Many readers, however, may consider themselves cheated if they find out the James Patterson novel they just purchased may not have been written by Patters
As a former advertising executive, he took the practice of creating a brand name into the publishing industry, then leveraged the name for profit. So is it fair to “fool” an uninformed public by charging maximum prices for the Patterson name when it may not be Patterson’s work inside? Genius? Building Off of a Brandįrom a business standpoint, Patterson falls in the genius category. In some cases, Patterson’s name appears next to a “co-author” on the cover, but there is no way to know how much of the book’s creation and development was completed by Patterson.
Every author of any merit has an individual voice and style and regardless of how much effort a ghostwriter puts into imitating another writer, the effort will always fall short of the real thing. Many readers, unaware of Patterson’s ghostwriting practices, purchase novels with the Patterson name on the front because they believe and expect that the novel is written by Patterson. That is not necessarily the case with Patterson.
In the case of the Nancy Drew series, readers were buying the series name and characters, not the author. Even in fiction, ghostwriting is a common phenomenon in long-running series of books, such as the Nancy Drew series and the Sweet Valley High romances, but the Patterson situation is a whole different ball game. Most work closely for months with a ghostwriting to pen their life stories. Autobiographies are rarely written by the famous people themselves. James Patterson books enjoy top placement on the New York Times bestseller list and put the author in the top echelon of high-producing, single-title, fiction authors currently working today.īut is it really fair to compare the amount of books actually written by John Grisham or Stephen King to the list of novels for which Patterson may have only contributed his name? Cheating? Use of a Ghostwriter With ghostwriting help, Patterson produces five or more novels a year to add to his growing backlist and bank account. No one but Patterson and his publishers could tell you exactly how many or which James Patterson books were actually penned by Patterson himself, but neither deny that the answer is not “all of them.” While Patterson claims to maintain editorial input in the form of ideas, outlines and finalizing final copy, no one is certain how much of the actual writing is performed by Patterson himself.
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