

James Frey’s Fiction Factory - tricky
http://nymag.com/print/?/arts/books/features/69474/

======
misuba
I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I can't wait for Frey to get
some competition. On the other, he's actually a pretty good commercial writer
(competing with him will be pretty tough on that front) and I almost hope he
branches out into the kind of formulaic, Oprah-bait adult fiction that mostly
fills bookstore shelves - the stuff that's actually insufficiently pretentious
(yes, that is possible). It's practically genre fiction already; why not have
somebody drive the point home?

------
gatsby
This practice has been alive in various forms of art (ghostwriters on songs,
apprentice painters, writers-for-hire, etc.) for the last several decades (at
least).

As others have mentioned, the work often provides little creative value, but
builds huge cult followings and massive profits for the artists. Koons' art
regularly sells for $10-25mm and one of Hirst's auctions generated $198mm in
2008. Likewise, musical artists who employ ghostwriters often make it to the
top of the charts, and authors like Frey can reap millions from their hired
"co-writers."

Using "assistants" has been around for many years, and it's not going away
anytime soon - there's still money to be made. One of the best examples of the
absurdity occurring in the creative world is Banksy's Mr. Brainwash character
in 'Exit Through the Gift Shop.' Highly recommended to all.

------
tricky
"He was looking for young writers to join him on a new publishing endeavor—a
company that would produce mostly young-adult novels. Frey believed that Harry
Potter and the Twilight series had awakened a ravenous market of readers and
were leaving a substantial gap in their wake. He wanted to be the one to fill
it."

"In exchange for delivering a finished book within a set number of months, the
writer would receive $250 (some contracts allowed for another $250 upon
completion), along with a percentage of all revenue generated by the project"

~~~
runevault
...without proof he can deliver sales yet only a $500 advance? Wow that's...
ballsy. I know he's known for his books on writing but still, this seems an
odd play and without prior proof hard to buy into.

~~~
tricky
He did sell "I Am Number Four" to Spielberg.

~~~
runevault
Was that someone else's work? I know he can sell his own stuff, at least to
publishing houses.

~~~
tricky
yes, the series was conceived and written by a Columbia mfa

~~~
runevault
Interesting. Though not sure I'd call selling to one person (Spielberg) the
same as publishing (selling to the masses). But it's a lot better credential
than only selling your own stuff.

------
muhfuhkuh
This sounds really close to what Mark Kostabi did (does?) with his art: He
hires fresh or recent art-school students for basically teenage McJob wages
and "collaborates" with them (basically affixes his signature on their work)
and sells the canvas for US$10000-50000 each.

There is a market for this teen/young adult genre-crossing stuff, and it will
_certainly_ get saturated at some point. Whether that some point is when Frey
starts his Warhol/Kostabi factory or not is the key question.

------
cafard
He strikes me as being, for the printed word, what Jeff Koons is for sculpture
and portraiture, all buzz and little value.

------
kenjackson
Is this the Y-Combinator of books?

~~~
petercooper
Only if Y Combinator took total control of your idea, how it was sold, put
only their name on it, and dealt with all the money coming into your business.
So no, not really.

~~~
kenjackson
What is up with all the terms around pseudonym's and substituting the author's
name and such? I get having terms that move a lot of the risk to the young
writer, but I don't get why you'd be so malicious as to demand that they can't
be associated with a book they've written.

~~~
gallerytungsten
It's pretty simple. If a book succeeds, the author's name acquires "brand
equity." Frey wants to retain total ownership of all the equity. The real
author knows it's a fraud; but with a confidentiality clause, they can't tell
the world. It's an extremely nasty clause, designed to keep the author
beholden to Frey. Sadly, this type of control freakism and greed are common in
the murkier echelons of both the music and film business. To be fair, Frey is
not alone. Any big shot who suddenly "writes" a memoir most likely had help;
and a standard part of such ghostwriting arrangements is that the real author
remain exactly that: a ghost.

