A trend I have noticed lately has me a bit concerned. To be honest, this has been going on a long time and I do not see it ending any time soon. I wanted to make people aware though and explain especially how it pertains to erotica.
Ghost writing is the practice of hiring somebody to write the story for you, and then you publish it under your own name and get the profits for the books sales yourself. All genres of books do this, not just erotica. This is perfectly legal, as the “author” is entering into a contract with the ghost writer up front. The ghostwriter is paid a fee for the work, and then essentially sells the author his work to do with as he pleases. When somebody purchases the book however, the person who bought the story gets the profits, not the person who actually wrote it. As with almost everything, there is a positive and negative side to this.
There are some instances when ghost writing is necessary. Sometimes authors die before then can finish a series and a ghostwriter has to take over, but they will publish it under the original author’s name. The best example of this is V.C. Andrews and her “Flowers in the attic” series. V.C. Andrews died in the late eighties. The publishers hired Andrew Neiderman, a formal high school English teacher to finish the series. It is good for the fans of the series because they finished reading the series. It is also good for the publishers because they made more money from the series. Take that for what you will.
There are also times series get just too big for one person to write and publish in a timely fashion. A good example of this is the “Goosebumps” series by R.L. 
Stine. There are so many books in the series Stine had no choice but to use ghostwriters. Since the stories were all their own entities, there is no real need for continuity or the same voice throughout the stories. With that kind of a series, you can have many cooks without spoiling the pot.
One thing I do have a problem with is when a celebrity adds his or her name to a book, or series and then “collaborates” with a ghostwriter to create a story but only the celebrities name is on the cover. A good example of this would be the “Tekwar” series by William Shatner. Apparently, Shatner started taking notes on the set of Star Trek 5 that eventually became the “Tekwar” series. He could not bring the story to life though without the aid of ghostwriter Ron Goulart. The marketing of the book, failed to mention a ghostwriter. People bought the book thinking that Shatner wrote the entire story with no help. You cannot blame people considering his name took up 30% of the cover while some covers even said that the book was “from Star Trek’s Captain Kirk.” It is a clever marketing ploy, but in my opinion, it is a cheap and deceptive one.
So what does this mean for erotica? There are many erotica stories that involve ghost writing to some extent. I know some of you are thinking, “Why should I care as long as I like the story?” This is a valid point for the reader. If you take enjoyment out of the story or series, maybe you should not be concerned where your money ends up. Consider this though, how many erotica stories are on the market? More than you would care to count I imagine. How do you find the best ones if you cannot rely upon word of mouth? Yes, you can look at reviews, but almost all stories will have reviews. Would you rather read a story with the actual author’s name on the cover, or somebody who just paid somebody else to write the story for a profit?
There is a growing trend with the advent of self-published e-books for people to either buy somebody else’s story, or pay them a minimal fee to write one and then publish it under their own name. I myself have been approached a few times to do some freelance writing for erotica stories. The money they were offering was insulting to say the least, five dollars a story to be precise. I turned that down. I did the research on ghost writing and was shocked to see people explaining how to “get lots of disposable income” by buying stories they did not write. They flood the market with hundreds of e-books under their name diluting the pool of genuine stories. This is also done with non-fiction by the way. There are people making thousands a month with this strategy. Now I have nothing against people making money, or capitalism, but I have a problem when “fake writers” flood the market with numerous stories that end up obfuscating my search for genuinely good stories. If you were paid to write a story so that somebody else could sell it, would you put your best foot forward, or maybe hold back so that you did not have to compete with a superior story that you wrote yourself?
Assuming we only want to read stories written by the person whose name is on the cover, how can we tell the real writers from the fake ones? Unfortunately, the only guarantee I can give you is that I do not use ghostwriters. If you see a story with my name on it, and find it on the “personal works” page of this site, I wrote, edited, and published it myself. I cannot speak for any other writers. I can give you a few things that are hints of a fake writer. First, if it is a conglomerate of different stories rolled into one volume that is a good indication. If you buy a group of short stories at a cheap price, then sell them as a group of stories very cheap that is a way to get a great margin with minimal effort.
Another thing that can tip you off is a series that seems to have continuity problems. If you have an ongoing story that is not consistent with characters, plot points, or things just do not add up between stories in the series that is a sign of too many hands in the pot.
At the end of the day though, readers will read what they will. No business is without questionable aspects, and publishing is no different. Just be aware of what is going on, and be aware of which questions you want to ask yourself, and which questions hold no weight for you.
Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
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Erotica by Jacob 