the complicated ethics of ghostwriters + celebrity books

I thought it wouldd be fun to get into the Halloween spirit a little bit earlier this year by talking about ghosts or more specifically by talking about ghost writers because what if I told you that the biggest selling book of 2023 so far wasn't written by the author on its cover or that the fastest selling debut novel of all time in the UK wasn't either and neither were some books that we consider to be cult classics should we even talk about when this book happened the Kylie and Kendall Jenner book Rebels city of Indra and if you're wondering did anyone actually read that book yes some of of us did and we're still recovering did they even read this book I'm not sure or what if I told you that this book which is currently number two in the UK bestseller charts was not written by the author on its cover and that is because all of these books I just mentioned were written by ghost writers according to the Cambridge English dictionary a ghost writer is someone who writes a book or article etc for another person to publish under his or her own name and in the celebrity world this is very very very very common perhaps more common than OIC at this point and so I wanted to do a little Deep dive into it I want to talk about why ghost writing inherently feels like an injustice to us as an audience why it's different between fiction and non-fiction I also want to talk about the general ethics of ghost writing and it may surprise you to know that actually I think that celebrity books are one of the most important parts of the publishing industry but maybe not for the reason that you expect so I will get on to talking about all of that throughout this video so grab a snack and let's chat frankly ghost writing is something that has always happened and will continue to happen in fact Scholars are questioning whether Homer even wrote the ilad but every now and then public awareness of ghost writing and questions about the ethics of ghost writing bubble back up to the surface and because this is such a case by case thing it is always kind of weaponized against one individual usually in order to undermine and discredit them and their work and that is kind of what's happening to Millie Bobby Brown Right Now debut novel by Millie Bobby Brown reignites debates over ghostwritten SL celebrity books reports the guardian because last week this book 19 steps was published by Harper Collins it's a story set during World War II about an often forgotten tragedy in bethor Green in London so basically during the Blitz and when there were Air Raids people would obviously need to Shelter From the risk of bombs specific air raid shelters were created but in a busy City like London there wasn't always space for each person to have their own bunker and so the London Underground tube stations were used as a place where lots of people could get shelter this was an effort to protect people in the city so bethor green is a part of London and in the bethor Green Tube Station there were 19 steps 19 steps going down from street level underground to the station now these 19 steps were really dark there was no banister it was not very safe and the local Council had been campaigning to the government to get funding to make this safer to add lighting to add a railing so people could hold on as they descended the stairs but they got nothing back the government said this was not a priority then one day the alarms were sounded people hurried to the tube station and as one person got down to the bottom steps they tripped and fell the person behind them tripped and fell as well and you've got to imagine this is a country at War this is a capital city that is being bombed so when the air raid sirens are going off people are panicking everyone is trying to get underground as quickly as they possibly can it's dark there's no banister people can't really see there's nowhere to cling onto and so people just started to fall on top of each other and it literally was building up and up you can imagine how confusing and scary and chaotic this would have been and unfortunately 173 people lost their lives in this incident people were literally crushed and suffocated by other human bodies it was a horrible and sad and avoidable tragedy and one that Millie Bobby Brown's grandmother Ruth was present for and survived and so Millie came up with the concept of this book in her honor it's kind of giving Joanne by Lady Gaga and so I read it to be honest with you the writing style is a little cliche it opens with a description of the weather like it's a 10-year-old's creative writing project it was a bright Saturday in September that felt as though it was still summer it was hot the kind of heat that makes you long for the weather to cool down and the leaves to fall but when you berated yourself or wishing away the good weather you know it was the kind of heat that was hot the kind of water that was wet the kind of food that was edible the kind of clothes that you wear honestly I put someone else's name on the cover of this book just so people didn't think I'd written it the first 150 pages are incredibly dull it's just a very typical family a very typical War novel a very typical Love Story it's nothing you haven't already read before and then the stairs thing happens and honestly it was a bit of a page Turner at that point I will not like to you then at the end of the book there was a frankly absurd plot twist which I don't want to spoil but it really is um it was a choice the choices were made none of them good it feels like the research for this novel was just like kind of what you vaguely recollect from studying the war in school with maybe one quick skim read of Wikipedia just for good measure I think the strategy here was like if we mention the word rationing on every page then maybe no one will question us on historical accuracy overall it's a story of love and family and moving on or at least coexisting with a tragedy there are devastating scenes like I said there are page turning moments and the overall tone of the book is one of Hope and Recovery as a story it's pretty harmless it's not going to change the world but it does shed light on this tragedy which you know I think is what Millie Bobby Brown set out to do and it's safe to say that this book has been met with some mixed reviews shall we say the telegraph says read her debut and weep some say there's nothing this young star can't do but her first book 19 steps a flat and repetitive wartime romance disproves that if someone wrote that about me The Ghost Writer would not be the only ghost there would also be my own I would be deceased I would evaporate that would be the death of my ego Jesus but honestly through reading this book I think it is so obvious that it was not written by a 19-year-old so blindingly obvious Stevie Wonder could see it the oldfashioned themes it's concerned with the language it uses the way the Love Story plays out in a way that romanticizes Traditional Values like nothing about this feels contemporary or modern and that's not to say that historical fiction has to feel modern or it has to feel contemporary but I think World War II novels like this are a broken record at this point it's been done so we want to see something Innovative and exciting and this isn't that it's also not to say that genen Z people can't write historical fiction because they absolutely can if anything I would encourage it a young mind could have should have would have brought something new to the genre and yet this doesn't really do anything and yet there is one rather large genen Z name on the cover of this book that's marketing baby when we open the cover up we have Millie Bobby Brown's name again and then beneath it if you squint really hard and cran your neck in a little bit oh there it is with Kathleen mcgar it's more like like Millie Bobby Brown with Kathleen mcel there's The Ghost Writer but look she's there she's credited often you won't find a ghost writer's name until you get to like the acknowledgements of the book in fact let's see what's in here usually they'll say something like thank you for helping me bring my story to life where is the reference here we go and to the brilliant Kathleen MC girl for working with me to bring it to life every time if I had a pound for every time someone credited their Ghost Writer like that I'd be able to afford one but I guess this begs the question are we really surprised you know a celebrity using a ghost writer stranger things have happened you knew there'd be a stranger things part in there somewhere now Millie actually posted a picture of her and Kathleen together on the release date on Instagram she posted a huge thank you to my collaborator at Kathleen mcar I couldn't have done this without you # 19 steps so let's be clear about one thing this Ghost Writer is not being hidden and I should also mention that Kathleen was also mentioned in the announcements of this book back in March because the cynical skeptic inside me was like I wonder if they're just kind of covering this up I wonder if they're kind of covering their tracks Now by posting about The Ghost Writer now there's been backlash but in Millie's defense they've been posting about this Ghost Writer since the very very beginning of this campaign it was not a last minute Panic they've been tagging her since the beginning but some people were still pretty outraged Tak to the comment section on Millie's post to say you mean she wrote it for you and you're taking the credit so you can become an author and not actually write it yourself these days what's the point someone even said just use chat GPT next time and I noticed that BNS & Noble had to actually turn the comments off on their post promoting Millie's book because there was so much backlash in the comments section all this begs the question how much of this book did Millie Bobby Brown actually write and it kind of turns out not a lot essentially the idea behind the story was hers but Kathleen mcal took to her blog to explain the collaboration process saying I was sent a lot of research that had already been pulled together by Millie and her family and plenty of ideas and we had a couple of Zoom calls and then I knuckled down and wrote the first draft while Millie continued sending more ideas via WhatsApp the book went through several drafts since then as we refined The Story So are a couple of Zoom calls some WhatsApp messages and a few edits enough to Warrant having your name on the cover in capital letters in gold foil no less when your ghost writer doesn't even get silver foil not even bronze not even the Bold tool she's lucky she even got capital letters on her name she's lucky it was printed in Black Ink not white I'm kidding I am kidding I honestly think that Millie has been pretty transparent about this whole thing a quick glance inside the book a quick Google search will reveal that this was a collaboration although of course like all celebrities she never uses the word Ghostwriter so why does it still just feel a little bit icky I suppose what feels uncomfortable to us as consumers that something that I sort of found a bit distasteful is seeing Millie Bobby Brown selling out venues in London doing book signings gleefully signing copies of of a book that she didn't write something about that just doesn't sit right I guess and I actually thought that this big show that she did at the Hackney Empire that live event could have been the perfect opportunity to sit on a stage with her collaborator and discuss the creation process of the book but I have to be realistic too and know that it's Millie Bobby Brown's name that is selling tickets you know that's who people have come to see they want to hear her they want to hear her story they want to hear her responses to questions because they are fans of her and if you really wanted a detailed book club discussion about the craft of writing and the Art of literature you would go and see a literary fiction writer I do sometimes think that when people discuss these events and the abstract idea of the paying consumer they talk about them like they're a bit stupid as if people don't know what they're paying for what they're getting themselves into on an individual level when really those people who bought tickets bought tickets because of the star power of Millie Bobby Brown they wanted to hear her speak they won't have any going expecting Jane Austin I think what's important to put into perspective here is that sometimes when we think of ghost writing we think of it as a kind of Injustice as if someone else spent years working on a book and then a celebrity like Milly Bobby Brown just came and pinched it out of their hands like the perception we have of author Ghost Writer relationships is almost like someone sitting doing their homework and then the cool kid in class coming over and like stealing their answers and saying them louder and getting all the credit for them getting a big fat gold star while the person who actually wrote the answers is left in the dust with nothing but what we have to remember is that ghost writers know what they're getting themselves into they sign up for these projects they are commissioned to do this they do so of their own free will they know exactly what the roll out of the book will entail I know that it feels like some kind of Injustice but it's crucial to remember that ghost writing is a profession that writers willingly sign up for to get their name out there to make sure that their next book deal is bigger to have a project to work on and ultimately to make money they are paid for their work often they'll also receive a commission from the royalties of the book so this is still beneficial for them they're likely to sell a lot more copies when a celebrity's name is put on the cover and therefore make money so let's be clear Millie Bobby Brown is not exploiting her ghost writer and we need to forget that narrative I suppose the big question is was she exploiting her fans personally I think it's been made very very clear that this was a collaboration and maybe these situations just proved that we have to be a little bit more Vigilant and maybe assume ghost written until proven innocent when it comes to celebrity books so why bother how did Millie Bobby Brown even end up having a book with her name on it my guess would be that 19 steps is being lined up to be a film starring Millie I did actually listen to the audio book of this which she narrated and genuinely the character of Nelly who is the main character in this book was written for her Nelly's name is even spelled with an ie like Millie Nelly it it's so similar the love interest is even called Bobby I am not making this up now what's interesting to me is that Millie also released a perfume the same week that this book book was released and the treatment of that product has been totally different different gravy and I think that's because we kind of implicitly know that when a celebrity puts their name on a perfume they were not in the lab goggles on creating it I don't think anyone has the impression that Billy eish or David Beckham or Jennifer Lopez are doing all of the chemistry that is involved in creating a fragrance they just smell them and approve them maybe they don't even do that we also know that Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo are not individually designing each piece of their merchant ice and maybe that's because traditionally perfumes and clothing ranges are released by companies and then endorsed by celebrities we kind of know that that's a collaborative process we rarely think of those things as individual Ventures so why does it feel different when it comes to books because it does just feel inherently different right when a celebrity's name is plastered on a book versus on a perfume I think maybe it's because we think of writing as something that anyone can do to a certain extent right like if you put me in a lab and said make a fragrance I could not do that but tell anyone to sit down and write a story and they could come up with something and so I think we think of writing more as a personal labor of love and we're used to hearing authors talk about how they really labored over a piece of work over a project for years maybe it got rejected a lot of times then it's at one person who really believed in them and now we have the book that we can read and I think we have this impression of kind of like the troubled struggling artist and of course so much hard work and labor and individual effort goes into things like fragrances and fashion design I'm not saying that it doesn't but I think this is all about perception and the way that we perceive the concept of the writer as a figure and how we kind of venerate them and celebrate them I think because the art of writing is considered to be very Soul bearing and such an intimate vulnerable thing that it just doesn't necessarily sit right finding out that someone else's outpouring of creativity has someone else's name slapped on the cover and that someone else is claiming it as their own I think this is all about perception but responding to Millie's backlash a ghost writer called Shannon Kyle who founded the ghost writers agency told the guardian that it was part of the Celeb culture to front products such as perfume clothing ranges Beauty lines and food products that celebrities might not have been involved in the technical side of creating Brown's transparency about her use of a ghost writer was refreshing added Kyle and it doesn't diminish her involvement because ultimately it is her family story and it wouldn't be happening without her I think that's a crucial detail too this story would not have come into existence without Millie Bobby Brown's participation in it it's not like this story would have been published independently by Kathleen if Millie had not been involved in the project like this would not have existed at all now talking about a service that will do all of the hard work for you I am buzzing to let you know that today's video is very kindly brought to you by Squarespace now Squarespace is the all-in-one platform for building your perfect dream website or online brand and they do all of the difficult bits for you so you can bring your vision to life so you do not need any coding experience or or web developer experience you don't have to hire a ghost web developer Squarespace have literally hundreds of incredible templates which you can customize and make your own and there's great features like a blogging feature there are also really great analytical tools so you can see what an audience is responding well to and therefore make more of that content and I think it's great so if you would like to have a play around and see what you can do with Squarespace you can actually get a free trial over on their website so head to squarespace.com for that and then when you're ready to launch your beautiful new website you can use code Jack Edwards squarespace.com Jack Edwards to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain so you lucky sausage you're welcome launch that website today maybe for your new ghost writing business I don't know and thank you so so much to Squarespace for working with me on this video and this certainly isn't the first time that we've seen outrage over a piece of celebrity ghostwritten fiction and I do think it's worth pointing out here that this always seems to flare up and wear its ugly head and become a point of public discourse when a successful young woman does it and becomes the target of that outrage unfortunately there is a definite trend of people using ghostwritten books to knock down successful young women not them down AEG and suggest that they actually don't deserve their success or that they're not self-made which we put so much emphasis on in our capitalist Society like the idea of being self-made is the best thing you can possibly be and no one is a better example of this than Zoe sug in 2014 Zoe known online as Zoella released her debut novel Girl online and this quickly became the fastest selling debut novel of all time in the UK it shifted 78,000 copies in its first week which is huge for fiction and it's also worth noting that all pre-order sales count towards first week sales so because Zoe was already someone in the public ey she had 7 million followers at the time she had an avid fan base that is why she was able to sell so many copies in week one and in doing so she usurps the likes of JK Rowling and eel James and so this brought a lot of mainstream media attention to this online star the independent note that the honeymoon phase following this success was shortlived a speculation began over whether the 26-year-old was the book's sole author so much speculation was beginning to brew online that her Publishers penguin had to release a statement a few days after the speculation started they said the factual accuracy of the matter is simply that Zoe sug did not write Girl online on her own for her first novel Girl online Zoe has worked with an expert editorial team to help her bring to life her characters and experiences in a heartwarming and compelling Story the book was in fact written in collaboration with ya author Siobhan kurum The Washington Post note that zo was deluged with messages from disappointed fans some called her a fraud after all the appeal of sug and the Crux of her YouTube stardom she has more than 6.7 million subscribers lies in the premise that she is an organic selfmade celebrity and I think that's why Zoella kind of became the face of this because we'd already seen people like KY price and Naomi Campbell and the Kardashians and the Jenners releasing very obviously ghostwritten books but I think in those instances we kind of assumed that they would have had some help whereas Zoe kind of initially found her Fame through blogging she was one of the original bloggers and of course that is a type of writing a very different type of writing but a type of writing nonetheless and again this is all about perception people thought she would be able to write when we think of casy price and Naomi Campbell and the Kardashian we sort of think about them in ayeris sense like they have granted us access to their Lifestyles that we would not have access to otherwise on the other hand we have Zoella who was living a life that was kind of supposed to be like ours the charm of what she did is that it seemed attainable I mean you could literally see her holding the camera like this and so the idea of having someone working for you the idea of having someone doing the job for you doesn't align with the narrative and the perception that we have of her I think at this point she was daily vlogging like people really really felt that they knew her life and so I guess to find out that there was something that had sort of been hidden felt like a betrayal of sorts it felt like dishonesty and there's definitely a very specific type of anger that people feel that audiences feel when an online Creator lets them down I think that's because there's almost this Unwritten contract of like we made you we gave you everything you have therefore we can take it away again her success was built on the basis that she was relatable and having a ghost writer isn't relatable and for her young fans I think it will also have been the first time they were exposed to the idea of a ghost writer at all maybe it's because people think that either she or her Publishers have been manipulative and cynical said the BBC's will gonets but if that's the case they join a very long line of artists who claim to do work that others have actually done on their behalf I wonder if the problem is with us and not the artist and his or her collaborator maybe we are The Fakes we're happy to love the work if we think it's done by the person we admire but if it proves not to be then we suddenly dismiss it ever since the Renaissance we've lived in an age of the individual a philosophical change that's become an obsession nowadays I guess we do just fundamentally love the idea of the Artist as a figure and as an individual we allow certain people to earn way more money than us very publicly because we perceive them to be special and to have a talent and to find out that someone else was sort of propping them up doesn't align with that it feels untruth it feels like that person doesn't deserve to be achieving more than we are because hey maybe if we all had access to all of those resources we would be the one making all the money and we would be the one being successful I also think that a crucial part of this story is the fact that this all came to public attention after Zoe had already sold all of these copies and was being celebrated and heralded for her success and maybe that's what made it feel like there was an element of deception especially because the ghost writer was not themselves a debut novelist so when we say fastest selling debut novel of all time it kind of feels like that's not actually very accurate it feels like someone else getting the glory for a ghost writer's work and there wasn't that transparency that Millie Bobby Brown seems to have displayed from day one and I honestly think that Zoe was kind of someone that people learned a lesson from an article in The Ghost Writer by shobhan Kum who actually wrote this book said I love writing books and I love helping others write books and I especially love being involved in the creation of books that help others book that deal with real and serious issues such as cyber bullying homophobia and anxiety books like Girl online she also noted how important it was that this book was pumping money into the industry an industry that she loves that I love that hopefully you love the publishing industry and that is I think maybe the most important Point celebrity books make money even if you hate them they are a necessary evil for the publishing industry because it pumps money into it it pumps money into bookstores into publishing houses they can also get people who aren't currently into reading to go out and buy a book because they're into the celebrity who wrote it and reading one good book can genuinely make you a reader for life it's just about flexing that muscle and getting back into the habit of reading and so if celebrities like these can do that I'm all here for it one thing I definitely hear a lot of people say is this opportunity could have gone to someone else this opportunity could have gone to a debut author who they need to take a risk on and my rebuttal to that would be that these celebrity books that are guaranteed to make money are vital for the publishing industry they are vital for ensuring that publishing houses make money celebrity books are not risky because they know they will make money whereas debut novels by unknown authors are guaranteed money from celebrity books means that publishing houses can take risks on debut novelists this is a business that needs to generate profit and they can do that by funding celebrity books which make back their money and then some and that and then some can can be given to a debut novelist The Narrative is often oh look at this privileged celebrity taking away an opportunity from someone who has actually worked for it but I don't see it that way I think it's a more complicated ecosystem than we're maybe giving it credit for the celebrity and the celebrity book is now contributing to that ecosystem which means there's more money in the industry and in turn more authors can have a chance taken on them and Siobhan kuram celebrated this with Zoe's book 2014's fastest selling book which is currently sitting on top of the UK official top 50 for the second week straight meant that bookstores such as water stones are ending the year on healthy profits and that penguin and many other Publishers around the world are now able to afford to offer more unknown writers book deals there's also excitement around the act of reading which is all we can ask for and honestly G online is pretty decent it's got a good story it's compelling but after the scandal of G online Zoe said that she would write the follow-up books in the series herself and in more recent years she published this series of books which actually have her collaborator name on the title so she definitely said you're not getting me again no way and honestly Zoe protect your peace I respect it and two names on the cover is something that we have started to see more and more a notable example is the very very highly successful author James Patterson he publishes something like 27 books per year the only person more productive than that is Taylor Swift but actually maybe that's not the truth Ellen because if you look at the covers of his books almost all of them have a co-writer name on them granted they are slightly smaller than James Patterson's name because James Patterson is the one who is selling the books but they are there and the Washington Post did this really interesting interview with him where they sort of started to unpick a little bit how he does this and it turns out that these books are not really written by James Patterson written is not the precise verb conceived outlined co-written and curated Patterson delivers exhaustive notes and outlines sometimes running 880 pages to co-authors his printer regularly discharging collaborators efforts like lottery tickets as of 2021 he had published over 200 novels and Investors Business Daily report that he has sold over 400 million copies of his books worldwide that is madness but again it's pumping money into the industry and essentially these books have become part of the James Patterson brand and that's almost like a brand that you buite into because you can expect a certain style of Novel a certain style of writing from these books are kind of like the books that your dad Buys in the airport you know and it kind of turns out that though the ideas for these books may have come from James Patterson's head they're kind of written by someone else and that seems to sort of just been widely accepted by the public and I'm wondering what the difference is here maybe because we see James Patterson as someone who has earned his stripes as someone who has published so many of his own own books that now he is entitled to do this again I kind of give him a free pass just because of how much money it generates I personally wouldn't read these books but I am grateful to anyone who does because it means that I get the books that I want to read I will note that although readers don't seem to care too much some people in the publishing industry have been very shady about this Stephen King in particular has been quite critical and said that Patterson is a terrible writer but he's very successful which is like the biggest backhanded compliment in fact that's not a compliment that's just backhanded and apparently James Patterson planned to respond to Stephen King by writing a book where a character murders Stephen King but this book was canceled potentially because Stephen King already wrote a book where someone tries to murder Stephen King It is literally called Misery but anyway I was living for that beef and Danielle Steel is another top writer who has published hundreds of books and on her website she responded to ghost writing claims pretty indignantly shall we say this is what she said as some of you know from reading my blogs on a variety of subjects I've reacted with amazement shock and outrage when people have asked me in my fan mail who writes my books who writes my books are you kidding who do you think writes my books as I hover over my typewriter for weeks at a time working on a first draft with unbrushed hair in an ancient night gown with every inch of my body aching after typing 20 or 22 hours a day at a stretch Danielle H 22 hours a day who are you kidding who are you trying to convince the lady doth protest too much I think although I I do believe her I think she's just exaggerating that's who writes my books me and in recent years I've discovered from my agent and publisher that it has become common practice for some very well-known successful authors to write the outline for a book and hand it over to a team of writers to write the book holy sh how do they do that both the author and the elves James Patterson shade is Real by the way but she does go one to speak about the importance of editors writing without a good editor is like dressing in the dark you come out looking a mess and so does the book Carol has been editing my books for almost 32 years she is a genius our work together is like a dance sometimes like tennis or pingpong and sometimes like ballet with Incredible Harmony of thought and I do think it's worth noting here The crucial role that editors play in working on a book and that book writing is a collaborative process but it's not the same as having a ghost writer I often see that when celebrities especially reference their editors people are very quick to be like also the editor did all the work and that's not really the case an editor is someone who cares about the book just as much as you do and they can work as a soundboard and as a feedback machine and someone who will push you and challenge you and question you and come up with ideas as well because they want the book to be as good as it can be and so they give their feedback accordingly but books are always a kind of collaborative process and I think that we should understand that although in researching for this book I did find out that some classic books actually have had ghost writers for example I found out that Alexander Dumas who wrote The Count of Monte Christo and the Three Musketeers did so with a co-author who isn't really credited except on his Tombstone which I feel doesn't really count there's also the Nancy Drew series of books which has been going on for like 88 years and this is actually created by a selection of ghost writers who all publish under one name Caroline ke and this apparently is called book packaging and this is a practice in the publishing world where a bunch of different Writers come together under one sudonym and they're contracted to write books in the series all with the same kind of Bible of characters and tone of voice and settings so essentially they've created this fictional world and then all these different ghost writers right within it which I thought was really interesting there's also the case of Robert ludlam who writes the Jason Bourn series of books which has also been made into a film franchise now he actually died in 20 2001 and yet the Jason born books continued being released all the way up to 2017 because after he died ghost writers took over because the book series was so lucrative and so even in traditional publishing it is sometimes confusing to know when a book has actually been written by the original author I think when it comes to celebrities it's sometimes there's a bit of murkiness because of course there are exceptions to the rule some celebrities do write their own fiction Richard Osman is a popular TV show host here in the UK and his books are at the number one of every best list every week he's written an enormously successful series called the Thursday Murder Club and by all accounts he wrote them himself so sometimes you can sort of tell from the media around the person the way that the person talks about the process of creating the book whether they had Assistance or not everything we've spoken about up to this point has been fiction and in the fiction World in that landscape we kind of assume that people would write their own books but the other side of the coin is non-fiction where we don't necessarily think that when it comes to Memoir writing and autobiographies I think we actually assume the opposite I think we assume that they did have help with those books when a celebrity releases an autobiography there's an implicit understanding that they probably didn't write it says novelist Aisha Malik who has worked as a ghost writer and I really think this is true like Britney Spears just signed one of the most lucrative biggest book deals of all time her book is coming out next month but I think we all are assuming that she won't have written it I don't think any of us for a second thought that Britney Spears was writing that book I mean we've all seen her Instagram captions they are not necessarily coherent I love her to Pieces but a book written like her Instagram captions would be illegible they're basically incoherent ramblings that book would be like an acid trip if she wrote it but the difference here is that what Britney is giving us is her story it is the story of her life that only she has lived that is her story to tell and that's what we're buying into when we buy her book we are buying her story the same happened recently with Paris Hilton's memoir which I have to say is really really good and yet when we open this book there is no reference of a ghost writer I think that in the acknowledgements there's one moment where she says about someone Joanie Rogers help me find my voice and held my hand through the chaos and again someone helping you to find your voice often is kind of celebrity code for they helped me write this but that's just speculation that is not confirmed Harris Hilton please don't sue me I really loved your book and so what a celebrity ghost writer does when it comes to Memoir writing and autobiography is they help the public figure that is the focus of the book is to translate their story onto the page in a compelling way with a structure and a format that is palatable for us as readers to consume I think that's pretty reasonable I think that's what we are all expecting and as I mentioned perhaps the biggest book of the year has also been written by a ghost writer this is Prince Harry's book which was Ghost written by Jr minger now Jr minger is like the most prolific celebrity ghost writer he wrote shoe dog for Phil Knight the founder of Nike or Nike and also open by tennis star Andre aussi and actually I think that they obviously used that book as the blueprint for this one like even the way that they have that onew title and the kind of stare down the barrel of the camera is the same same ghost right so they were definitely trying to replicate the success of that book with spare I also think that open is a genius title for a book about a tennis star because obviously you have like the US Open The French Open the Australian Open as a tennis term but then also the double on Tundra of like it open being open being honest being vulnerable I love that anyway so his next project was spare and spare was by all accounts a huge Triumph it sold 3.2 million copies in its first week and there was a huge media frenzy about this book interestingly in an article for the New Yorker minger actually said that he would write this book differently now that it's been published because after the book was published and his name was leaked to the Press he was stalked by Paparazzi they followed him home like tailgated his car when he was dropping his kid off at school they would offer to pay his friends and family for like Insider info like it's insane and after that experience of that side of the British press he was like actually I really empathize with Harry a lot more now now that I've experienced what his life is like every single day and the article he wrote for the New Yorker is very very insightful it explains the process of being incredibly collaborative they actually had huge fights over how certain scenes were going to be portrayed in the book they were going back and forth for months on editorial details like this really feels like a partnership he came and stayed in Harry's house he met the family he talks very highly of Megan this really feels like a collaboration like something they came to do together Harry had the story minger wrote it down and in the article he uses this analogy to talk about the art of ghost writing our 5-year-old daughter looked up from her cinnamon toast and asked what is Ghost writing my wife and I gazed each other as if she'd asked what is god well I said drawing a blank okay you know how you love art she nodded she loves few things more an artist is what she hopes to be imagine if one of your classmates wanted to say something Express something but they couldn't draw imagine if they asked you to draw a picture for them I would do it she said that's ghost writing and he also agreed on the huge importance of celebrity books to the writing industry I simply remind the callers that ghost writing is an art and urge them not to let those who cast it as hacky Shady or fadish it's been around for thousands of years dim their pride I also tell them that they're providing a vital public service helping to shore up the publishing industry since most of the titles on this week's bestseller list were written by someone besides the named author this happens all the time in Celebrity Memoir writing Alex Haley wrote Malcolm X's autobiography Ted senson helped John F Kennedy write his book which he then won the pulit a prize for but they were incredibly honest and transparent and I think that's what readers like because we're expecting it anyway we kind of want those people to be celebrated and to be thanked and maybe we will start to see more ghost writer credit specifically on the cover I saw that Leanne pinnick from Little Mix is releasing a book she has also been releasing Bangers by the way her solo career is great and she is putting her collaborator name on the cover of her book and I think this does feel more ethical straight away it feels like that person is being credited for their storytelling and I guess it recognizes how crucially important that person was in bringing this story to life but ultimately it's a commonly accepted practice for us to hear story stories by famous and influential people a writer is brought in to make that story palatable and legible and ultimately enjoyable there's a really interesting article called ghosting which is by Andre Hagen whose fiction is brilliant by the way but he's also a very talented essayist and he worked with Julian Assange on a now scrapped autobiography about his career and Wikileaks and he got this fascinating insight into the life of Julian Assange and Julian said he wanted to work with someone who didn't already know him so they could really capture the essence of his story from a fresh perspective and Andre o Haagen has written extensively about how odd Julian Assange was to work with and how he was told he had to write the story on a computer that didn't have connection to the internet because they were so nervous that like the CIA were going to try and hack this computer overall the fact of the matter is that no one really seems to get too mad when celebrity Memoirs are ghost written and so if we all know that ghost writers are being used do they need to be credited on covers or is it just implicit minger says that's the Mystic Paradox of ghost writing you're inherent and nowhere vital and invisible to borrow an image from William Gus you're the heir in someone else's trumpet and I think that's an interesting metaphor like these two things cannot work without the other one but both are important the celebrity and the writer and yet that feels slightly different when it comes to fiction that feels like the ghost writer is the trumpet and the heir and the celebrity author is more like the stage that that person is put on and that person might actually be behind a curtain I think it's different because the division of labor when it comes to fiction writing isn't as clear with a memoir we know that the author provides the story the writer provides the writing but in fiction it's a creative Endeavor and those lines are blurred with Fiction it's harder to know where the whole ideation process of the book came from because like I say the writer is also coming up with a lot of the plot and the characters and the details which doesn't happen in Memoir writing because it is all real for a book tour of a celebrity Memoir I would only expect the celebrity to be there because it's their story story that we are buying into we're buying into their brand but then with fiction writing just seeing Millie Bobby Brown alone on the stage when she didn't do all of the work feels different somehow so I think it's important to remember that fundamentally these are different Arts they're different crafts writing fiction uses a different writing muscle to writing Memoir says Ghost Writer Shannon Kyle in some instances the celebrity will come up with a loose plot and the Ghost Writer has to work around this involvement I think varies wildly depending on the celebrity and Jillian Stern who has written a number of celebrity Memoirs says if a ghost writer sits with a blank page and doesn't have any input at all from the celebrity I think that's ethically difficult and that kind of brings us on to the big question is Ghost writing ethical for me looking at everything that we've discussed I think that sometimes ghost writers are necessary if not crucial where the ethics come in I think is where they're celebrated and where they're acknowledged in the project there's two sides to this I think one is is it ethical for the writer and like I said for these people are paid to do these projects they know what they're getting themselves in for so I think that is fair they know what to expect it's more about really where it comes down to the reader and how much the reader is aware that what their reading is Ghost written forb says one thing that invites ghost writing murkiness is that many people who believe they need a ghost writer are in actuality looking for a skilled collaborator to help them create copy that does the most Justice to their ideas and words this of course is not a problem the ethical breach is asking an imposter to create material and then pretending that it was written by the person who hired The Ghost Writer and Tina Lions who also helped found the ghost writers agency says that to answer the question of whether ghost writing is ethical you would have to look at the three parties involved the ghost the author and the reader from a ghost's point of view this is a business transaction they are selling their skills as a writer so it is no different from any other business transaction the same could also be said for the author they've asked the ghost to write what they would have said if they had the time skill or patience to write it the place where the lines might get a little blurred is when it comes to the reader most people know and accept that the majority of nonfiction is written with the help of ghosts the genre of celebrity fiction is not so clear-cut and therefore readers won't be so aware of the collaboration so I suppose we can hope that celebrity authors will be transparent about these collaborations I think the future is having ghost writers names on the cover but I guess some of the onus is on us too to be more Vigilant with checking whether there is a collaborator before we go into to buying a book so that we know what we are buying the University of Oregon suggests that there are five ethical questions to ask about a ghostwritten project which are one what is the audience's degree of awareness two does the communicator use a ghost writer to make himself or herself appear to possess personal qualities that he or she does not really have three what are the surrounding circumstances of the communicators job that make ghost writing a necessity for example are they busy acting on stage are performing to hundreds of thousands of people every night you know do those people actually have time to sit down and write a book and give it the attention it deserves four to what extent did the communicator actively participate in the writing of their own messages so are the sentiments expressed their own five does the communicator accept responsibility for the message he or she presents I find that final point so interesting because I suppose if you sign off on the project and you put your name on it you are now accepting responsibility for that project you know if there is problematic language if there are things that people take offense to your name is now on that and if you're going to accept the glory and the money and the fame and the fortune that comes with it you also have to accept the defeats and the low moments and the backlash too I remember reading the Kendall and Kylie Jenner book and thinking that basically the bad guys are just ugly and poor like that's their only crime and the rich kids from the like upper regions of Society come down and kill them and I think like that problematic idea was not from their own brains but they did put their names on the cover of it and therefore they have to accept responsibility for the fact that that is the plot of their book in the same way that when Kendall Jenner did that Pepsi advert where she like solves police brutality with a can of Pepsi like she didn't write that advert she didn't come up with the concept but she did staring it and she did coign it by signing off on that project and so they do have to accept some level of accountability point two in that list I think is the tricky one when it comes to fiction the idea that people may get the impression that you possess qualities that you do not actually have because a ghost writer presented them I guess the quality that you are being credited with is being a good writer which is actually what The Ghost Writer did Ghost written novels do suggest that the communicator the celebrity has a skill a creative skill that they do not possess so look it's a murky industry there are complicated ethics surrounding ghost written books and still a lot of questions I hope that this video sort of helped to contextualize some of them and bring a few different discussion points to attention and hopefully we can consume ghostwritten books even more mindfully kind of going forward I'd love to hear your thoughts and your commentary in the comments section down below let me know what you think let me know if I missed anything or there are any interesting case studies that you found and what your perspective is I would love it to hear and let's continue this conversation down below if you're new here you can subscribe give this video a thumbs up if you liked it it's a bit of a different style for me my video essay era but I really enjoyed kind of doing all the research and deep diving into this thing that interests me so much so thanks so much for watching all the best stay in touch have a wonderful day and I will catch you next time byebye

Channel: Jack Edwards

Views: 610,411

Keywords: Millie Bobby brown, Ghostwriter, celebrity books, ghostwriting, zoella, prince Harry, Prince Harry book, Spare, nineteen steps, Britney spears, Video essay, Jack Edwards

Id: c6mGnXnSVo8

Length: 45min 4sec (2704 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 04 2023