In a recent article in The Guardian, novelist James Patterson is heralded as the world’s “best paid writer.” But this is a misnomer. Patterson doesn’t write all (or any?) of his books anymore. He isn’t the world’s best paid writer; his is the world’s most successful fiction factory. The article’s use of the term “brand” is more appropriate than perhaps the writer intended.
James Frey is doing the same thing. (See this New York Magazine article.) His Full Fathom Five publishing house recruits desperate, unknown writers, mostly MFA students drowning in student loans, to write books either initiated by Frey or from ideas the writers pitch to him. If accepted, the writer is paid a paltry $250.00 and 40% of the royalties. Which makes me wonder what the terms of Patterson’s contracts are with his staff writers.
Fiction factories like Frey’s, while clearly bringing in the cash, are in my opinion a literary scam, similar to the artist factories where unacknowledged, uncredited painters paint for people like Hockney and Hirst, who add a few finishing touches and then sign their names. (I have an artist friend who did that for a while in NY. Can’t remember which artist he painted for.) This has been going on since the Renaissance, and I think it’s fraudulent and immoral.
Fiction factories reduce unnamed, uncredited writers to hacks, feed off their desperation, and exploit their talents. I’m all for earning a living, but one needs to do so with integrity and to be appropriately credited. How long can a writer suffer in obscurity even if it pays the bills?
With Patterson, most of his “collaborators” appear to at least get credit, but with nearly a book a month published, Patterson is unlikely doing much if any of the writing, which means these books aren’t so much “collaborations” than titles he’s getting paid a lot of money to add his name to, the use of which is misleading to his readers. How valid is that?
It’s easy to be blinded by the money and success of Patterson and aspire to that, but I don’t aspire to earn my fame and fortune off the backs of others. I prefer to admire a J.K. Rowling over a James Patterson any day. If I stay poor, so be it. At least I’m honest.
The fact that James Patterson is a brand rather than a writer is beginning to show. Think Heinz beans. That’s what he is. Try reading one of his latest offerings compared to one that he actually wrote himself. The difference shows. On the plus side, I have heard that his ‘ghosts’ do get a good deal – which means he’s getting really big sums.