Book ethics, now in convenient poll form!

[megwrites]

[Poll #1327486]


ETA: Just to clarify, the six book series in question is in the exact same genre as the "debut novel"

Comments

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Ah, the copyright page. tanaise and I have been known to play a game called, "Who's Marion Zimmer Bradley this time?"

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That's one thing that sorta bugged me about this whole thing, aside from the dishonesty. If the publisher is trying to create a persona for this writer as a brilliant debut author and a new voice or what-the-hell-ever they're trying to do, it's sort of stupid, because anyone who can read the copyright page and navigate their way through Google can find out that it's a big fat lie.

[readingthedark.livejournal.com]

V. C. Andrews has written more books dead than alive, and new Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy books are about to start, but in that other direction, of new authors appearing like mushrooms, is also quite old. Pen names were once a way to spoof the sales tracking systems. From bmac's comment, I'm guessing it's someone who used a house name or continued something and is now out on their own. One of the many truths of the industry is that many writers get their start in weird forms of hackery. Tom Perotta wrote under R. L. Stine's name for a while, etc. What amazes me most is when someone does hackwork of the pure and unbridled sort and then manages to emerge as both an artistic and popular force. (In other words, Janet Evanovich did romances under fake names and Robert Meyer has used five or six names to get to the semi-big time but I'm most interested by somebody like Gaiman who went from fast-typing journalist (Duran Duran, etc.) to the wider range of stuff that he does now. That second type interests me most because there's often a clear evolution of techniques. But sure the industry, unlike acting or singing, tends to allow for a certain amount of reinvention as deceptive marketing. I can think of people who are certain that Harper Lee and Shakespeare are pseudonyms and I'm reasonably certain that many franchise writer names are pretty much house names.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

Pseudonyms don't really bother me at all, nor does ghostwriting. I know that's part of writing, and honestly, I can't say I read any authors who are so prolific as to have ghostwriters anyway.

I suppose what bothers me, really, is that the publisher went out of their way to create the image of a "debut" novel and first time author, when it was really, really *not* true. Making the author's publication history (or fictional lack thereof) part and parcel of how they advertised the book to me was disingenuous. It stinks of desperation and dishonesty, neither of which I like.

[readingthedark.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree. Many writers are launched as debuts that aren't even close. Even Andrew Gross' series launch hinted at it being his "debut novel" in the same breath that they talked about his track record of bestsellers in the same genre. They were subtle but tried to say both in the same paragraph more than once. I guess the point I forgot to clarify is that pseudonyms are often used to give an author who didn't earn out an advance or two a new start. (The other reason is that they're afraid they'll saturate the market or make someone they're trying to establish look like a hack. They don't always falsely claim it's a first novel, but they often don't mention that it's a pseudonym. (Kim Harrison, Lian Hearn, Jayne Quick, J. D. Robb (though that one's so complicated that I tend not to use it as an example)). Desperation and dishonesty have always struck me as guiding forces of publishing.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

Desperation and dishonesty have always struck me as guiding forces of publishing.

Truer words were never spoken. I think you're right on the money about that.

And right now I think the publishing industry is reaping what it's sewn over the last few years. Desperation and dishonesty never pan out in the long run. Just ask Bernard Madoff and Rod Blagojevich about where being desperate, dishonest, and more focused on money than being good at what you do gets you.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

I'm not even sure why this would be a good marketing ploy, particularly if the novel is in the same genre as the author's prior work.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly. Honestly? It probably would've done the author more good to bank on their own name (I mean, obviously the previous series did well enough that the publisher went in for SIX books) than for them to go through the motions of trying to establish a "new" writer.

The only weird logic I can ascribe to it is that the previous series is a rather Robert Jordanesque flavor of high fantasy and the other is sort of alt-history fantasy, and maybe they felt that would be too much of a crossover? But still, I mean, if authors can go from spaceships to vampires - I don't think this is too much of a stretch, which makes it even stupider and worse.

If I were inclined to be incredibly, unbelievably snarky, I'd say that the one appropriate thing about labeling this author as being new is that he's still making rookie mistakes.

[denoue-moi.livejournal.com]

I'd just be really confused and wonder what the point of making that claim was. I think sometimes the author must have no clue what they put on those things.