While looking at the topics for this week's prompt, the one that stood out to me was author mills and James Patterson specifically. I can't remember coming across the phrase "author mill" before, but if there's anyone befitting of that sentiment it would be James Patterson. In my early days as a teen librarian who did collection development for the teen section, I can remember enjoying the first few series that James Patterson came out with. The Maximum Ride series was very popular with our teens at that time. Then Patterson begun co-authoring books and did this thing where he'd give credit to the co-author. But inevitably their names were much smaller and his was in a bigger font, splashed across the cover. This kept repeating itself every year and the Patterson shelf kept growing. Then he comes out with his own imprint and the books that are credited back to him keep growing.
This article in the New Yorker states that Patterson gives detailed outlines of a story to his co-writers and then they have to flesh out the rest of the book. This sounds like the very definition of "author mill" to me. These co-authors do the majority of the work and Patterson gets most of the credit. Even though I find Patterson's whole setup a bit repugnant, people do enjoy the book he writes and publishes. So, I put aside my own misgivings about Patterson and order his books and add them to our library shelves.
I have heard the argument made that Patterson is giving relatively unknown authors a chance to grow and build their own following. This idea ties in with the article we read this week "How the New Celebrity Book Clubs are Boosting Literary Sales." The article states that bookclubes like Reese Witherspoon's help boost authors book sales and help drive business to local bookstores. In the case of Witherspoon's bookclub, many of the books that are chosen for this book club get turned into movies by Witherspoon's production company. If you pair together a famous name and a relatively unknown name, you have a recipe for something that may end up benefiting both parties and readers alike.
Hi Mary,
ReplyDeleteI’ve always found this issue to be quite the conundrum. On the one hand, as you pointed out, people enjoy the stories that get produced under the brand-names “mills” like James Patterson’s and it does provide employment for less known authors. However, I do find it kind of exploitative. I think it’d be interesting to know how many of these authors who do the actual writing for big names like Patterson actually go on to have sustainable, successful careers of their own as a result of their work at these mills.
Personally, I’ve always found it kind of disingenuous that famous literary personalities would put their name on works that they didn’t actually write. To me, they seem to have a role more like that of a film director or producer who is leading a collaborative effort, yet people still generally think of Patterson as being the work’s “author” as if he was the work’s prominent creator. And I guess in a society that commodifies creativity and measures success via monetization and consumerism, brands like Patterson’s can’t be blamed for creating a successful business model. As I said before, I just find it kind of exploitative.
Hi Jacob,
ReplyDeleteYou make an interesting point about how Patterson's methods are exploitative. I would agree. When he first started doing the whole co-author thing my coworkers and I all rolled our eyes at the giant font size of his name. It does make me wonder how much of the profits Patterson shares with these co-authors. I'm guessing not a large amount.
Mary
Great response! I feel most librarians have some side eye towards Patterson, I'm not mad at readers who enjoy his books - but like you and Jacob said - it is a bit exploitive to the authors who are really doing all the work. Full points.
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