In the publishing world, there are book packaging companies, who will come up with an idea for a novel and then hire authors or ghostwriters to write the book, following the book packaging company’s guidelines (see the blog
Scott Reads It and the article “
Book Packaging: Under-explored Terrain for Freelancers” by Jenna Glatzer for in-depth definitions of book packaging).
Is book packaging a big deal? Should it be a big deal? It depends, and if you Google “packaged books,” you’ll find a wide range of views on the subject.
Young adult books are often written by authors hired by book packaging companies. Some examples of young adult packaged books are below.
How do you know if a book is a packaged
book? Check the copyright. If the copyright belongs to a company instead of the
author, it’s probably a packaged book.
Publishing is a competitive world. Writing
for a book packaging company might be easier for authors than trying to get
published in a more traditional way. This isn’t usually a problem, but there
have been two cases in which book packaging companies have received negative
press.
In 2011, L.J. Smith, author of The Vampire Diaries series was fired
from writing the book series. The Vampire
Diaries is a packaged book series, created by the company Alloy. When Smith
didn’t want to take the series in the direction Alloy wanted her to, she was
fired.
James Frey’s book packaging company,
Full Fathom Five, has also received negative press for the terms authors must
agree to when signing on with his company, as outlined in an online article
published by New York Magazine. The terms included, but were not limited to:
·
Authors
would receive $250 for books completed and delivered during a specific
timeframe.
·
Authors
would receive 30 percent of the revenue generated by the project (40 percent if
the idea was originally the author’s instead of Frey’s).
·
Authors
would not own the copyright to the book but would be held financially
responsible for any legal action taken against the book.
·
Authors
would receive a $50,000 penalty if they publicly admitted to working with Full
Fathom Five without permission.
·
Full
Fathom Five could use authors’ names or pseudonyms without an author’s
permission, regardless if the author was still involved with the series.
With so many publishing
avenues available to authors, does it matter for readers if a book is
self-published, traditionally published, or a packaged book? From what I’ve
read on blogs, most people don’t seem to care where their books come from,
though there are some people who are trying to boycott James Frey’s packaging
company.
For the most part, I don’t
care where my books come from. I have read and loved self-published books,
packaged books, and traditionally published books. Though I am not a James Frey
fan, I have read two of the books published by his book packaging company. I
liked one, but did not like the other. If a book has a good story and is
well-written, I’ll read it.
Do you care where your
books come from, or will you read book regardless of how they're published?
