thing happens in the other genres as competition in romance, the "easy" genre, gets stronger. And because so many of the people doing it are internet marketers, they'll have great covers and blurbs and it won't be until the Laurel K Hamiltonian 12-way interspecies gangbang kicks off in chapter eight that the reader will realize that she's been had. _Again_. And start thinking really hard about maybe it being worth spending the extra couple of dollars on that book from Tor or Baen instead of the indie titles.


Like I said above, you're entitled to your opinion. Your experience is not my experience. So "wrong" is relative, I guess.  I keep my head down, and I write, and that's what I do. And when I'm done writing, I publish and promo. I'm doing okay. I'm not prolific by any means, but it's paying a lot of bills, even after my overhead. I'm sorry you're having a hard time, if you are (I don't know as I don't know anything about you or your work, so I'm not trying to patronize you), and I say with the utmost sincerity that I hope you find success.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

In other words, you didn't bother even looking at the evidence I provided, you just closed your eyes and shoved your fingers in your ears and screamed "LALALALALALA!!!!" hoping I'd go away. Whatevs.


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## The Misfit (Dec 12, 2016)

KelliWolfe said:


> In other words, you didn't bother even looking at the evidence I provided, you just closed your eyes and shoved your fingers in your ears and screamed "LALALALALALA!!!!" hoping I'd go away. Whatevs.


Wow. Okay. I see KBoards really hasn't changed. So many judgmental, nasty people still on this site. Not everyone, of course. There are some good folks. In fact, it was seeing that Becca Mills was a mod that made me think that maybe things around here had changed. She's good people, and there are a couple others who are bright spots that I remember from before. Sorry to say, though, that the culture of snobbery and judgment still exists, as your childish response indicates. And yeah, my fault for thinking it was a place I might want to create an account again. But it took all of two days and the judgmental posts from some of the people in this thread to tell me that not a lot has changed around here. A lot of you just come off as bitter, angry people. I'm sorry you're like this.

Mods, feel free to delete my account. Now I remember why I left this place a year or so ago.

Toodles!


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

KelliWolfe]So you've got a lot of people who don't "get" romance writing it for money said:


> In other words, you didn't bother even looking at the evidence I provided, you just closed your eyes and shoved your fingers in your ears and screamed "LALALALALALA!!!!" hoping I'd go away. Whatevs.


Ha, but as demonstrated we are just _speshul snowflakes_ who diss those poor sods scrabbling to earn a few bucks.

Your last few posts nail the exact same thing I have been seeing. It's not going to help indie authors one tiny bit. And unlike NeedWant I am of the opinion (!) that unchecked or unresolved this will lead to a major problem for a lot of indie authors in the medium long run. It's going to be affecting all, regardless of how many advertisements you will throw at people - because "they" will be doing it as well.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

KelliWolfe said:


> It's already spreading into fantasy, and it's just a matter of time until the same thing happens in the other genres as competition in romance, the "easy" genre, gets stronger. And because so many of the people doing it are internet marketers, they'll have great covers and blurbs and it won't be until the Laurel K Hamiltonian 12-way interspecies gangbang kicks off in chapter eight that the reader will realize that she's been had. _Again_. And start thinking really hard about maybe it being worth spending the extra couple of dollars on that book from Tor or Baen instead of the indie titles.


It really doesn't help anyone to sweep this under the rug, or to play Three Monkeys in an attempt not to burst bubbles or disturb delicacies. Ever since the last of Howie's book reports I've been wondering. Because rather than just a KU burp or Amazon squashing a few scammers, I think those data can also be interpreted an entirely different way.

What if this report is showing the beginning of people massively turning away from self-published authors? With a first stop being the small indie publishing houses (real ones, not one-author-only-publishers for tax reasons) who've at least some selection in their publishing processes, and also proving that quite a few readers are returning to trad publishers. Not necessarily the Big 5, but instead all those mid-range legit publishing houses, who've a real slush pile and still work with agents and severe sorting out.

That would explain what is visible in this report just perfectly. It also coincides with what I see myself and other readers do. If this is so, then there's already a serious impact on indie authors, where it hurts.


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## grumpycat (Dec 15, 2016)

I'm a reader and I can't believe you all think what this woman do is nothing wrong. It may not be illegal but it's certainly dishonest and deceptive to readers. She holds herself out as an author. An author to most people is a person who writes.  If she is a publisher than why can't she just get a logo and be honest and say she's a publisher. She can hire writers to write a certain type books published under her logo. But she misrepresents herself as an author and that's a lie. Even if this had been done before it doesn't make it right. You all don't think people would have a problem if they found out JK Rowling didn't write any of the Harry Potter books? Or if Stephanie Meyer didn't write the Twilight books herself? Why do we travel to Comic Con or whatnot to get their autographs if they aren't the real authors? Why do we care whether JK Rowling has the last word on whether Dumbledore is gay or not if she didn't even write the story? I couldn't care less what some marketer has to say. If I've been reading books by an author and I found out she is fake, I'd never buy her books again. Never.  

It's not only about whether I bought a book to read. When someone holds herself out as an author, she's asking me to buy into believing that she is an author I want to follow. Otherwise, why do I care when she sends me newsletters about what she's up to, what she blogs about, her tweets or her Facebook posts on what her cat is doing? It's all a lie. I don't care to follow some marketer. 

She is a fake, that's what she is. She's the Milli Vanilli of the book business. 

Now I wonder if any of you indie people are real writers. This kind of dishonesty becomes rampant and you lose the trust of us readers, we'll never really believe anything you say again.


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## Disappointed (Jul 28, 2010)

sela said:


> ...
> 
> 1) Write books that people want to read.
> 
> ...


I'd like to add:

5) And/Or, write something that stands the test of time so that future generations will still read it.

I do not agree with the current conventional wisdom that quantity trumps quality. The Classics in any media are what they are because they do the job of taking the audience on an enjoyable journey. Again and again, no matter how many times the audience takes that journey. Disney, Pixar, and many other storytellers learned this a long time ago.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

sela said:


> Now, if you don't care about money or income, then write whatever your little heart desires and publish it. It may not sell, even with promotion, but at least you did what you wanted. You expressed yourself and did your art.
> 
> That counts for a lot in the course of a lifetime even if it earns you nothing.


 

Can we please stop posting this misleading and condescending meme? Not only is it blatantly false (as documented by the last century of bestselling literature), it's also discouraging to new writers and pretty rude to boot.

There are as many paths to success as their are definitions, including financial ones.

There is no "only way".



Nic said:


> It really doesn't help anyone to sweep this under the rug...


I agree with Nic.
Over the last couple of years, finding enjoyable books has become increasing more difficult, not easier. I think we owe it to ourselves as participants in this market to have frank discussions without resorting to monolithic generalizations about other writers or readers, or anecdotal (unsupported) absolute statements. I think Nic's alternative interpretation of the last AE report is as valid as any other. And that's troubling.

There's important writers out there, saying important things and they're getting lost in the noise. That's not good for writers or readers.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Becca Mills said:


> Yeah, that happened to a few of my faves, too. Harry Connolly's Twenty Palaces comes to mind. Such a bummer.


I have all four books in that series (including the self-published prequel) but only read the first two. I remember liking them enough but couldn't really get into book three so it sits unfinished. Maybe one of these days...


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Nic said:


> Your last few posts nail the exact same thing I have been seeing. It's not going to help indie authors one tiny bit. And unlike NeedWant I am of the opinion (!) that unchecked or unresolved this will lead to a major problem for a lot of indie authors in the medium long run. It's going to be affecting all, regardless of how many advertisements you will throw at people - because "they" will be doing it as well.


And what would your solution to this problem you're seeing be?



grumpycat said:


> Now I wonder if any of you indie people are real writers. This kind of dishonesty becomes rampant and you lose the trust of us readers, we'll never really believe anything you say again.


I was with you until this gem. If you think ghostwriters are only prevalent in indie publishing, you should know they've been around way before indie publishing was even a thing.



Tom Wood said:


> 5) And/Or, write something that stands the test of time so that future generations will still read it.





P.J. Post said:


> Can we please stop posting this misleading and condescending meme? Not only is it blatantly false (*as documented by the last century of bestselling literature*), it's also discouraging to new writers and pretty rude to boot.


I think the kind of books you guys are talking about do best in trad publishing. Indie publishing is where popular genres thrive. It isn't really a place for Great Literature that will stand the test of time, whatever that is.


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## grumpycat (Dec 15, 2016)

NeedWant said:


> I was with you until this gem. If you think ghostwriters are only prevalent in indie publishing, you should know they've been around way before indie publishing was even a thing.


You Indie People meaning you guys on this thread. You're all indie writers, aren't you? So many of you are cheering what this marketer woman is doing and saying good on her. Sounds like most of you support what she does. So how do I know whether you all wrote the books you claimed you wrote? Are you all really authors? I can't tell anymore.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

grumpycat said:


> You Indie People meaning you guys on this thread. You're all indie writers, aren't you? So many of you are cheering what this marketer woman is doing and saying good on her. Sounds like most of you support what she does. So how do I know whether you all wrote the books you claimed you wrote? Are you all really authors? I can't tell anymore.


I and a few others have been critical of that particular business model so I'm not sure where you get the idea that all of us are praising her. And I can see how some can praise her business savvy without engaging in such practices themselves.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

grumpycat said:


> I'm a reader and I can't believe you all think what this woman do is nothing wrong. It may not be illegal but it's certainly dishonest and deceptive to readers. She holds herself out as an author. An author to most people is a person who writes. If she is a publisher than why can't she just get a logo and be honest and say she's a publisher. She can hire writers to write a certain type books published under her logo. But she misrepresents herself as an author and that's a lie. Even if this had been done before it doesn't make it right. You all don't think people would have a problem if they found out JK Rowling didn't write any of the Harry Potter books? Or if Stephanie Meyer didn't write the Twilight books herself? Why do we travel to Comic Con or whatnot to get their autographs if they aren't the real authors? Why do we care whether JK Rowling has the last word on whether Dumbledore is gay or not if she didn't even write the story? I couldn't care less what some marketer has to say. If I've been reading books by an author and I found out she is fake, I'd never buy her books again. Never.
> 
> It's not only about whether I bought a book to read. When someone holds herself out as an author, she's asking me to buy into believing that she is an author I want to follow. Otherwise, why do I care when she sends me newsletters about what she's up to, what she blogs about, her tweets or her Facebook posts on what her cat is doing? It's all a lie. I don't care to follow some marketer.
> 
> ...


I understand many people are uncomfortable with traditional ghostwriting, where someone claims up and down 'til Sunday to have personally written a book but actually didn't come up with a single word of it themselves. But this woman is not "holding herself out as an author." She's forthright about the fact that she does not write books:



> _Here's the thing -- I don't write any of the books I publish. I hire ghostwriters to write all of the books. _I do all of the niche research and orchestrate cover design, product page copy and marketing strategies, but I don't write the books myself. This has allowed me to scale my publishing business quite fast in the past and is a key part of the process I teach my clients.


She's definitely not claiming to have written books that someone else really wrote, so I'm not seeing the comparison to someone like Rowling or Meyer being revealed as a fraud. Those two identify as writers and claim to have written books that have their names on the covers. Blocka hasn't made any such claims. She's straightforward about being a publisher and a marketer, not a writer.

If she's being honest about the income the books are generating (and we can't know that), then a good number of readers like the material she's publishing. If the books give those readers pleasure ... well, good. Life's short on pleasure a lot of the time.


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## grumpycat (Dec 15, 2016)

Becca Mills said:


> I understand many people are uncomfortable with traditional ghostwriting, where someone claims up and down 'til Sunday to have personally written a book but actually didn't come up with a single word of it themselves. But this woman is not "holding herself out as an author." She's forthright about the fact that she does not write books:
> 
> She's definitely not claiming to have written books that someone else really wrote, so I'm not seeing the comparison to someone like Rowling or Meyer being revealed as a fraud. Those two identify as writers and claim to have written books that have their names on the covers. Blocka hasn't made any such claims. She's straightforward about being a publisher and a marketer, not a writer.
> 
> If she's being honest about the income the books are generating (and we can't know that), then a good number of readers like the material she's publishing. If the books give those readers pleasure ... well, good. Life's short on pleasure a lot of the time.


This is what the article said:

_Karla Blocka, the owner of Karla Marie Publishing. Karla has achieved incredible success through publishing ebooks, and the most amazing part of her story? *She use's pen names and hires ghost writers to write all of her books!*_

Her pen names. Her books.

She said:_ Yes, all my books are published under pen names._

She said: _Building an email list of readers to market to regularly is key. _

She said those are "her books." And those are her pen names, right? Not the ghost writers? We readers assume there's one real author behind each pen name. We believe that pen name may not be the author's real name but that is the same author. She's taking advantage of what we believe and our trust. Is she sending our her emails under her pen names? Who are hearing from if we receive the email? Some marketer pretending to be the author. She's not being honest in the way she presents herself to the readers. Why use pen names if she didn't intend of deceiving? Why not just have a publisher's logo like Harper Collins or Penguin? Why not give the ghost writers credit as the author? Why not commission the ghost writers to publish under their own names or their own pen names, and be truthful about being a publisher to the readers? Because she wants us to believe those her HER books and some fake non-existent person wrote them.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

grumpycat said:


> This is what the article said:
> 
> _Karla Blocka, the owner of Karla Marie Publishing. Karla has achieved incredible success through publishing ebooks, and the most amazing part of her story? *She use's pen names and hires ghost writers to write all of her books!*_
> 
> ...


Hmm, yeah, I can see that it would be creepy to be getting emails from "Jane Doe, author," that chatted about her cats and her drafting process and her love of Starbucks mochas (or whatever), when Jane doesn't really exist and is instead just a label under which eight different ghostwriters' books get published. Then again, we don't know that's what Blocka means when she talks about marketing to a mailing list. Maybe she uses her mailing list(s) to notify readers of new releases and promotions in a businesslike way, and doesn't do chatty fake people. Maybe she sticks with one ghostwriter per pen name. I'd guess she doesn't, but it's possible.



grumpycat said:


> Why use pen names if she didn't intend of deceiving? Why not just have a publisher's logo like Harper Collins or Penguin? Why not give the ghost writers credit as the author? Why not commission the ghost writers to publish under their own names or their own pen names, and be truthful about being a publisher to the readers? Because she wants us to believe those her HER books and some fake non-existent person wrote them.


Well, that's the traditional model. I have a feeling she's not doing that because it's way more work and way less lucrative. She's probably paying very little for the manuscripts and then keeping all the royalties. And instead of having to wade though hundreds of submissions, she researches the market and commissions exactly what she wants. Then she can do whatever she wants with it -- no negotiating with an author who doesn't want to make editing changes or doesn't like the cover you've designed. I can see why this model would be very attractive, so long as there are enough low-cost ghostwriters in developing nations to produce the content.

I can also see why the produced, mechanistic feel of the system bothers people.

Nevertheless, I have trouble nailing it down to anything worse than "makes me feel sort of squirmy," so long as the ghostwriters are being paid well, vis-a-vis the cost of living in their nations, and so long as readers enjoy the books.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> I understand many people are uncomfortable with traditional ghostwriting, where someone claims up and down 'til Sunday to have personally written a book but actually didn't come up with a single word of it themselves. But this woman is not "holding herself out as an author."


Becca, as Grumpycat pointed out, she does exactly that. She publishes books allegedly written by her own pen names, which instead were ghostwritten by one or several ghostwriters. She just packages and markets. She never wrote a word of those books. She is also not straightforward, she doesn't reveal the pen names and who the ghostwriters were. Readers have no means to discover whether they are reading a series written by one or many writers, or what sort of quality control is in effect. If any.

Which is one of the reasons why readers have started to criticise a system which floods the market with what Kelli so aptly calls "soulless" books.



NeedWant said:


> And what would your solution to this problem you're seeing be?


I don't have any, as of now. This is what the authors whose genres are touched by this problem really should be discussing, instead of accusing those who point at the problem to be fouling their own nest. That would be constructive instead of dismissive.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Nic said:


> Becca, as Grumpycat pointed out, she does exactly that. She publishes books allegedly written by her own pen names, which instead were ghostwritten by one or several ghostwriters. She just packages and markets. She never wrote a word of those books. She is also not straightforward, she doesn't reveal the pen names and who the ghostwriters were. Readers have no means to discover whether they are reading a series written by one or many writers, or what sort of quality control is in effect. If any.
> 
> Which is one of the reasons why readers have started to criticise a system which floods the market with what Kelli so aptly calls "soulless" books.


Well, I agree that we really have no proof of what she's doing. I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that there are no pen names and no books, but just the $2,000 course. I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that she's actually doing what she says she's doing and making what she says she's making.

On the issues of identity and authenticity, well, it's interesting.

I think it's not the traditional ghostwriting relationship. That would be Blocka claiming to have written _Book X_ herself when really someone else wrote it. We all know there's dishonesty in that sort of situation, but it's also a very well established facet of the publishing industry. Then again, ghostwriting is only _expected _to be present in certain circumstances, like with celebrity authors; in situations where there's more expectation that the supposed author should be able to write, discovering a book was ghostwritten is more disturbing. So, it's already complicated and context-specific.

Add the extra element of multiple pen names, and things get even murkier. Lots of us use pen names. I do. What's the relation between the real me and Becca-me? I don't consciously try to perform a different person when I'm "being Becca," but I can't say Becca is all of me. For instance, I don't post about my political views on my Becca Facebook page. I recognize that would be off-putting to many readers, so I keep that stuff to myself. I'm probably cheerier there than IRL. So is my pen name fake and dishonest? It doesn't really feel that way to me, but maybe it is ... dunno. If I had more than one pen name, things would get even more complex. Which things would I post on my Becca page and which would I post on the other pages? I'd be tempted to differentiate my presences a bit, but that would start feeling very performed. There'd be a sense of lost authenticity, at least for me. Probably even more so to any readers who discovered I was being a bunch of slightly different people.

Add ghostwriters to the mix and things become totally unmoored from any sense of connection to a real person. I can see that.

Still, does all that really make a difference to the experience most readers have with the books? Most readers don't follow you on Fb or join your email list. They just read a book. If they like it, maybe they read another. If they find a disturbing difference between Books 1 and 2, one assumes they won't buy Book 3, and that's that.

It seems like the kind of situation that's pretty straightforward in pragmatic function most of the time, despite raising all kinds of interesting and disturbing questions on a more intellectual level.

I'm not going to follow you and Kelli on the "soulless" thing -- I just don't think about art this way. I suspect I might object to some of the same things you object to in books, but I think it's okay for others to like things I don't like. Tastes differ. If a book is selling and getting good reviews, then it's satisfying a group of readers. The fact that I might not like it isn't significant. If people are publishing stuff that meets no one's tastes, well, I think we can rely on readers' monetary and time constraints to separate the meets-the-taste-of-some from the meets-the-taste-of-none. The latter will sink rapidly to invisibility in Amazon's depths.


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

grumpycat said:


> She said those are "her books." And those are her pen names, right? Not the ghost writers? We readers assume there's one real author behind each pen name. We believe that pen name may not be the author's real name but that is the same author. She's taking advantage of what we believe and our trust.


Honestly, I would say they are "her" books. Presumably she has compensated the ghostwriters to the terms of their agreement, so she owns the books. It may be a technical point, but they are clearly hers. And to say that she's taking advantage of what we believe and our trust is a tad melodramatic. Why does it really matter if the pen name is the same author? Think of it like a TV show. In most shows, every episode will be written by a shifting group of people (usually with a differing main writer) and often directed by someone different each time. It has the same person at the top (i.e. the show runner, who is basically the same as the publisher), but the whole thing is a collaborative effort. I don't really see the difference.



> Is she sending our her emails under her pen names? Who are hearing from if we receive the email? Some marketer pretending to be the author. She's not being honest in the way she presents herself to the readers. Why use pen names if she didn't intend of deceiving? Why not just have a publisher's logo like Harper Collins or Penguin? Why not give the ghost writers credit as the author? Why not commission the ghost writers to publish under their own names or their own pen names, and be truthful about being a publisher to the readers? Because she wants us to believe those her HER books and some fake non-existent person wrote them.


I don't really think she is trying to deceive anyone so she can get the glory of "writing" the books. It's a branding decision. If she wants ten books featuring Jack Rogers, all American action hero, then it would make sense to publish them all under one pen name. Publishing them under multiple names would dilute the brand and the entire point of having a stable of ghostwriters would be lost.


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

KelliWolfe said:


> A depressing consistency that I've found - and got burned again by yesterday - is that the majority of these books simply aren't romance. The books have romance covers and romance blurbs. They're categorized as romance. The first couple of chapters may even read like romance. They have some kind of HEA. But they're not romance.
> 
> When you actually read the book, it's just two characters having sex. A lot of sex. A lot of very explicit sex. There's a female MC who has no personality and no real characteristics at all except for her overwhelming sexual attraction to the male MC. The male MC is a hot, dominating alphahole who has no other characteristics, either. He's interested in the female MC because she's hot and he wants her. There's no love, just sexual obsession. There's no relationship building, just sexual tension. It's like someone too emotionally stunted to understand the difference between sex and love read a few romance books and then sat down at the keyboard to imitate it.


I recently tried my hand at writing romance. Ran it by beta readers. Overwhelmingly? I was told there wasn't enough sex and that I hadn't written to market and they suspected it would fail.

So, it may not _just_ be that writers are emotionally stunted and only know how to write sex. It may be the demand of the reader who are buying and keep buying the books that is driving the need for more and more sex in romance.



grumpycat said:


> You Indie People meaning you guys on this thread. You're all indie writers, aren't you? So many of you are cheering what this marketer woman is doing and saying good on her. Sounds like most of you support what she does. So how do I know whether you all wrote the books you claimed you wrote? Are you all really authors? I can't tell anymore.


So if I admire an admittedly _unverified_ successful business model, and try to call for some sanity in not dragging people through the mud for running their businesses they way they see fit, I'm automatically a writer who is guilty of the same and should be viewed with suspicion?

Gotcha.

If you're not for us, you're against us. /sarcasm



Becca Mills said:


> Well, I agree that we really have no proof of what she's doing. I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that there are no pen names and no books, but just the $2,000 course. I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that she's actually doing what she says she's doing and making what she says she's making.


Yeah, that was what made me pause.

If it's a bad business model, it'll fold under its weight and something new will rise to take its place.



Becca Mills said:


> On the issues of identity and authenticity, well, it's interesting.
> 
> Add the extra element of multiple pen names, and things get even murkier. Lots of us use pen names. I do. What's the relation between the real me and Becca-me? I don't consciously try to perform a different person when I'm "being Becca," but I can't say Becca is all of me. For instance, I don't post about my political views on my Becca Facebook page. I recognize that would be off-putting to many readers, so I keep that stuff to myself. I'm probably cheerier there than IRL. So is my pen name fake and dishonest? It doesn't really feel that way to me, but maybe it is ... dunno. If I had more than one pen name, things would get even more complex. Which things would I post on my Becca page and which would I post on the other pages? I'd be tempted to differentiate my presences a bit, but that would start feeling very performed. There'd be a sense of lost authenticity, at least for me. Probably even more so to any readers who discovered I was being a bunch of slightly different people.
> 
> Add ghostwriters to the mix and things become totally unmoored from any sense of connection to a real person. I can see that.


I see enough of bitter jealous authors tearing each other down and doxxing each other on Facebook by accusing them of not being whatever they seem to think authors should be just because of penname use. I'm all for giving the benefit of the doubt and letting them do them and me do me.



Becca Mills said:


> Still, does all that really make a difference to the experience most readers have with the books? Most readers don't follow you on Fb or join your email list. They just read a book. If they like it, maybe they read another. If they find a disturbing difference between Books 1 and 2, one assumes they won't buy Book 3, and that's that.
> 
> I'm not going to follow you and Kelli on the "soulless" thing -- I just don't think about art this way. I suspect I might object to some of the same things you object to in books, but I think it's okay for others to like things I don't like. Tastes differ. If a book is selling and getting good reviews, then it's satisfying a group of readers. The fact that I might not like it isn't significant. If people are publishing stuff that meets no one's tastes, well, I think we can rely on readers' monetary and time constraints to separate the meets-the-taste-of-some from the meets-the-taste-of-none. The latter will sink rapidly to invisibility in Amazon's depths.


I'm with Becca on this. I recently read what I think was absolutely the worst book that could have been written. It was in the top 20 of its subgenre. Top. 20. (and surprise of surprises, it wasn't romance) Hundreds of good reviews. The book was filled with juvenile writing and clumsy prose that broke many accepted writing conventions. It was...drivel. Indy published. It was bad.

Readers loved it. Or so we would assume since the ranks were keeping it there. Otherwise it wouldn't have risen and stayed in the top 20 as long as it did. It was a pretty clear indicator to me that reader tastes are what drive what trends, not writers who are readers and declaring whether something is good or not.

In the end, it's the general readers we are trying to reach. They have their tastes. They are the one who buy/read. Writers are going to do what they can to maximize eyes on their books. As long as readers keep buying, writers are going to see trends and decide they want to chase them in whatever manner works, whether it's ghostwritten, writing what the market will bear, writing what readers appear to be reading (because they're buying) or sacrificing Easter Peeps.

It doesn't matter if we agree with their methods or not.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

RightHoJeeves said:


> Honestly, I would say they are "her" books. Presumably she has compensated the ghostwriters to the terms of their agreement, so she owns the books. It may be a technical point, but they are clearly hers. And to say that she's taking advantage of what we believe and our trust is a tad melodramatic. Why does it really matter if the pen name is the same author? Think of it like a TV show. In most shows, every episode will be written by a shifting group of people (usually with a differing main writer) and often directed by someone different each time. It has the same person at the top (i.e. the show runner, who is basically the same as the publisher), but the whole thing is a collaborative effort. I don't really see the difference.


That is a tangent entirely irrelevant to a reader, and a TV show is not the same thing as a series of books. Not even at the most basic level. Any audience of a running show already knows the writers of the show vary, as do the directors, art directors, sometimes the producers and often even the actors. That is also clearly out in the open, because it's in the start and end credits, and usually already announced in your TV program. All fully open and for the audience to decide whether or not they like the people connected to the show.

When I read a series of books I count on the author to be and stay the same. I wouldn't have bought Stephen King's Dark Tower series if I had suspected that King didn't write every single instalment. That's not the contract I, as a reader, have with the author.

With respectable publishers and authors (see Patterson, but also ventures such as Nancy Drew) any joint efforts are usually marked as such, and at these publisher levels there are half a dozen editors involved who will streamline the product as well. But any which way, I am able to discern what is happening and can easily refrain from buying and reading such ventures. I have never read Patterson for instance, and most assuredly never will.

In this case this is different. The reader gets hoodwinked.

I have, in the recent past, read several books of authors in serieses and found the "voice" and the quality of the different books in the series to vary greatly. So greatly that it was clear that these books weren't written by the same author. Without warning me about this I consider this as close to fraud as please. I want to have the choice of avoiding such stuff. I do not want to invest money and time into something which is guaranteed to disappoint me.



> I don't really think she is trying to deceive anyone so she can get the glory of "writing" the books. It's a branding decision.


No, it's a decision to defraud the readers to make the maximum money. No problem with ghostwritten books or co-authors, but don't dissemble. Tell the readers up front.


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

Nic said:


> I have, in the recent past, read several books of authors in serieses and found the "voice" and the quality of the different books in the series to vary greatly. So greatly that it was clear that these books weren't written by the same author. Without warning me about this I consider this as close to fraud as please. I want to have the choice of avoiding such stuff. I do not want to invest money and time into something which is guaranteed to disappoint me.


That would be a huge disappointment to discover the quality varying to such a degree as to be a marked difference.

What would bother me is when an author has an off book, one that just didn't live up to what they're capable of (rush due to illness, deadlines, family), can they now expect to have accusations of using a ghostwriter leveled at them?



Nic said:


> No, it's a decision to defraud the readers to make the maximum money. No problem with ghostwritten books or co-authors, but don't dissemble. Tell the readers up front.


I don't know if it's a deliberate attempt at fraud which would imply it being illegal, but this does raise a good point. I thought co-authoring was usually indicated up front by the two names present on the cover.

How would one indicate they employ ghostwriters without violating the NDA they most assuredly have in place?

Also, is this problem as rampant in non-romance genres as it appears to be in romance?


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)




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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

berke said:


> What would bother me is when an author has an off book, one that just didn't live up to what they're capable of (rush due to illness, deadlines, family), can they now expect to have accusations of using a ghostwriter leveled at them?


No one would find an off book now and then problematic. I don't, for example, like all Stephen King novels equally. But there's a difference between an author, who is sounding like himself, being "off" and every single book in a series clearly having very different authors.



> I don't know if it's a deliberate attempt at fraud which would imply it being illegal, but this does raise a good point. I thought co-authoring was usually indicated up front by the two names present on the cover.


It is her business model. Obviously this hides - without it being mentioned anywhere - the fact from the buyer. Where I live that brushes very close to fraud.



> How would one indicate they employ ghostwriters without violating the NDA they most assuredly have in place?
> 
> Also, is this problem as rampant in non-romance genres as it appears to be in romance?


It would be easy enough to state that the pen name is the brand of the series, adding that various authors write under the pen name. Many branded penny dreadfuls do that and have no trouble selling well.

I noticed it elsewhere as well, but it is by now quite common in romance.


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Nic said:


> I have, in the recent past, read several books of authors in serieses and found the "voice" and the quality of the different books in the series to vary greatly. So greatly that it was clear that these books weren't written by the same author. Without warning me about this I consider this as close to fraud as please. I want to have the choice of avoiding such stuff. I do not want to invest money and time into something which is guaranteed to disappoint me.
> 
> ....
> 
> No, it's a decision to defraud the readers to make the maximum money. No problem with ghostwritten books or co-authors, but don't dissemble. Tell the readers up front.


Well I would consider a series of books under one pen name that has problems with consistent voice a failure in the model, because what's the point in branding it the same if the product is different?

Anyway it's clearly a moral issue for you, which I don't personally understand. But thats cool, different strokes. But I would say the idea that it is "defrauding readers" is pretty hyperbolic. Nobody is stealing anything. At the end of the day the reader still gets a book that has been outlined/published/curated/paid for by the man behind the curtain. It won't necessarily be any good (I imagine managing a team of different writers, none of whom would be earning big $$$, would be very hard), but it's still a book.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

RightHoJeeves said:


> Nobody is stealing anything.


There you are wrong. Just read back to what those people disliking this development state. It is stealing my time, my nerves, my money, and my recreation. That might be peanuts to some, but these are things I value.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

Anarchist said:


>


this is my favorite thing


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

GeneDoucette said:


> this is my favorite thing


It's perfect for shutting down a conversation!


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Nic said:


> When I read a series of books I count on the author to be and stay the same. I wouldn't have bought Stephen King's Dark Tower series if I had suspected that King didn't write every single instalment. That's not the contract I, as a reader, have with the author.
> 
> With respectable publishers and authors (see Patterson, but also ventures such as Nancy Drew) any joint efforts are usually marked as such, and at these publisher levels there are half a dozen editors involved who will streamline the product as well. But any which way, I am able to discern what is happening and can easily refrain from buying and reading such ventures. I have never read Patterson for instance, and most assuredly never will.
> 
> ...


My guess is that you're a particularly perceptive reader, Nic. You've got a strong vocabulary and a great sense of sentence structure. I suspect you're widely read. And you are yourself a writer. For all these reasons, you're probably alert to subtle variations in style and storytelling approach that might pass a lot of people by. So when you read a ghostwritten-by-many-folks series, you recognize it and find it horribly jarring. But let's say there are tons of other readers out there who wouldn't notice the stuff you notice. (I think this is one thing indie publishing has shown pretty definitively -- there are lots of readers out there who are not as sensitive to the details of book construction as we'd assumed.) If those folks can read and enjoy a multi-ghostwritten series, why not let them do so? After a few weeks, readers like you will leave critical reviews on the books, helping others of the same type steer clear. All in all, it seems like a reasonably good system for satisfying readers who may have very different tastes.



GeneDoucette said:


> this is my favorite thing


Yup. Because it's SO TRUE.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Nic said:


> When I read a series of books I count on the author to be and stay the same. I wouldn't have bought Stephen King's Dark Tower series if I had suspected that King didn't write every single instalment. That's not the contract I, as a reader, have with the author.
> 
> With respectable publishers and authors (see Patterson, but also ventures such as Nancy Drew) any joint efforts are usually marked as such, and at these publisher levels there are half a dozen editors involved who will streamline the product as well. But any which way, I am able to discern what is happening and can easily refrain from buying and reading such ventures. I have never read Patterson for instance, and most assuredly never will.


Except that this has been done since the dawn of publishing. It's not new at all. It became pervasive during the big pulp era. Read _The Fiction Factory_ by John Milton Edwards/William Wallace Cook. He was one of the most prolific and successful authors of that time period, and he made a big chunk of his money writing books that were published under house names. The publishing houses did not let anyone know that the house names weren't real people - it was a closely guarded secret because they knew that readers do bond with the authors they like. In many cases they had male authors writing under female house names, and it would have completely destroyed the value of those house names if that had ever gotten out.

The difference was that the editors went to great lengths to find writers would could alter their voice to fit the name they were writing under, and bounced books that didn't work. Writers who could pull it off were well-paid and treated very well - at least until the bottom fell out of the pulps. The reader got a good experience and had far more books to read from their favorite "authors" than they would have had otherwise, and it kept a lot of writers in steady paychecks. The publishing houses made easy money that they used to support their higher end publishing gambles with novels by "real" writers. Everybody won.

I don't think that you can call the practice itself wrong one way or the other. Where the real difference lies is in whether the publisher/editor responsible for the name behaves ethically towards the readers. If she is doing her best to provide a quality product to the readers then I don't see a problem with it. She may _fail_ to do so, but lots of indie writers do that as well. If she is just trying to churn out a bunch of content as quickly as possible with no concern for quality or the reader experience in hopes of making a profit on people before they figure out they've been ripped off, then that's a problem.

The bigger problem is that there's rarely any way for the reader to know beforehand whether they are being hosed or not, and after being burned a few times they're going to go back to the trads and they won't come back.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

KelliWolfe said:


> A depressing consistency that I've found - and got burned again by yesterday - is that the majority of these books simply aren't romance. The books have romance covers and romance blurbs. They're categorized as romance. The first couple of chapters may even read like romance. They have some kind of HEA. But they're not romance.
> 
> When you actually read the book, it's just two characters having sex. A lot of sex. A lot of very explicit sex. There's a female MC who has no personality and no real characteristics at all except for her overwhelming sexual attraction to the male MC. The male MC is a hot, dominating alphahole who has no other characteristics, either. He's interested in the female MC because she's hot and he wants her. There's no love, just sexual obsession. There's no relationship building, just sexual tension. It's like someone too emotionally stunted to understand the difference between sex and love read a few romance books and then sat down at the keyboard to imitate it.
> 
> ...


Yes. People who don't like romance often don't get romance, so they end up writing erotica. I have no issue with erotica but it's not something I enjoy.

It has nothing to do with heat level. A book can be 90℅ sex and still be a romance. It has to do with how the sex scenes advance the character development and relationship.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

grumpycat said:


> I'm a reader and I can't believe you all think what this woman do is nothing wrong. It may not be illegal but it's certainly dishonest and deceptive to readers. She holds herself out as an author. An author to most people is a person who writes....





Nic said:


> When I read a series of books I count on the author to be and stay the same. I wouldn't have bought Stephen King's Dark Tower series if I had suspected that King didn't write every single instalment. That's not the contract I, as a reader, have with the author.


The very first time I learned about ghostwriting (I was young) I had exactly the same reaction: "You _lied_ to me!"

I felt like I had been cheated. It was as though someone had cut in line in front of me and got the last ticket for the show. Or I paid full value for that watch only to discover it was a cheap knockoff. I was pretty upset by the concept. It would be a long time before I would come to appreciate it.

Not every good storyteller is a good writer. Not every writer is a good storyteller. Put these two together and you get the ghostwriting industry. You can only edit a manuscript so far before it becomes a complete rewrite. When you have an author who generates fantastic story ideas but cannot write to save their life, you bring in a ghostwriter to work with the author to put the characters and scenes into a decent narrative prose.

The Stratemeyer Syndicate is an excellent example of a _book packager_, a middleman company that produces a book and then sells it to the final publisher. Stratemeyer was key to industrializing the ghostwriter to its modern form. For most of the 20th century, the Stratemeyer Syndicate was publishing's dirty little secret until a lawsuit brought them into public view. This is exactly consistent with what the subject of the original post is doing, only she is the publisher as well as the packager.

Often the storyteller/author will have developed the characters, plot, and outline in great detail, but just cannot write. The ghostwriter works with these notes and turns it into a functional manuscript. I remember hearing of one author who couldn't type, so he dictated the story and an assistant transcribed it into text. (Technically, that is ghostwriting.) This is also done when the author has a handicap that prevents them from actually writing the text.

Robert Heinlein's _Variable Star_ was finished posthumously by Spider Robinson. Heinlein wrote less than 20 pages of the narrative and had nearly 200 pages of detailed notes on the novel. His publisher refused it and the manuscript and notes were left in a box in a closet, to be forgotten until it was rediscovered several years after Heinlein's death. Ginny Heinlein asked Spider to finish the story and he did so. He is credited as co-author, but Robinson insists most of it was already written by Heinlein in his notes.

The primary use of ghostwriters today is usually in the non-fiction arena, particularly memoirs of celebrities and politicians. Most of these people cannot write to save their life, so publishers bring in a ghostwriter to actually do the writing. Many other celebrities simply do not have the time to devote to writing a book. In these cases, the ghostwriter acts much like a journalist, interviewing the subject several times over to collect key stories from the subjects life, and then returning to perform more interviews when more detail is needed for a particular section. Sometimes the subject will also review sections of the manuscript with the ghostwriter to ensure that the narrative is what they intended.


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## Kessie Carroll (Jan 15, 2014)

Nobody has mentioned James Patterson or Tom Clancy yet? Tom Clancy is DEAD and still mysteriously writing books. Maybe ... he's a ghostwriter.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Kessie Carroll said:


> Nobody has mentioned James Patterson


I'm pretty sure we spent a couple of pages on him alone.


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## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

And dying in 1986 hasn't made VC Andrews stop writing yet, either.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

Far as pen names go, I tend to look at them like Hollywood stage names. Lady Gaga has a legal name that isn't Gaga, for example. I also write with a pen name but I do the work. This conversation has really opened my eyes and I wanted to address Grumpy Cat for a moment. I was one of the people that said what this lady is doing isn't bad. I ghosted for a living at one point and it was a life saver for me. While I can understand, and do agree that saying you wrote the books when you didn't, please try to also comprehend that ghostwriting is a legit way to make a living. Does the moral responsibility fall on the marketer? I'm not sure how to answer that because on one end, I totally get what you're saying and the reader part of me agrees. The writer part of me also agrees with Nic and Crystal and others because getting seen is hard. My favorite genre is swarmed with books that don't even match and authors who are really writing what I read are buried deep in the slush. But at the same time, maybe it's a problem with Amazon and other people who are smart enough to see an opportunity to make money.

It's a tough subject for sure. So much gray. I do also believe a lot of reasonably strong points have been made in this thread and I'm grateful for all of those who have challenged my way of thinking. Learning is a beautiful thing.


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

Crystal_ said:


> It has nothing to do with heat level. A book can be 90℅ sex and still be a romance. It has to do with how the sex scenes advance the character development and relationship.


Could I trouble you to pm me with some titles that are 90% sex and still a romance? I'm not being snarky, I would love to see how it's done right.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

Many businesses use third party vendors as "house" brands, even publishers, so the practice is nothing new, however, as has been said, there's a relationship between reader and writer that transcends run of the mill brand loyalty. From a market perspective, it sounds like the issue is more about saturating the market with "sub-standard" novels that may negatively affect a meaningful percentage of consumers and their perceptions of Indie authors, thus lowering all boats. I think the moral ambiguity of "misleading" readers is a separate matter. If the books are high quality, and like a master art forger, the writing indistinguishable from the original author - what does it matter? Patterson, co-authors or not, is doing the same thing (as was discussed a few pages back), and his books are still selling, ergo, his readers are accepting of this change in their relationship. Writing style - voice - is not in the outline or the plot, it's in all of those bits connecting everything together.



Becca Mills said:


> I think this is one thing indie publishing has shown pretty definitively -- there are lots of readers out there who are not as sensitive to the details of book construction as we'd assumed.


So, maybe in this post-truth world et al, "voice" is less important than it used to be?


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

P.J. Post said:


> So, maybe in this post-truth world et al, "voice" is less important than it used to be?


Perhaps so. Though ... I don't know. Voice is tricky, isn't it? I feel like I don't even have a sense of what, mechanically, creates an author's voice. I know very skilled writers can sound radically different from one piece of writing to another, though many don't try to do that.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

berke said:


> Could I trouble you to pm me with some titles that are 90% sex and still a romance? I'm not being snarky, I would love to see how it's done right.


Check out Olivia Cunning's Sinners on Tour series. I'm sure it's not at 90% sex, but it's quite a bit (I'd guess 40%). She does a great job advancing plot/character development through sex.

I doubt there are many 90% sex romances as it's easier to advance the plot/charcter development when the MCs have their clothes on, but I'm sure they are out there.


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

Thanks for the rec!


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## Trans-Human (Apr 22, 2015)

I fail to see how the thread title relates to this person's practice. Doesn't seem to be any relation to one another.


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## The Bass Bagwhan (Mar 9, 2014)

Just wanted to point out that there are ghost writers... and ghost writers.

Some ghost writers are commissioned because the original creator of an idea doesn't feel capable of writing it well or properly. They've got a hell of a good idea, but can't write it.

Other ghost writers are commissioned because an _already_ successful author believes the market will accept more of his/her books than they can produce themselves, so they "cheat" (for want of a better word) and have some titles ghost written.

It would be good if the latter titles were transparent in explaining that the genuine author - the one the readers are expecting to read - has not personally written the bulk of the material.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Kessie Carroll said:


> Tom Clancy is DEAD and still mysteriously writing books. Maybe ... he's a ghostwriter.


LOL!


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

Kessie Carroll said:


> Nobody has mentioned James Patterson or Tom Clancy yet? Tom Clancy is DEAD and still mysteriously writing books. Maybe ... he's a ghostwriter.


Not surprised---Clancy, like many other prolific writers (Heinlein, Asimov, etc.) had a number of unfinished manuscripts with notes that were left behind upon the author's departure from this plane. Sometimes publishers already have the manuscripts (and copyrights) in hand. In these cases, the advance was already paid, so they hire a ghostwriter to complete the manuscript so they can still make good on their investment.

Another reason for books being published posthumously is the publishers may have already had those manuscripts waiting to go when the author died. We all know of the 'non-compete' practice of publishers to hold manuscripts so they don't compete with currently selling books of the same author (or another author who may be more of a money maker than the other.) This can mean that the publisher(s) still has a collection of books from the deceased author that have yet to reach market. If the writer could really crank out one manuscript after the other like some writers here, then that could mean an extensive collection that will continue on.

Last, there are the manuscripts that get discovered by surviving family members long after the author has deceased. It can be years after the author's death when these manuscripts are discovered. Robert Heinlein's Variable Star was published 18 years after his death. The manuscript---an outline and lengthy collection of notes written in 1955!---had sat in a box stored away until his widow, Jean, discovered it. Often, survivors of an author would not recognize that the file folder, manilla envelope, or pile of papers left in a shoebox actually represent a book the author was working on at one point. In my case, my manuscripts and notes are collected in a USB drive and are stored on a couple of different computers as backups. It's interesting to think that the output of an author's career could be stored in something no larger than a thumbnail. It could easily go forgotten being shoved into the back of a desk drawer and be unnoticed for years.

When all is said and done, these unfinished manuscripts can be a much needed boon for the author's family. Being unfinished, these manuscripts need a ghostwriter to bring them to a point where they can be published.


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