R.L. Stine?
Nope, though his series would have been fun to work on. Scuttlebutt in the industry was that he actually did write all his own stuff, though he sure would’ve been going at a breakneck pace if true.
Wasn’t Paul French actually Isaac Asimov? IIRC, he used the pseudonym specifically for his “young readers” novels, featuring a character named ‘Lucky’ Starr. In fact, I think one of the ‘Lucky’ Starr novels was my introduction to Asimov, back when I was 12 or so. I suspect he used a pseudonym because his real name might scare off younger readers (or those buying the books for them), given the more complex nature of his better-known works.
I remember a series of pulp novels I got into back in the early 1990s: “Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan”. It didn’t take me long to figure out that Don Pendleton wasn’t writing the things - they were cranked out way faster than it was humanly possible to write, something like a new novel every month. I think that was around the same time I learned that the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books were ghostwritten. Apparently, a local author, who was interviewed in the local paper, indicated that she had ghostwritten several books in a popular series, though she was, of course, contractually forbidden from specifying which series. Though from the way she talked around it, it was fairly evident (to me, anyway) she was talking about Nancy Drew.
Well, yes. But I’m not in a position to read any writers contracts. So I’m asking some professional writers what those contracts usually say.
Beats me. I don’t know of anyone who gets to read contracts for Rowling or King or any of those megastars. They’re kept more secret than ghostwriters are. My only assumption is that megastars get what they want using the threat that if they don’t they’ll leave for a publisher who will give them what they want. But if they talk about their spoils, it ain’t to the likes of me. The Venn intersection of my reality and theirs is the empty set.
Then again, there are also ghostwriters who are really nothing more than transcribers/editors.
I knew a guy in Berlin way back when - while I, and most of my friends, would do the occasional translations from German to English, he got contracts from major/minor celebrities to write their books.
In his case, he would get audio tapes and simply put them to paper, do some editing here and there, and then return each chapter for that “celebrity” to make notes - adding a bit here, deleting a bit there. Eventually a book was completed.
However, I don’t think any of those books were ever published - they were mostly vanity projects that were quite detailed, but of little or no interest to any publisher. I think he was quite happy to NOT have his name attached to any of them. He did, however, get paid very nicely, and most of the time it took far longer to finish than expected (not his fault), so he would get a nice chunk of change for a project he knew was going to remain unpublished, but that was not his problem.
Just sayin’ - just because you are ghostwriting for others doesn’t necessarily mean any book is going to be published or become a best seller.
When I read Hot Pretzels With Mustard by David Brenner, I thought he came off as kind of an egotistical, grudge-carrying, self-justifying jerk. It never occurred to me to suppose he had a ghostwriter (except for the matter of him needing a personal spell-checker for the entire manuscript, and I don’t think that really counts).
When Richard Bachman was outed, a lot of his novels were re-released as
STEPHEN KING
writing as
Richard Bachman
Here’s an example.
I have no idea what King’s contract says about the matter. My feeling is probably that the publisher can do whatever the hell they want. They probably wouldn’t have agreed to do it if there was no chance of taking advantage of an eventual outing. Thinner sold ten times as many copies once King’s name was attached to it.
There’s a vast difference between authors using a different name for different types of works and authors publishing under a pseudonym to see what the effect of their names are.
There must be 50,000 (100,000? 500,000?) examples of the former, ranging from extremely famous authors to extremely unknown ones. Some of them are entirely open about it, some make a fetish of secrecy, some are open secrets, some are known just to the in crowd. Some have enormous clout and some have none. They do so for a whole range of reasons, too many to make any generalization about.
The number of famous authors who want to pull a Rowling probably can be limited to two hands. They all have enormous clout.
Asimov was not one of them when he wrote David Starr, Space Ranger. He was certainly a well-known sf writer, but that didn’t necessarily carry over to juvenile fiction in 1952. Most of those books would have sold to the library market anyway. He used a pseudonym for a reason few others would need to worry about:
And the books stayed under the Paul French name long after Asimov revealed his authorship, too.
Did the publisher know they were getting Stephen King’s work, or did he submit them to the publisher pseudonymously as well?
Yes, they knew.
One of my wife’s relatives was a ghost author. She couldn’t discuss who she had written for. She’s dead now, and we never did find out who her clients were. So a.) she was committed to her anonymity and b.) she clearly felt that her death wouldn’t release her from her contracts.
Forgive the hijack, but I just wanted to say I love your films–such a broad range!
I have a friend who is a ghostwriter and while she has occasionally told me entertaining stories of working with difficult “subjects” she’s always kept it vague enough that it would require a concerted effort on my part to figure out who the person is. She’s also published a few novels under her own name but ghostwriting apparently pays better.
Charles Einstein wrote an “autobiography” of Willie Mays that did very well. When Mays was asked about the book in an interview, he didn’t even know it existed.
So, why are you saying “was a ghost author”?
[del]Umm, I mean, I’m sorry for your loss…[/del]
No. Just – no.
Well, she was a ghost writer even before she died.
For all I know, she’s a ghost writer now (two separate words). But, if so, she hasn;t communicated anything she’s written to us.
And she’d probably appreciate the pun.