Yeah, what really irks me about this whole situation is that Zoe has been given the title of "Best-Selling Author" without really earning it. Also that she lied and said it was HER book written by HER. It's okay to have help, but at least be honest about it.
I so agree with you. There are people who are actually struggling to be writers and on the other hand there's zoella who already is really famous on CZcams and wrote a book through deception. Fine, she needed help. But couldn't she tell the world about the help? Couldn't she, who serves as an idol of thousands of girls, give credit to someone who truly deserves it? I just seem to think that it is unfair. And she claimed that the plot and characters were her ideas. Great. But all of us get hundreds of ideas doesn't mean that the whole song is written, or the business formed or as in this case, the book written. I'm sorry if I come of as rude, but she really was wrong in taking the full credit.
I think what annoys me most about it is that Zoe now thinks (or at least she seems to think) that she is now an author, or a writer. She always went on about how she always wanted to be a writer and now she is. But well, not really. I get that it's her story, her characters her idea, but is it her words? I guess not. If I give an artist my vision of a picture and they draw it for me, I can't say that I drew it, because I just didn't. I think that's what makes me uncomfortable. The fact that Zoe lacked transparency. The fact that she didn't even mention that someone co-wrote with her. She is literally saying it's HER book, that SHE wrote it. But did she really? Don't get me wrong, I love Zoe and I understand why people would hire ghostwriters. especially for writing memoirs and stuff. But it just grinds me gears to have a ghostwriter write a non-fiction story and for Zoella to get all the glory for it. I don't know. There's just something about that that seems not right to me.
Also, the fact that a ghostwritten book broke records and claimed them is really unfair to authors who write their own content. To me it's like an athlete racing someone who's on steroids. It's not fair to the athlete who put genuine effort in but loses anyways. I don't know maybe that's just me. But yeah.
I don't know how much of this book is ghostwritten. I mean she could still be a writer and the ghostwriter only wrote parts of it. But I mostly agree with you that calling yourself an author if you have done only the smallest part of the work is wrong :-)
Affenschaukel Gartenzwerg Yeah, for all I know she wrote most of it. But realistically, she most likely didn't. She vlogs a large part of her life and she never fails to let her viewers know how busy she is with other things (especially with her beauty line). So all these things are happening and then all of a sudden, she announces that she got a deal with Penguin and that she'll have a book out in 2 months. I don't really expect a girl that busy to be able to write a book, or a large chunk of it, in that time span. And not to mention, it's her first one as well, making the task even more difficult to achieve. So it looks more plausible that she didn't write a whole lot of the book. But that's just just one of my (and a few other people's crackpot theories. I could be completely wrong. Who knows? But yeah, given the circumstances it doesn't really look very realistic.
Affenschaukel Gartenzwerg The ghostwriter had a blog post which pretty much said she wrote the entire book in a short amount of time, so in this case, I think the extent of Zoe's input was giving plot and character ideas (which is the easy/fun part).
Patricia Paguio i totally agree with you. Zoe is always vlogging about her busy life couldn't she vlog herself writing the book i honestly think she just gave her ideas but she definitively didn't write the entire book. It's sad that she would lie to her fellow viewers. I like watching her vlogs but a dishonest person definitely changed the way i perceive them. In my opinion there's nothing wrong with ghostwriters but giving then credit should be a must. Cause then what's the point of copy rights and plagiarism and pirated stuff. I hope the ghostwriter is getting the same amount for the book as she is or else its not fair. Im just saying its my opinion everyone is making great points.
its not the fact she used a ghost writer that annoyed me just that she didn't give them credit and I can guarantee that the ghost writer barley gets any of the profit made from the book
The ghostwriter doesn't get any of the profit. They get paid a one time fee for writing it then don't get any royalties (in this case, the author got £7/8K for a book that sold nearly 80K copies in the first week alone...while people were buying it because they thought Zoe wrote it, it's still a bit unfair for the actual author to not get any royalties at all).
I agree with the part about transparency, but not the rest of it really. I've never really liked the ghostwriting thing with fiction novels in general (I expect it in biographies, they're the exception) because it's like legal plagiarism and the writers are often underpaid because they get a fixed sum before writing and don't really get any royalties from the sales. My issue with the Zoella thing though is that she wasn't just omitting the truth, she very consciously and deliberately lied. In her vlogs, she tried to make it seem like she was the one actually writing it, she spoke about it like she had actually written it--she even had a quote (on the book, I think) where she talks about writing a book being her dream...and yet she had someone else write it. It just seemed to contradict the persona she projects as a youtuber, as this honest person who genuinely cares about her fans, and yet she deliberately mislead them (a lot of them young without much money) and then she acted as if it was okay, like it didn't matter. Sad thing is, she probably could've been honest about it and still had their support. Plus, I didn't like her implying after the fact that first time writers always "need help" writing their books. No. They have editors that help polish it up for publication, but they do the writing themselves and her implying otherwise is an insult to them. Her calling herself an author, gushing about how she broke J K Rowling's sales records (an unearned achievement on multiple levels), is also an insult to writers.
We don't actually know how much was written by the ghostwriter so who knows, maybe she was writing in her vlogs. It could have been outlines, paragraphs or chapters, we don't know
Nikitaa Indyk The ghostwriter had a blog post up where she talked about writing the book and she pretty much confirmed that she wrote the whole thing (her post was about writing books in short amounts of time). There was also a comment, either from Penguin or Zoe, can't remember which, saying just the story and characters were Zoe's idea (if Zoe had written some of it they would've said she co-authored it with a ghostwriter because it would've calmed down some of the criticism).
What annoys me is that Zoe keeps saying "they are my characters and my ideas", okay, but that doesn't make it your novel. To me, the novel is all about the execution - the actual writing, how they tell the story, the words they use etc... Zoe may have provided the plotline and characters but since she isn't saying that she wrote it and keeps defending the fact that its her plot and characters, I'm assuming that the ghost writer did most of the actual writing. Also, it's obvious because she never gave us update videos or "how I did it" or anything, which I was expecting since she shares her life with the internet. the only videos she did were the announcement and I think a vlog on the release party then the book was out. However, the dishonesty is what I am annoyed about the most, IF from the beginning, she said, "guys, I'm not the best writer and I'm going to be getting lots of help from the lovely people at penguin" or something like that, then I honestly believe that I would be very okay with the whole thing. Don't even get me started on her she was so proud about beating JK Rowling's record, she should have felt some sort of guilt or something?! I don't like the fact that she stated that she had been writing since she was little and it was her dream to publish a book, since she does share her life with the internet, shouldn't it have been mentioned at least once in the past five years or so - you know, since it was such a big dream of hers from the start. If she wanted to publish a book for so long, then why didn't she actually write it when she got the opportunity.
It's a cheat to say you wrote a book you didn't write. Responsibility people, responsibility! Some of us are actually trying to become authors for real here.
***** I really don't like the fact that she calls herself an author and a best seller etc... There are people who are far more talented than her who are working their butts of to get published but aren't, and even though they may not be published, I would consider them authors, but I don't consider Zoe one.
I disagree with your idea that a book is viewed by everyone as something solely from one person. An example is Beautiful Creatures, written by two people and still widely sucessful. It's mostly the dishonesty of a person ghost writing a book that turns people off in my opinion.
I don't think she was excluding co authors, or even, for that matter anthologies. I think she meant that a book is a hands on project, the person who has an idea writes it. It wasn't surprised to me that Zoella had a ghost writer, I assumed that that would be the case. However I have a problem with the handling of this case, it starts with penguin not paying the ghost writer much at all, and it is still a problem because Zoella, who before was almost a bystander, is now refusing to admit what everyone knows is true.
I think it is generally viewed that any artwork's source of genius stems from one person-hence our obsession with directors in a production as vast and multifaceted as a film. Whether this is wrong or not, I do not care to argue; but the idea of a single genius is widely held not only Western society, but throughout many cultures. Co-authoring a book is not the norm as far as the public is concerned.
But with Beautiful Creatures, it was clear that it was written by two authors, both put in around the same amount of effort and get around the same amount of fame and money from it, whereas Zoe was saying that it was all hers
Haha I don't mean co-authors, or anthologies! Because these ideas still fit perfectly into our "author image" but with friendly collaboration. Both names will go on the cover, or will be fully credited.
What I hate about these CZcams "authors" is that they like to spout about how they're best sellers in multiple countries and how it took great talent from them to write the book, when they've done mostly nothing. The Zoella thing just showed how they're money grabbing people that don't care about exploiting their fans. She or someone else said that it's a dream come true to have their own published book. Relax, if it wasn't for your sheep fans you wouldn't have sold 10 000 copies!
***** She didn't write the other books. What I meant with the 10 000 books was that she wouldn't have even sold 10 000 books if she wrote it herself. I wasn't saying that she actually sold 10 000 of her fake shit.
The annoying thing is that being a bestseller means nothing, it could be a terrible book but if selected bookshops get a certain number of pre-orders because the 'author' is famous and already has a following they'll get on the lists. Some of them aren't even real books, there have been several scams
What makes me angry about ghost writing in general is the fact that these people are then seen as legitimate published authors and writers...even though they didn't write it. It also pisses me off that just because you're a youtuber or celebrity that it's so much easier to get a book deal, even when it wasn't even written by them! There are so many people in this world who have great books that can't get published that they wrote all on their own, and these random half assed not so good books come from ghost writers. Have you ever seen a successfully WELL WRITTEN and GENUINELY GOOD BOOK come out of a celebrity/ghost writer relationship? I haven't, and that's just wrong to me.
YES. There is no doubt in my mind that there are INCREDIBLY talented people out there who aren't able to get their books noticed but have so much potential, but if you are famous, BAM, you've already sold 100,000 copies for something that is possibly less than half as good as the other person
I agree with you guys that it's hard but writing books is about marketing. CZcamsrs are just doing the hard work upfront to build their audiences. I truly wish good ideas got good audiences right off the bat but the reality is that a good audience builder gets good audiences. And then they are in the position of selling a book.
I agree with all your points. I don't like ghostwriters, because it's no different than having somebody do something else for you, and telling everyone that you did it yourself. And I think that it bugs authors the most. Because real authors (yes, I'm going there), actually DO write their books. They come up with the story line, the characters, the twists, etc, and put it all together with THEIR OWN WORDS and then an editor might tell them to change something or add something, and the the author will go back and add another twist, or add another quirk to a character, etc. But it's THE AUTHOR who is doing it. Because that's what an author is. I don't say that I really like the saxophone, and I've always wanted to play the saxophone, but then record someone else playing one, and tell people that it was me. And I don't care if these authors who have ghostwriters "have good ideas but can't get them down on paper well". LEARN. PRACTICE. WORK AT IT. Don't just hire someone to DO IT FOR YOU and call it yours. Even for simple things, like say, my manager at work doesn't say "I really wish that I could be a good manager, but I'm not, so I'm going to come into the store in my blue button up shirt, but have someone else do everything for me while I just give a few ideas." Sorry. Doesn't fly with me. If you want to be a writer, then write. If you're not good at it, get help, practice, keep doing it, and work hard at it like everyone else who's trying to get published (and probably not getting published, because famous youtubers with ghostwriters are getting published instead) PS I'm sorry that sounded bitter. ha.
Exactly. Thank you, you summed up most of my thoughts in a comment. The thing is, she (Zoella) *deserves* bitter. Hiring a ghostwriter without giving them credit is basically cheating. Then, of course, to make matters worse, she and (too) many of her fans think and say that it's fine. It annoys the bejeebers out of me.
PREACH IT. You just said everything that I feel. I may not be a writer, but it's my dream to write a book and have it published, and even though it's hard and it might suck, I'm going to write the damn book myself.
"Even for simple things, like say, my manager at work doesn't say "I really wish that I could be a good manager, but I'm not, so I'm going to come into the store in my blue button up shirt, but have someone else do everything for me while I just give a few ideas."" You've just described the vast majority of middle managers in corporate culture. lol. As for ghostwriters, I really don't mind if it is credited. For example, I read lots of sporting autobiographies. No offence to sportspeople, but they are often not the most literary people in the world (of course there are exceptions), but that doesn't mean they don't have a story to tell. The difference is that the ghostwriter is always credited, and as they usually conduct hundreds of hours of interviews with their subject, they get paid very well. Often they even go on the publicity tour with the sportsperson to talk about what it was like working with them. I appreciate that there is a difference between fiction and non fiction, but at the end of the day what is the novel about? For me it's about storytelling. So I don't have an issue with people telling their stories to people to write down. As long as it is clearly credited, and the writer gets a fair deal. Neither of which happened here.
So true. I don't like ghost writing personally. One of the most common things I get asked as a writer is "I have a book I want to write. Will you write it for me as a ghost writer?" And my eyes roll to the back of my head. I don't have much respect if an author can't plant their butt down in a chair and do it themselves. I want to know that the discipline was there when it was written.
Her book broke records. Can you be proud of something that you didn't really do? I suppose it's like architecture (not that I really understand how that's done.) She drew up the plans, someone else built it. Someone else sat up for hours and hours, putting their blood, sweat, and tears into a book and she got paid less than 10,000 pounds for it. A ghost writer's book broke records and she was paid less than 10,000 pounds.
all i can say is well done to penguin books for that good move (putting zoe's name on a book coz it would sell like hot cakes) and boo zoe for not being more transparent to her viewers and fans. i'm sure her subscribers would have LOVED to know that she wasn't writing her own novel herself. I think that's kinda important info to disclose when you're trying to sell something to people/fans that supposedly mean so much to you.
and maybe she thought it wasn't worth mentioning *if* she wrote the majority and the ghost writer helped with the rest, but either way she should know the stigma ghostwriting carries and she should have known the truth would come out and that she would be perceived as a liar. but then again maybe she wanted to tell the truth but was legally not allowed by penguin.
Arielle Y The ghostwriter came out in a blog post stating that she wrote the whole thing in a short amount of time, and all that Zoe said to defend herself when the whole thing got big was that the plotline and characters were her own. If she did write the novel - at least a little bit, she would have said it so that people would be a bit less harsh, but she didn't. If she was honest from the beginning, I would have supported her all the way
Arielle Y There's a difference though between omitting the truth and deliberately lying to mislead everyone though (she even said that *writing* a novel was her dream and that this was a dream come true). Penguin could have told her not to reveal the truth, but they didn't force her to say the things she did in her vlogs--those words, unlike the book, were all her. I think it was probably more that she'd already had this successful line of beauty products and thought a book could be like that too--that, with a novel, it was enough for her to give a few ideas and put her name on it. But it isn't, because books are different and no one actually expected her to be the one making her own beauty line but they did expect her to be the one writing a novel she claimed as hers.
Yasmine5874 I don't remember the part where the ghostwriter said she wrote the whole thing in a short amount of time? Anyway I was leaning towards guessing that Zoe did write the majority just from reviews I've read of the book, saying that a lot of it is written poorly/amateur and then some other random bits seem written really well.
Arielle Y She deleted the blog post when it all came out, but this article has the screenshots. Zoe chose what it would be about, she didn't write it at all, certainly not the majority of it: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11279186/Is-this-the-blog-post-that-proves-Zoella-did-not-write-Girl-Online.html (the fact that she had such little time to write it may be the reason behind the poorly written parts).
It just disgusts me that there are fantastic writers out there not earning money and getting their work published all because of youtubers. I'm sure Zoe doesn't need this extra money as she already has her successful channel. Yet some writers aren't getting paid at all.
YouSillySausage1 That's not exactly true. Ghostwritten celebrity novels (even crap ones) are guaranteed money in the bank for publishers and bookstores, that's why they do it. CZcamsrs aren't being given book deals *instead of* aspiring authors--the more money they have, the freer publishers are to take a chance on unknown authors whose books aren't guaranteed to sell well. If all celebrities refused to accept book deals they didn't earn, it would mean *less* unknown authors would get their books published, not more. For the record, I don't like ghostwriting and I don't like the way Zoe handled this situation in particular, but it's just wrong to blame people like Zoe for the fact there are struggling writers out there not getting paid when books like hers help that in the long run, they don't cause the problem.
I think the main issue like you say IS lack of transparency, for me the whole issue was that she never told us it was ghostwritten. And there's very young girls going "of course she had help, its her first novel dont be so harsh" and that scares the crap out of me, because they don't understand that anything is wrong. Help is different to ghostwriting, and nobody has told them that, so in their minds they dont see the problem at all. I think as well, with a celeb, you dont follow their journey. It appears on the shelves, and you either buy it or you dont. There isn't really an emotional investment. However, for Zoe, people watched her journey, they read blog posts where she says "I am writing a book", we watch videos from Penguin when she says her dream when she was a little girl was to write a book, we watch her go to the printing factory to get her book signed and feel happy for her. Then, the truth comes out. It's the lack of truth that made me uncomfortable, not the act of ghostwriting itself. And what made me more uncomfortable was the tweet she put out, saying everyone needs help when they try something new - completely ignoring the fact that help and ghostwriting are different. Great video Ariel!:)
Also, in general I just think ghostwriting is weird for fiction. I totally get it when it's for a biography or a memoir bc the person actually sits down and tells the ghostwriter about their life and the stories they want included. But for fiction it just doesn't make sense to me. I think Zoe calling herself an author is very misleading and kind of ridiculous. Kylie and Kendall Jenner did the same thing with a dystopian book which I thought was weird but they at least were transparent about having ghostwriters.
The main thing which annoys me is the fact that "Girl Online" is massively popular and successful under Zoe's name, but If the ghost-writer were to publish it under *their* own name, it would be just another average typical chick lit novel on a shelf in a bookshop that no one looks at. But Zoe, who already has a successful CZcams channel, cosmetics/stationary line, merch and blog, and is earning a massive amount of money from it all, is now getting even more recognition from her books. It takes some people's whole lives to write a novel, and perhaps their dream in life is to have it published, but publishers turn their backs on them immediately because of marketing reasons and the presumed lack of interest from buyers. There are so many potential authors out there, and I've read the amazing poetry and prose of people on tumblr and online who could write a book so genius and emotional and inspiring, but no, we get this average written book instead and have to put up with it being displayed in every single bookshop and being talked about on every single media platform and overall just giving it the recognition it definitely doesn't deserve. Zoe already has everything, and really doesn't deserve critical acclamations and titles such as "fastest selling debut author" from a book that she didn't even write herself.
I truly don't think this whole thing would have been an issue if Zoe had been honest about using a ghostwriter from the very beginning. She implied that she was hard at work writing her novel when, in fact, only the story and characters were hers. Now, I don't think all the blame should be placed on her -- I'm fairly certain that her publisher had a lot to do with it. The publisher saw an opportunity to cash in on Zoe's huge following and they took it. Big corporations are greedy like that. The majority of Zoe's fans are young tweens and teens and they will literally buy ANYTHING with Zoe's name on it.
What irritates me about it was that Zoe never once made it seem like she was getting help while it was being written, and continued to take all of the credit UNTIL the truth came out.
The thing is Zoe always said that she is not writing the book alone. Sometimes she showed the author who was helping her in her vlogs for example as the book was printed. It was her story and she actually wrote pages not all alone but I can understand it. I mean it was her first book, she did not studied literatur to have the skills to write a book on her own. And it is her own story, so of course her name is on the book. She is not a liar.
This is such an interesting topic, I'm so happy you discussed this Ariel! 100% agree with you, I feel the same way. I love Zoella but I have to admit that I was disappointed when I heard that Girl Online was ghost written.
Ariel, just to say I love this thing of you doing videos not only about books solely, book reviews, etc. but about your opinions concerning book themes. Love it!
I think you raise some really good points on this. I wasn't surprised when the news came out or really offended even, but I did think she should have just said so from the beginning and it wouldn't have become a big thing. I think a big part of us as consumers and readers having the standard that the stories and words we take in be singular and from one source is due to the fact that writing is the only aspect of the work, for the most part. With music and movies as you mentioned, there is the writing process and then the creation process (either filming and editing or recording and many other layers as well), which is another talent and addendum to the writing. So it makes sense that more people could be involved in those endeavors. But with singular artistry, such as writing, painting, sculpting, etc; there is a different kind of ownership. I think it's fine to co-write or even use ghostwriters as long as there is credit given and the consumers aren't being deceived. Many popular books are co-written and because it's marketed that way and the writers present themselves as a team, it's not a problem. We as the readers don't actually know who wrote what or if the writing was split 50/50, but we generally don't care because we've already accepted it was done as a team. This is where Zoella made her error and I think it's as simple as that.
Until the end I thought perhaps that display was all books that had been ghostwritten and it sort of broke my heart - how could I justify an admiration for H.G. Wells or George Orwell or whomever if their work wasn't entirely their own? I definitely agree that we prefer books to be a sole individual's genius because you develop a (parasocial) relationship with an author through reading their work, finding out something's ghostwritten shatters that illusion.
I think the main problem with the Zoella situation is that she manipulated her fans. People who picked up the book picked it up with the expectation that they are reading something made by their favorite CZcamsr/Blogger. Unlike celebrities, CZcamsrs are self-made individuals who are (usually) popular for some form of creative output. Therefore, they are held to a higher standard in that we expect them not to use something like ghostwriters. In the end, Zoella sold out and just put her name/"brand" on a book just to sell it and make money, instead of putting her own independent work out there.
Not very surprised about the ghostwriting, but I think you're right about the lack of transparency. Like you said, nobody likes being to - even when it's obvious.
Thanks for posting your theories!! I was really confused at the huge storm of rage this all seems to be causing... this video really helped clear it up and gave me some insight into the minds of the masses!
I think the exact opposite regarding your second reason. I think we view youtubers more as people vs how we view celebrities. Celebrities do not connect with their fanbase on the same level as a youtuber does. Combine that with celebrity culture, and expect celebs to do things just to make money and if we get lied to, we dont feel as upset by it. However, if a youtuber lies to us, it feels like a friend lying to us and we are more prone to being upset by it. Hope that makes sense!
Thank you for linking to my video! It's still a fascinating topic because it hits so many points. I'd love to hear more about your frustration RE how seriously CZcams is treated by mainstream media. Especially someone of your scale, you are not only consuming the content on this web space but you're creating content consistently consumed by (I am assuming) a similar demographic to someone like Zoe. 17k people have watched this video alone, even though it branches away from your "usual" content. That speaks volumes to the breadth of viewership larger channels/personalities have, and how interactive a space it can be. Looking to your comment section proves this isn't a passive space, and has merit in its own right. But how does that transfer to traditional forms of media, like a novel? Zoe influences an active consumer (viewers) and they are encouraged, through a new media platform, to purchase old media like a novel. Creating a book deal for an in/famous CZcamsr speaks volumes to old media's understanding and appreciation for new media like CZcams. And yet blatant reviews and discussions on traditional media are dismissive and flippant.
I feel a Little bit betrayed because, like you said, youtubers are real. Most of them make their own videos completely by themselves. When they vlog, it isn't like reality tv, where it is mostly fake. They say exactly what they want to say, it's like takling to a real person. That's why I feel betrayed, you would not expect a youtuber to Lie about something as big as a book. It makes me sad and I start to think about If other youtubers are not themselves on camera, like are they all jerks? I'm not saying that they are, it just makes me wonder...
As I writer myself, I don't write beautiful sentences, I write the truth, the real world. Real world doesn't mean magic or beautifulness, it means a flawed realism. There. I said it.
What bothered me about the Zoella ghostwriting situation is that she wasn't open about the situation from the start. Had she just openly said from the start "hey I had help writing this" it would've been a completely different situation.
I got really excited when I saw that this was only posted 4 hours ago, because that means if I comment, you may potentially read what I say :-) I personally don't like ghost writers because it feels deceptive. The fact that movies and music, like you said, are mostly co written, and the fact that we accept that, is because nobody makes any attempt to hide it. For example, the credits at the end of a movie will tell you the names of everyone involved and how they contributed, whereas the 'ghost writers' only get their names in very very small print under the fake author or celebrity's giant name on the inside pages of the book - never the cover. They get pushed to the side and it's totally unfair on them in my opinion.
It essentially means that anyone can become an author without any hard work, and they shouldn't be put on a pedestal for something that they didn't really do (other than the general idea/ characters maybe) and be compared to authors who did all their own work and research and worked hard on their novel. It's like paying people to do your homework in school, or telling someone to paint you a picture of a sunset and then saying that it's your painting because you thought of the idea.
I dont want to sound stuck up at all, but I really could not believe that Zoella would have written a book on her own, particularly with the kind of life she has on CZcams and stuff. So when it "came out" that the book was ghostwritten, it didnt bother me in the slightest. It would have been good if the ghostwriter's name was on the book, but I honestly could not care less. What I guess bothers me the most is potentially the quality of the actual book. As in, what it's about and how it's been written. I read a bit of the first chapter, and I wasnt exactly overjoyed. I guess it would be great for younger readers, but I've passed that stage of my reading life.
Thanks for making a video on this topic, I think it's an interesting phenomenon and I've been thinking a bit about it since I heard about it. I suppose the main thing that upsets me is the commercialism of it all. There just didn't seem to exist any love or respect at all for the art of writing and reading. The book was so blatantly marketed towards really young people as a book written by Zoe and quantity and sales were so obviously prioritised before quality and actually providing a good product. I realise that publishers are having a hard time with people reading less and less and decreasing sales numbers, but it makes me really sad to think of all the talented, hard-working, unpublished authors who have to stand back and remain unpublished in favour of this kind of low-quality, mass-produced product. I don't really think the blame lies with Zoe, but with the publishers who are desperately grasping at straws to survive in a competitive industry.
I came to this video from a different video by someone else and don't really care about the Zoella controversy, but you have made very great points about books and ghostwriting that go beyond Zoella. I'm not a fan of ghostwriting, but I actually take major issue with it only when it is not transparent, as you so eloquently explained. I can't think of any off the top of my head now but I'm willing to bet many, if not most, of the books marketed as written by celebrities (autobiographies, etc), are ghostwritten, possibly in their entirety. Some are transparent about it, others are not, but the cynic in always assumes that the celebrity did not actually write the book. Mind you, I don't normally read that type of book because I'm not interested in autobiography, or in biography for that matter. At any rate, I just found your channel and, as fellow bibliophile, now I'm hooked.
It doesn't bother me too much if a book is co-written by two or more authors. What does bother me is when a person does the majority of the writing and never gets any credit. Even if Zoella came up with the concept, she probably didn't do the bulk of the work and I don't think she would really deserve to earn more in royalties than the ghostwriter. The biggest problem is that she lied to earn more money than she already makes from CZcams.
I think the whole zoella issue is an interesting one, some people expected a ghostwriter to be involved at some point. I agree with your points, I think people believe it is those whose names are on the cover (or inside page) created this book so when a ghostwriter is given no credit it seems like a lie to the audience. The other issue with celebrity culture vs youtube is that celebrities are distant from their fans (not in a bad way they just are) whereas a CZcamsr may appear to be talking directly to the person watching. There is a lot more of their life available for a fan to get, which creates the idea that they know this person. So when Zoe said she was writing a book her fans may have believed that was all there was to it. I believe all of that makes sense.
I don't mind music being cowritten and same with books I don't mind. But like Elixir, I would live all the authors to get known credit. I really enjoy hearing your thoughts, so thank you for sharing the video!
I guess I was just annoyed because some people dedicate all their lives to writing and never get the publicity and the chance to get their book published and just because Zoe is mildly famous she gets a crap book published just because it has her name on it AND SHE DIDN'T EVEN BLOODY WRITE IT. She lied and if anyone ever calls her an inspiration again they need to rethink their role models.
Personally, I think that having someone help you write a book is fine, it's great. My main issue with the Zoella situation was that the ghostwriter didn't get any kind of acknowledgment in the book. It feels like she lied to her audience who wanted to read her writing. I think it wouldn't have been a big deal if everyone had been open and honest about the situation in the first place.
I don't mind a book being written by two people where one person comes up with the characters and the story, and a different person writes it. What annoys me is one of those people doesn't get credit for their work. I have only just started hearing about this situation with Zoella's new book so I don't know all the details but if the ghost writer doesn't get any credit then that bugs me. However if the ghost writer wishes to remain anonymous then I can understand that. As I said I don't know the whole situation.
My main problem is that she lied. She's taking credit for someone else's work. If you say that you've written a book, the implication is that you actually sat down and wrote it. Plenty of people have ideas for a book but never are able to actually write a book because it takes a lot of work to write the sentences and make the story into something that can be read as a book.
My only thought is that its unfair. Someone getting all the credit for something somebody else did. Personally if it were me, id feel too guilty to do that... Guilt weighs me down too much. Its not fair. Second, i hate how famous people can publish books no problem just because they're famous.. Like, people work hard to do that! They already have money anyway, ugh
I remember Zoe telling in a vlog that she had help with writing so I wouldn't say she lied about it. ( though I agree it should have been said on the cover aswell). To me its pretty obvious and natural that she had help since she was approached by a publishing company and had never done anything like it before. I think people judged her very harshly. She should have received better guidance and advice in the matter I think.
Also, don't you think that it is extremely unfair in this case since it was said that the ghostwriter of Girl Online got paid around £7000 for the book, when over 70,000 get sold in less than a week, meaning that Zoella will receive an incredibly large amount of money for only giving the plotline and characters. To me, a good novel is all about the execution, the actual writing, which is the hardest bit, the biggest bit and also the bit she didn't do, so why should she be paid so much? It's just unfair in my eyes and even worse, now that the ghost writer's identity was uncovered, she is getting an extraordinary amount of hate from the readers - ironically, considering the book they just read was on how online hate on someone who you barely know effects them. Very ironic.
Life isn't fair. This is a business. The book literally only sold because it had the name of a famous person. Had the author published it on her own, I doubt it would have even broken 7k.
I think it has a lot to do with our experiences in writing too! In school, we are not allowed to write together- it's cheating and violates academic integrity. Even in creative writing classes a lot of people aren't allowed to collaborate. That might push the belief authors aren't allowed to write together either.
I wasn't really upset with the ghost writer situation. I mean course I would prefer was written only by her, but whatever... What really upset me was that she lied, and I believe most of the people think that as well...
Personally I loved Zoe's book and my view on it has not changed because of the ghost writing 'scandal'. She had help, that doesn't mean the whole book was written for her like people are saying- there are clear parts when you can see Zoe! Like her panic attacks and how they scare her or her first experience on a plane and first empression of New York. The colour part where she imagined her panic could be an actual technique she performs. The only part in this whole ghostwriting debate is that from what I see there is no mention of the ghost writer, that could just be selfishness and wanting to hog light or the co-writer may not want his/her name on display for certain reasons. We should all just appreciate good books and not let are sub-conscious give us impressions on book because of an authors status😊
I've actually done some freelance ghostwriting, and it's not awful. They're pros and cons though. Pro; it is a good source of money. (I mean depending on who your working for, but most jobs pay pretty decently). Now, obviously the ghostwriter won't get as much as the "author", but that's to be expected. Should it be different, maybe... again gray area. In my experience a lot of "authors" go in with an outline of the story, maybe some rough paragraphs and/or chapters and then the ghostwriter sort of asks as an editor and makes it better. Though, some "authors" will literally just say, "I want you to write a paranormal romance". So yeah, it depends.
Wow I was wondering how it works. Is it just when an author feels they can't do a piece of the novel? Or they can't be bothered? It's an odd concept to me! And why is it common in memoirs? Surely the whole point is that it's THAT authors memoirs? Confused, sorry rambles at you!
I agree with you, however, don't you think that it is extremely unfair in this case since it was said that the ghostwriter of Girl Online got paid around £7000 for the book, when over 70,000 get sold in less than a week, meaning that Zoella will receive an incredibly large amount of money for only giving the plotline and characters. To me, a good novel is all about the execution, the actual writing, which is the hardest bit, the biggest bit and also the bit she didn't do, so why should she be paid so much? It's just unfair in my eyes and even worse, now that the ghost writer's identity was uncovered, she is getting an extraordinary amount of hate from the readers - ironically, considering the book they just read was on how online hate on someone who you barely know effects them. Very ironic.
Yasmine5874 I totally agree, it's extremely unfair. Unfortunately, this type of thing happens a lot with ghostwriters, especially when the books sells well. That being said, I don't think it's right, and I agree about writing being about the execution.
Flobberworm Sometimes it's when the author needs assistance, sometimes they just don't want to do it, it depends on the book. I do find it weird when people hire ghostwriters for memoirs, honestly I don't know why they do.
Flobberworm ***** I actually think it makes most sense with memoirs and I'm okay with those using ghostwriters. In those cases, it's a much more collaborative process, it's not just someone giving a basic idea, the ghostwriter doesn't really have room to be creative because it's literally someone else's life and feelings they're writing (which I give them major props for, because that wouldn't be easy). As for why they do it... Sometimes people just want their life written down (for a lot of reasons), and sometimes there's just a demand for their story because people are curious about them but they lack the skills to write it themselves (or perhaps it's too painful for them to relive things that way).
Great video and I think you're probably right. I don't know what people expected, writing a book is insanely difficult and Zoe is not a professional writer, of course she needed help! But I've heard that the character and stories are all hers. She definitely should've been honest from the beginning, and it shouldn't be used up against Harry Potter, because Harry Potter is forever and the best series ever. It has parallels with fan fiction writing except kind of the other way round. I don't fully understand what ghost-writing is, does it mean Zoe said "here are my ideas" and the writer just wrote it or did Zoe and the writer keep having meetings and did Zoe edit the book at all? I also feel like the publishers are somewhat to blame, they're clearly using Zoe's name because she's popular and to make money, so it's not entirely Zoe's fault. She should sit down and explain exactly what her involvement in it all is.
I think many people read or want to read her book because just she's the author. I'm sure there are people who don't care about the plot; they're just fans of zoe. That's how I feel about my favorite authors. The appeal is gone after finding out that the book isn't completely their creation, it's that someone they don't know.
As a fan of Zoe's, I must admit that i was quite mad about her lying about the ghostwriting in the book, but i was more mad when she still didn't admit it AND still thinks that all of us would know that she "wrote" the book on her own, she could've at least made a video about it expressing her opinion about this stuff -that would be fine, and it would fix a lot of things- but she didn't ... she lied and is STILL lying about it. honestly, if only the ghostwriter had his/her name or at least an acknowledgement about his/her writing in the book then none of this would've happened, if only Zoe didn't lie then none of this would've happened. it's all about "If only" 's in this situation.
OH also i had to add: people hating on zoe and her ghost writer or ghostwriting in general NEED TO READ the blog post written by Girl Online's ghostwriter. you can find it on goodreads. it highlights a lot of positives about the situation and other things you can't deny are either positive/not zoe's fault. but the bottom line is still that zoe deceived (practically) the whole world into believing she wrote the book.
I watch her occasionally, but don't follow her enough to have heard about this until this video. Wow. I don't have a problem with youtubers (or other well known people in society) using their popularity to sell things, but it bothers me when they use it to sell lies. I also occasionally watch the videos of some of the people she regularly hangs out with and several of them have mentioned how hard she worked and how much time she spent on the book and things like that, but that can't be completely true if she had a ghostwriter. I mean she may have done work, but not nearly as much as people have alluded to if she had someone working with her. There's nothing wrong with using a ghostwriter if you really need the help and there's nothing wrong with admitting it. In fact, it should be admitted, the "author" should be honest with herself and with people who are spending money on the product. The people have a right to know. So if she's even getting her friends to lie for her to make money off a product she wants people to think she created by herself, that's a big issue for me. I may need to stop watching these people.
What annoys me is how there are people out there with actual talent and skill that could work for years on a book which is turned down by publishers. Zoe will have done next to no work compared to the grafting of a normal author, and her book (or rather the one she would have written by herself) will be not as good as some books that get turned down.
I love this video, Ariel!!! My biggest problem with ghostwriting is the fact that one person does all the work and the other gets credit. That sure sounds a lot like plagiarism, except backward. I get that the idea was hers but for me to call it Zoe's book would be a lie because it was someone else getting credit. Of course, even if they put the ghostwriter's name with Zoe's, no one would pay any attention to it.
It makes me uncomfortable because it's a lie, they're not giving the ghostwriter any accreditation like you usually see (eg. that Hilary Duff book and also any James Patterson novel) and so therefore it's a deceiving fabrication of the truth. For me, it hasn't got anything to do with the fact she's a CZcamsr, each to there own, she's not a bad role model and if her fans are willing to buy her book then fine, no problem. But it still doesn't resolve the fact she isn't the writer. About your third point- novels are never just down to independent genius even the classics, an author has an editor and their significance cannot be underestimated. Author's come up with the plot and characters (like Zoella claims she did) but they also...WROTE the damn thing. It's a skill to write a flowing narrative, in fact it is THE skill of novel-writing. All she's done is repackaged her own life into some unimaginative story and reaped the financial benefits of misinformed fans.
First of all, I love Zoe and I will continue to watch her videos. When I first heard about this, though, I was pretty upset because it did feel like there was a lack of transparency. If she had at least given credit like HD did, then it would have been fine. I still think this, but I think the main culprit is the new CZcams society. These people gained SO much popularity and became Starr's in their own right almost overnight. They have a TON of things going on that they are all expected to do now. A lot of CZcamsrs are now doing books, and I feel like there is the pressure of doing what everyone else is doing to stay relevant and popular. This is how they make their living, and I blame the CZcams society I think more than Zoe for because of all this added pressure. If it were an A-list celeb, this wouldn't be so much of an issue now would it?
On point as always. When you move to Birmingham, do you think you'll do a meet up in Scotland at some point? And on that note, Scotland is amazing, and you should do a meet up in Scotland :p
i don't mind the fact she used a ghost writer to help her write the book i just hate the fact she didn't say from the start that she did have help with writing the book because it's not fair on them. It makes us feel that we can't trust her for not being honest from the start. I think it's also unfair on the people who genuinely want to become authors and write their own books.
I think that the difference between books and movies/music is that theres only ONE name on the cover for books. With music, bands require the members to work together to achieve the final product and with movies, the audience is usually aware that the process requires a huge team of people because there are credits at the end. But books have the author's name in giant letters on the cover and if the audience finds out that most of the work was not done by the author, it feels like the credit terribly misplaced.
I was going to buy Zoella's book, but I am not. I do not feel like I should pay, and give her money, for something she did not do. If I had the certainty that most of the money would go to the writer (who should not be ghost) I might consider buying it.
One thing also is zoella signed a contract, Most of the time it's the publishers plan of what happened with names and etc.. What if zoella as part of her contract was told that she couldn't say things in her videos or that the ending decision was to not put the other writer on the cover. We don't know all the facts... And those angry about the fact that she can get a book published with not writing it herself. I understand but why just blame one person... Who really is just the brand image...
I actually disagree. We accept books as not too personal and many people don't even look at the author's name. It is a product. However a youtuber is a friend; people aren't buying this book because it looks like an interesting product, but because they love Zoella. Zoella has created a massive platform of people who intensely care about her, as a person, not about what she's producing, therefore even if they enjoy the book, they still feel cheated when they find out it's a ghostwriter because the fact Zoella wrote it was the only reason they care.
This is a pretty complex issue. One thing I think it is necessary to bring up is that books are very seldom the work of just one mind. Even independent writers get help editing, or just bounce ideas off of. Covers are almost always the work of other people. For big publishers, there are usually editors that have to add in their own two cents, especially with newer writers. I may do my own video on this in the near future.
THANK YOU, really, for finally saying out loud what a lot of people (and fellow BookTubers) are thinking in the back of our heads with this Zoella-nightmare. I don't mind a book being written by multiple authors, but lying about the fact that you're getting help, AND showing up at a promotional event, AND making a hell of a lot money over it.... LYING to your subscribers about a book that you were helped to write (and with that I presume that she wrote at least 30% of the book, and I'm sure it's way less... why do I have this impression?). NO, I'm sorry Zoella, you make enough money with your CZcams videos and your 5M subs. Don't LIE to make more. Be honest at least. Ugh, this is driving me nuts. And on top of it, I don't know about the English speaking BookTube community, but I recently found out that some very famous French BookTubers are going to review it, for real? Hello?!... I'm a French BookTuber myself (sorry if there are potentiallysome English mistakes in my comment) but I think that there are so many great books out there, that we will never in our entire life have the time to read... and even books written by many authors, but who are honest about their work... that makes me sad...
Ariel, Here are my thoughts about ghost-writing. I’ll begin with a little disclaimer so everything is clear. I do not know anything about neither Zoella nor her book so I’ll just try to give my opinion about ghost-writing in general. Now, I would like to apologize in advance for two things: First, english isn’t my native language so the quality of my written english might be awful. And second, I mostly know about french litterature so most of my examples will come from it. To begin with, I think you’re right when you say that one the reason of why people dislike ghost-writing is that they don’t like to be fooled. Personnally, I don’t mind reading a ghost-written book, what bothers me is to give credit to the wrong person. What I mean is that a masterpiece will stay a masterpiece, ghost-written or not, but you have to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”. Let me give an example to illustrate of I feel about that. Emile Ajar wrote 4 books, one of which won the famous “Prix Goncourt” (a famous french litterature prize). We later found out that these books were written by the famous french novelist Romain Gary, when before commiting suicide, he sent a manuscript to his editor revealing the trick. The person that was known to be Emile Ajar was in fact Romain Gary’s little cousin, who played the role he was asked to play. I don’t know how people felt about that at the time, but I just find this anecdote funny, and that only make me love Romain Gary and his books even more. I don’t think I would have even been upset with the guy claiming to be Emile Ajar at the time, he just played the role Romain Gary asked him to play. But I guess the situation is very different here. The person claiming to be Emile Ajar was not a famous person. And I don’t know what is the context of this ghost-writing: Is it by the will of the real author that the book publish under Zoella’s name ? Is it because it is a pure marketing product ? Is it because it was not good enough to be selled without being associated with the image of a famous person ? I guess depending on the situation I could be upset. Now, about your second point, I have to say I disagree with that. I’m not really sure to understand what you mean by the “celebrities culture”, but I don’t think that the “fake author” being a celebrity would change my opinion on the book, the “fake author”, or the author. About your last point. I agree that if a book was written by different people, it would change my perception of it, I would maybe think of it as a marketing product. However, I will give it a try and here is why: there is examples of four-handed book, that are recognized as very good litterature, and art (like Goncourt brothers’ books, two french novelists who used to write together). So I don’t think four-handed writing or x-handed writing is a problem as long as it is honest. With all of that said, I AM uncomfortable with ghost-writing because I very often decide to read a book because of the author. In fact, I mainly decide to read a book because I already know the author, or because I know the story of the author or the story of how the book was written and it made me want to read the book. To take the example of an author you seems to like: if tomorrow I decide to read a George Orwell’s book, it will be because I read “1984” and “Animal farm” and I loved them, and I would like to find what he put of himself on those books in the book I decide to read. I guess you could argue that if an “author” use the same ghost-writer for all of his books, I should be pleased, and you would be right in a sense I suppose, that’s pretty much what happened with “Emile Ajar”. So I guess what bothers me with ghost-writing is that the real author doesn’t get the credit for his work, which didn’t really happened. Well, I think that sums up what I think about ghost writing. I hope you didn’t fall asleep reading that wall of text ^^'.
No I really disagree with the last point. Books being co-written is not a problem at all - its just that fact that she could have credited the "ghost-writer" but the fact that she portrayed it to be solely her own book - that was the issue for me.
I remembering finding out that James Patterson had ghost writers in Maximum Ride. It made me upset because a) it felt like a COMPLETE LIE and b) the books spiralled into hell
I think the biggest reason people feel cheated is because the main selling point of the book was that it was written by Zoella. So if she didn't write it, the whole reason many people bought the book is a lie.
I appreciate books so much when they're only written by one person, because you know they poured their heart out into writing it and thought it through and through from beginning to end. Books like Harry Potter and Cassie Clare's shadowhunter chronicles, you can appreciate because its a demonstration of how unique one's mind can be. With ghostwriting, the book has already lost its magic even if it is really good.
I think you hit the nail on the head, Ariel. Look, here is what I think if it was Zoella's characters and Zoella's ideas, great. But the bottom line is if it is not YOUR words, it is not YOUR book.
I think when I think of ghost writers, I think of V.C. Andrews books because she has so many series and most of them were written by or finished by the ghost writer because she died of breast cancer awhile ago (like 1986) and books are still being released under her name on the books, which brings up the discussion of transparency, because it's her name on the book, but if you know anything about V.C. Andrews, you know its not her that wrote them.
I covered the topic of ghostwriting the day the news properly hit. Was so concerned people would give massive backlash, but it just paved way for a good discussion. I don't like dishonesty especially when it's something I really like :/
I feel that we get more disappointed with CZcamsrs ghost writing compared to normal celebrities because since we've seen their videos, we know them on a more personal level than a regular celebrity, so we feel like since we have this deeper connection, that the CZcamsr owes us something.
What do you guys think of James Patterson, who mostly wrote detective novels and now adds his name to a bunch of kids / YA books? I know he credits the co-author, but it seems he should just have his own publishing house if all he seems to do now is add his name next to the books' author.
my issue with the whole Zoella thing is less about the ghostwriting and more about the rise of marginally famous celebrities using books as another marketing tool. example a: elle and blair fowler. these girls make beauty and lifestyle videos on youtube, and they're good at it. they're entertaining. but then they started writing books. and they're not good books; they're just another way of putting their name out there and building a brand. to me, every book that gets published (because it's written by a celebrity) means that an actual GOOD book (that gets written by a normal person just trying to make it) doesn't get published. and that's not fair. I don't like that crappy literature is put out while possibly better literature isn't, just because someone with a youtube channel decided they wanted to dabble in book writing.
A couple of my favorite books/series were co-written by two authors. I hold no prejudice toward co-authored books. Or ghost written books. I do agree with you that transparency is the best course in these matters. This person should have been upfront about working with a ghostwriter and had she done so there probably wouldn't have been an uproar. Have a Merry Christmas and an excellent New Year!
Yeah, what really irks me about this whole situation is that Zoe has been given the title of "Best-Selling Author" without really earning it. Also that she lied and said it was HER book written by HER. It's okay to have help, but at least be honest about it.
I so agree with you. There are people who are actually struggling to be writers and on the other hand there's zoella who already is really famous on CZcams and wrote a book through deception. Fine, she needed help. But couldn't she tell the world about the help? Couldn't she, who serves as an idol of thousands of girls, give credit to someone who truly deserves it? I just seem to think that it is unfair. And she claimed that the plot and characters were her ideas. Great. But all of us get hundreds of ideas doesn't mean that the whole song is written, or the business formed or as in this case, the book written. I'm sorry if I come of as rude, but she really was wrong in taking the full credit.
I think what annoys me most about it is that Zoe now thinks (or at least she seems to think) that she is now an author, or a writer. She always went on about how she always wanted to be a writer and now she is. But well, not really. I get that it's her story, her characters her idea, but is it her words? I guess not. If I give an artist my vision of a picture and they draw it for me, I can't say that I drew it, because I just didn't. I think that's what makes me uncomfortable. The fact that Zoe lacked transparency. The fact that she didn't even mention that someone co-wrote with her. She is literally saying it's HER book, that SHE wrote it. But did she really?
Don't get me wrong, I love Zoe and I understand why people would hire ghostwriters. especially for writing memoirs and stuff. But it just grinds me gears to have a ghostwriter write a non-fiction story and for Zoella to get all the glory for it. I don't know. There's just something about that that seems not right to me.
Also, the fact that a ghostwritten book broke records and claimed them is really unfair to authors who write their own content. To me it's like an athlete racing someone who's on steroids. It's not fair to the athlete who put genuine effort in but loses anyways. I don't know maybe that's just me. But yeah.
I don't know how much of this book is ghostwritten. I mean she could still be a writer and the ghostwriter only wrote parts of it. But I mostly agree with you that calling yourself an author if you have done only the smallest part of the work is wrong :-)
Affenschaukel Gartenzwerg Yeah, for all I know she wrote most of it. But realistically, she most likely didn't. She vlogs a large part of her life and she never fails to let her viewers know how busy she is with other things (especially with her beauty line). So all these things are happening and then all of a sudden, she announces that she got a deal with Penguin and that she'll have a book out in 2 months. I don't really expect a girl that busy to be able to write a book, or a large chunk of it, in that time span. And not to mention, it's her first one as well, making the task even more difficult to achieve. So it looks more plausible that she didn't write a whole lot of the book. But that's just just one of my (and a few other people's crackpot theories. I could be completely wrong. Who knows? But yeah, given the circumstances it doesn't really look very realistic.
Affenschaukel Gartenzwerg The ghostwriter had a blog post which pretty much said she wrote the entire book in a short amount of time, so in this case, I think the extent of Zoe's input was giving plot and character ideas (which is the easy/fun part).
Patricia Paguio i totally agree with you. Zoe is always vlogging about her busy life couldn't she vlog herself writing the book i honestly think she just gave her ideas but she definitively didn't write the entire book. It's sad that she would lie to her fellow viewers. I like watching her vlogs but a dishonest person definitely changed the way i perceive them. In my opinion there's nothing wrong with ghostwriters but giving then credit should be a must. Cause then what's the point of copy rights and plagiarism and pirated stuff. I hope the ghostwriter is getting the same amount for the book as she is or else its not fair. Im just saying its my opinion everyone is making great points.
its not the fact she used a ghost writer that annoyed me just that she didn't give them credit and I can guarantee that the ghost writer barley gets any of the profit made from the book
That's totally what I was thinking!!
The ghostwriter doesn't get any of the profit. They get paid a one time fee for writing it then don't get any royalties (in this case, the author got £7/8K for a book that sold nearly 80K copies in the first week alone...while people were buying it because they thought Zoe wrote it, it's still a bit unfair for the actual author to not get any royalties at all).
***** She did not pay for a ghost writer.
***** Because ghostwriters are usually under contract with Publishing Houses. They're the ones paying.
I agree with the part about transparency, but not the rest of it really. I've never really liked the ghostwriting thing with fiction novels in general (I expect it in biographies, they're the exception) because it's like legal plagiarism and the writers are often underpaid because they get a fixed sum before writing and don't really get any royalties from the sales.
My issue with the Zoella thing though is that she wasn't just omitting the truth, she very consciously and deliberately lied. In her vlogs, she tried to make it seem like she was the one actually writing it, she spoke about it like she had actually written it--she even had a quote (on the book, I think) where she talks about writing a book being her dream...and yet she had someone else write it.
It just seemed to contradict the persona she projects as a youtuber, as this honest person who genuinely cares about her fans, and yet she deliberately mislead them (a lot of them young without much money) and then she acted as if it was okay, like it didn't matter. Sad thing is, she probably could've been honest about it and still had their support.
Plus, I didn't like her implying after the fact that first time writers always "need help" writing their books. No. They have editors that help polish it up for publication, but they do the writing themselves and her implying otherwise is an insult to them. Her calling herself an author, gushing about how she broke J K Rowling's sales records (an unearned achievement on multiple levels), is also an insult to writers.
We don't actually know how much was written by the ghostwriter so who knows, maybe she was writing in her vlogs. It could have been outlines, paragraphs or chapters, we don't know
Nikitaa Indyk The ghostwriter had a blog post up where she talked about writing the book and she pretty much confirmed that she wrote the whole thing (her post was about writing books in short amounts of time).
There was also a comment, either from Penguin or Zoe, can't remember which, saying just the story and characters were Zoe's idea (if Zoe had written some of it they would've said she co-authored it with a ghostwriter because it would've calmed down some of the criticism).
I didn't know that. That definitely changes the situation. I feel like Penguin and zoella's agency have done a very poor job in this case.
Ugh the Rowling comment especially grinded my gears
What annoys me is that Zoe keeps saying "they are my characters and my ideas", okay, but that doesn't make it your novel. To me, the novel is all about the execution - the actual writing, how they tell the story, the words they use etc... Zoe may have provided the plotline and characters but since she isn't saying that she wrote it and keeps defending the fact that its her plot and characters, I'm assuming that the ghost writer did most of the actual writing. Also, it's obvious because she never gave us update videos or "how I did it" or anything, which I was expecting since she shares her life with the internet. the only videos she did were the announcement and I think a vlog on the release party then the book was out.
However, the dishonesty is what I am annoyed about the most, IF from the beginning, she said, "guys, I'm not the best writer and I'm going to be getting lots of help from the lovely people at penguin" or something like that, then I honestly believe that I would be very okay with the whole thing.
Don't even get me started on her she was so proud about beating JK Rowling's record, she should have felt some sort of guilt or something?!
I don't like the fact that she stated that she had been writing since she was little and it was her dream to publish a book, since she does share her life with the internet, shouldn't it have been mentioned at least once in the past five years or so - you know, since it was such a big dream of hers from the start. If she wanted to publish a book for so long, then why didn't she actually write it when she got the opportunity.
It's a cheat to say you wrote a book you didn't write. Responsibility people, responsibility! Some of us are actually trying to become authors for real here.
I know right!!
***** I really don't like the fact that she calls herself an author and a best seller etc... There are people who are far more talented than her who are working their butts of to get published but aren't, and even though they may not be published, I would consider them authors, but I don't consider Zoe one.
I disagree with your idea that a book is viewed by everyone as something solely from one person. An example is Beautiful Creatures, written by two people and still widely sucessful. It's mostly the dishonesty of a person ghost writing a book that turns people off in my opinion.
I don't think she was excluding co authors, or even, for that matter anthologies.
I think she meant that a book is a hands on project, the person who has an idea writes it.
It wasn't surprised to me that Zoella had a ghost writer, I assumed that that would be the case.
However I have a problem with the handling of this case, it starts with penguin not paying the ghost writer much at all, and it is still a problem because Zoella, who before was almost a bystander, is now refusing to admit what everyone knows is true.
I think it is generally viewed that any artwork's source of genius stems from one person-hence our obsession with directors in a production as vast and multifaceted as a film. Whether this is wrong or not, I do not care to argue; but the idea of a single genius is widely held not only Western society, but throughout many cultures. Co-authoring a book is not the norm as far as the public is concerned.
But with Beautiful Creatures, it was clear that it was written by two authors, both put in around the same amount of effort and get around the same amount of fame and money from it, whereas Zoe was saying that it was all hers
The Warriors series was written by five different people who came together underone name. Same with the manga artist Clamp.
Haha I don't mean co-authors, or anthologies! Because these ideas still fit perfectly into our "author image" but with friendly collaboration. Both names will go on the cover, or will be fully credited.
What I hate about these CZcams "authors" is that they like to spout about how they're best sellers in multiple countries and how it took great talent from them to write the book, when they've done mostly nothing. The Zoella thing just showed how they're money grabbing people that don't care about exploiting their fans. She or someone else said that it's a dream come true to have their own published book. Relax, if it wasn't for your sheep fans you wouldn't have sold 10 000 copies!
***** She didn't write the other books. What I meant with the 10 000 books was that she wouldn't have even sold 10 000 books if she wrote it herself. I wasn't saying that she actually sold 10 000 of her fake shit.
The annoying thing is that being a bestseller means nothing, it could be a terrible book but if selected bookshops get a certain number of pre-orders because the 'author' is famous and already has a following they'll get on the lists. Some of them aren't even real books, there have been several scams
U can’t tar everyone with the same brush. You don’t know they’re ALl doing this.
What makes me angry about ghost writing in general is the fact that these people are then seen as legitimate published authors and writers...even though they didn't write it. It also pisses me off that just because you're a youtuber or celebrity that it's so much easier to get a book deal, even when it wasn't even written by them! There are so many people in this world who have great books that can't get published that they wrote all on their own, and these random half assed not so good books come from ghost writers. Have you ever seen a successfully WELL WRITTEN and GENUINELY GOOD BOOK come out of a celebrity/ghost writer relationship? I haven't, and that's just wrong to me.
YES. There is no doubt in my mind that there are INCREDIBLY talented people out there who aren't able to get their books noticed but have so much potential, but if you are famous, BAM, you've already sold 100,000 copies for something that is possibly less than half as good as the other person
thesajmahal Chris Colfer- from Glee is now I believe a full time (mostly) children's author
I agree with you guys that it's hard but writing books is about marketing. CZcamsrs are just doing the hard work upfront to build their audiences. I truly wish good ideas got good audiences right off the bat but the reality is that a good audience builder gets good audiences. And then they are in the position of selling a book.
I agree with all your points. I don't like ghostwriters, because it's no different than having somebody do something else for you, and telling everyone that you did it yourself. And I think that it bugs authors the most. Because real authors (yes, I'm going there), actually DO write their books. They come up with the story line, the characters, the twists, etc, and put it all together with THEIR OWN WORDS and then an editor might tell them to change something or add something, and the the author will go back and add another twist, or add another quirk to a character, etc. But it's THE AUTHOR who is doing it. Because that's what an author is. I don't say that I really like the saxophone, and I've always wanted to play the saxophone, but then record someone else playing one, and tell people that it was me. And I don't care if these authors who have ghostwriters "have good ideas but can't get them down on paper well". LEARN. PRACTICE. WORK AT IT. Don't just hire someone to DO IT FOR YOU and call it yours.
Even for simple things, like say, my manager at work doesn't say "I really wish that I could be a good manager, but I'm not, so I'm going to come into the store in my blue button up shirt, but have someone else do everything for me while I just give a few ideas."
Sorry. Doesn't fly with me.
If you want to be a writer, then write. If you're not good at it, get help, practice, keep doing it, and work hard at it like everyone else who's trying to get published (and probably not getting published, because famous youtubers with ghostwriters are getting published instead)
PS I'm sorry that sounded bitter. ha.
Exactly. Thank you, you summed up most of my thoughts in a comment.
The thing is, she (Zoella) *deserves* bitter. Hiring a ghostwriter without giving them credit is basically cheating. Then, of course, to make matters worse, she and (too) many of her fans think and say that it's fine. It annoys the bejeebers out of me.
PREACH IT. You just said everything that I feel. I may not be a writer, but it's my dream to write a book and have it published, and even though it's hard and it might suck, I'm going to write the damn book myself.
"Even for simple things, like say, my manager at work doesn't say "I really wish that I could be a good manager, but I'm not, so I'm going to come into the store in my blue button up shirt, but have someone else do everything for me while I just give a few ideas.""
You've just described the vast majority of middle managers in corporate culture. lol.
As for ghostwriters, I really don't mind if it is credited. For example, I read lots of sporting autobiographies. No offence to sportspeople, but they are often not the most literary people in the world (of course there are exceptions), but that doesn't mean they don't have a story to tell. The difference is that the ghostwriter is always credited, and as they usually conduct hundreds of hours of interviews with their subject, they get paid very well. Often they even go on the publicity tour with the sportsperson to talk about what it was like working with them.
I appreciate that there is a difference between fiction and non fiction, but at the end of the day what is the novel about? For me it's about storytelling. So I don't have an issue with people telling their stories to people to write down. As long as it is clearly credited, and the writer gets a fair deal. Neither of which happened here.
haha, so true about the manager thing.
But yes. my problem is when they pass it off as their own
So true. I don't like ghost writing personally. One of the most common things I get asked as a writer is "I have a book I want to write. Will you write it for me as a ghost writer?" And my eyes roll to the back of my head. I don't have much respect if an author can't plant their butt down in a chair and do it themselves. I want to know that the discipline was there when it was written.
Her book broke records. Can you be proud of something that you didn't really do? I suppose it's like architecture (not that I really understand how that's done.) She drew up the plans, someone else built it. Someone else sat up for hours and hours, putting their blood, sweat, and tears into a book and she got paid less than 10,000 pounds for it. A ghost writer's book broke records and she was paid less than 10,000 pounds.
all i can say is well done to penguin books for that good move (putting zoe's name on a book coz it would sell like hot cakes) and boo zoe for not being more transparent to her viewers and fans. i'm sure her subscribers would have LOVED to know that she wasn't writing her own novel herself. I think that's kinda important info to disclose when you're trying to sell something to people/fans that supposedly mean so much to you.
and maybe she thought it wasn't worth mentioning *if* she wrote the majority and the ghost writer helped with the rest, but either way she should know the stigma ghostwriting carries and she should have known the truth would come out and that she would be perceived as a liar. but then again maybe she wanted to tell the truth but was legally not allowed by penguin.
Arielle Y The ghostwriter came out in a blog post stating that she wrote the whole thing in a short amount of time, and all that Zoe said to defend herself when the whole thing got big was that the plotline and characters were her own. If she did write the novel - at least a little bit, she would have said it so that people would be a bit less harsh, but she didn't. If she was honest from the beginning, I would have supported her all the way
Arielle Y There's a difference though between omitting the truth and deliberately lying to mislead everyone though (she even said that *writing* a novel was her dream and that this was a dream come true). Penguin could have told her not to reveal the truth, but they didn't force her to say the things she did in her vlogs--those words, unlike the book, were all her.
I think it was probably more that she'd already had this successful line of beauty products and thought a book could be like that too--that, with a novel, it was enough for her to give a few ideas and put her name on it. But it isn't, because books are different and no one actually expected her to be the one making her own beauty line but they did expect her to be the one writing a novel she claimed as hers.
Yasmine5874 I don't remember the part where the ghostwriter said she wrote the whole thing in a short amount of time? Anyway I was leaning towards guessing that Zoe did write the majority just from reviews I've read of the book, saying that a lot of it is written poorly/amateur and then some other random bits seem written really well.
Arielle Y She deleted the blog post when it all came out, but this article has the screenshots. Zoe chose what it would be about, she didn't write it at all, certainly not the majority of it: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11279186/Is-this-the-blog-post-that-proves-Zoella-did-not-write-Girl-Online.html (the fact that she had such little time to write it may be the reason behind the poorly written parts).
Stephanie Meyer needed a ghost writer, brilliant idea, terrible writing
It just disgusts me that there are fantastic writers out there not earning money and getting their work published all because of youtubers. I'm sure Zoe doesn't need this extra money as she already has her successful channel. Yet some writers aren't getting paid at all.
YouSillySausage1 That's not exactly true. Ghostwritten celebrity novels (even crap ones) are guaranteed money in the bank for publishers and bookstores, that's why they do it.
CZcamsrs aren't being given book deals *instead of* aspiring authors--the more money they have, the freer publishers are to take a chance on unknown authors whose books aren't guaranteed to sell well. If all celebrities refused to accept book deals they didn't earn, it would mean *less* unknown authors would get their books published, not more.
For the record, I don't like ghostwriting and I don't like the way Zoe handled this situation in particular, but it's just wrong to blame people like Zoe for the fact there are struggling writers out there not getting paid when books like hers help that in the long run, they don't cause the problem.
I think the main issue like you say IS lack of transparency, for me the whole issue was that she never told us it was ghostwritten. And there's very young girls going "of course she had help, its her first novel dont be so harsh" and that scares the crap out of me, because they don't understand that anything is wrong. Help is different to ghostwriting, and nobody has told them that, so in their minds they dont see the problem at all.
I think as well, with a celeb, you dont follow their journey. It appears on the shelves, and you either buy it or you dont. There isn't really an emotional investment. However, for Zoe, people watched her journey, they read blog posts where she says "I am writing a book", we watch videos from Penguin when she says her dream when she was a little girl was to write a book, we watch her go to the printing factory to get her book signed and feel happy for her. Then, the truth comes out.
It's the lack of truth that made me uncomfortable, not the act of ghostwriting itself. And what made me more uncomfortable was the tweet she put out, saying everyone needs help when they try something new - completely ignoring the fact that help and ghostwriting are different.
Great video Ariel!:)
Also, in general I just think ghostwriting is weird for fiction. I totally get it when it's for a biography or a memoir bc the person actually sits down and tells the ghostwriter about their life and the stories they want included. But for fiction it just doesn't make sense to me. I think Zoe calling herself an author is very misleading and kind of ridiculous. Kylie and Kendall Jenner did the same thing with a dystopian book which I thought was weird but they at least were transparent about having ghostwriters.
The main thing which annoys me is the fact that "Girl Online" is massively popular and successful under Zoe's name, but If the ghost-writer were to publish it under *their* own name, it would be just another average typical chick lit novel on a shelf in a bookshop that no one looks at. But Zoe, who already has a successful CZcams channel, cosmetics/stationary line, merch and blog, and is earning a massive amount of money from it all, is now getting even more recognition from her books. It takes some people's whole lives to write a novel, and perhaps their dream in life is to have it published, but publishers turn their backs on them immediately because of marketing reasons and the presumed lack of interest from buyers. There are so many potential authors out there, and I've read the amazing poetry and prose of people on tumblr and online who could write a book so genius and emotional and inspiring, but no, we get this average written book instead and have to put up with it being displayed in every single bookshop and being talked about on every single media platform and overall just giving it the recognition it definitely doesn't deserve. Zoe already has everything, and really doesn't deserve critical acclamations and titles such as "fastest selling debut author" from a book that she didn't even write herself.
I truly don't think this whole thing would have been an issue if Zoe had been honest about using a ghostwriter from the very beginning. She implied that she was hard at work writing her novel when, in fact, only the story and characters were hers. Now, I don't think all the blame should be placed on her -- I'm fairly certain that her publisher had a lot to do with it. The publisher saw an opportunity to cash in on Zoe's huge following and they took it. Big corporations are greedy like that. The majority of Zoe's fans are young tweens and teens and they will literally buy ANYTHING with Zoe's name on it.
What irritates me about it was that Zoe never once made it seem like she was getting help while it was being written, and continued to take all of the credit UNTIL the truth came out.
The thing is Zoe always said that she is not writing the book alone. Sometimes she showed the author who was helping her in her vlogs for example as the book was printed.
It was her story and she actually wrote pages not all alone but I can understand it. I mean it was her first book, she did not studied literatur to have the skills to write a book on her own.
And it is her own story, so of course her name is on the book. She is not a liar.
This is such an interesting topic, I'm so happy you discussed this Ariel! 100% agree with you, I feel the same way. I love Zoella but I have to admit that I was disappointed when I heard that Girl Online was ghost written.
I have a problem with the fact that is book is purely commercial.
Ariel, just to say I love this thing of you doing videos not only about books solely, book reviews, etc. but about your opinions concerning book themes. Love it!
I think you raise some really good points on this. I wasn't surprised when the news came out or really offended even, but I did think she should have just said so from the beginning and it wouldn't have become a big thing. I think a big part of us as consumers and readers having the standard that the stories and words we take in be singular and from one source is due to the fact that writing is the only aspect of the work, for the most part. With music and movies as you mentioned, there is the writing process and then the creation process (either filming and editing or recording and many other layers as well), which is another talent and addendum to the writing. So it makes sense that more people could be involved in those endeavors. But with singular artistry, such as writing, painting, sculpting, etc; there is a different kind of ownership. I think it's fine to co-write or even use ghostwriters as long as there is credit given and the consumers aren't being deceived. Many popular books are co-written and because it's marketed that way and the writers present themselves as a team, it's not a problem. We as the readers don't actually know who wrote what or if the writing was split 50/50, but we generally don't care because we've already accepted it was done as a team. This is where Zoella made her error and I think it's as simple as that.
ARIEL I've had the same thoughts very recently & everything you said in this vid was amazing. Dead-on. Love how you always articulate things dead-on
Until the end I thought perhaps that display was all books that had been ghostwritten and it sort of broke my heart - how could I justify an admiration for H.G. Wells or George Orwell or whomever if their work wasn't entirely their own? I definitely agree that we prefer books to be a sole individual's genius because you develop a (parasocial) relationship with an author through reading their work, finding out something's ghostwritten shatters that illusion.
I am so glad you covered this topic :) I agree 100% with you
I think the main problem with the Zoella situation is that she manipulated her fans. People who picked up the book picked it up with the expectation that they are reading something made by their favorite CZcamsr/Blogger. Unlike celebrities, CZcamsrs are self-made individuals who are (usually) popular for some form of creative output. Therefore, they are held to a higher standard in that we expect them not to use something like ghostwriters. In the end, Zoella sold out and just put her name/"brand" on a book just to sell it and make money, instead of putting her own independent work out there.
Not very surprised about the ghostwriting, but I think you're right about the lack of transparency. Like you said, nobody likes being to - even when it's obvious.
Thanks for posting your theories!! I was really confused at the huge storm of rage this all seems to be causing... this video really helped clear it up and gave me some insight into the minds of the masses!
I think the exact opposite regarding your second reason. I think we view youtubers more as people vs how we view celebrities. Celebrities do not connect with their fanbase on the same level as a youtuber does. Combine that with celebrity culture, and expect celebs to do things just to make money and if we get lied to, we dont feel as upset by it. However, if a youtuber lies to us, it feels like a friend lying to us and we are more prone to being upset by it. Hope that makes sense!
And I LOVED your Christmassy bookshelf display!
Thank you for linking to my video! It's still a fascinating topic because it hits so many points. I'd love to hear more about your frustration RE how seriously CZcams is treated by mainstream media. Especially someone of your scale, you are not only consuming the content on this web space but you're creating content consistently consumed by (I am assuming) a similar demographic to someone like Zoe. 17k people have watched this video alone, even though it branches away from your "usual" content. That speaks volumes to the breadth of viewership larger channels/personalities have, and how interactive a space it can be. Looking to your comment section proves this isn't a passive space, and has merit in its own right. But how does that transfer to traditional forms of media, like a novel? Zoe influences an active consumer (viewers) and they are encouraged, through a new media platform, to purchase old media like a novel. Creating a book deal for an in/famous CZcamsr speaks volumes to old media's understanding and appreciation for new media like CZcams. And yet blatant reviews and discussions on traditional media are dismissive and flippant.
Excellent points, fascinating discussion, as usual! :) I've been thinking a lot about concepts and misconceptions of authorship in literature lately.
I feel a Little bit betrayed because, like you said, youtubers are real. Most of them make their own videos completely by themselves. When they vlog, it isn't like reality tv, where it is mostly fake. They say exactly what they want to say, it's like takling to a real person. That's why I feel betrayed, you would not expect a youtuber to Lie about something as big as a book. It makes me sad and I start to think about If other youtubers are not themselves on camera, like are they all jerks? I'm not saying that they are, it just makes me wonder...
As I writer myself, I don't write beautiful sentences, I write the truth, the real world. Real world doesn't mean magic or beautifulness, it means a flawed realism. There. I said it.
What bothered me about the Zoella ghostwriting situation is that she wasn't open about the situation from the start. Had she just openly said from the start "hey I had help writing this" it would've been a completely different situation.
this is perfect! You got around this issue so well, without being rude and by speaking sense. thank you!
I got really excited when I saw that this was only posted 4 hours ago, because that means if I comment, you may potentially read what I say :-)
I personally don't like ghost writers because it feels deceptive.
The fact that movies and music, like you said, are mostly co written, and the fact that we accept that, is because nobody makes any attempt to hide it. For example, the credits at the end of a movie will tell you the names of everyone involved and how they contributed, whereas the 'ghost writers' only get their names in very very small print under the fake author or celebrity's giant name on the inside pages of the book - never the cover. They get pushed to the side and it's totally unfair on them in my opinion.
It essentially means that anyone can become an author without any hard work, and they shouldn't be put on a pedestal for something that they didn't really do (other than the general idea/ characters maybe) and be compared to authors who did all their own work and research and worked hard on their novel.
It's like paying people to do your homework in school, or telling someone to paint you a picture of a sunset and then saying that it's your painting because you thought of the idea.
Great video Ariel! I wanted to do a video about this but I couldn't find the words to clearly put my point across and you just did it brilliantly!
It's definitely the lying that bothers me! I made a whole video about it too! Loved yours :) You're so intelligent!!
I dont want to sound stuck up at all, but I really could not believe that Zoella would have written a book on her own, particularly with the kind of life she has on CZcams and stuff. So when it "came out" that the book was ghostwritten, it didnt bother me in the slightest. It would have been good if the ghostwriter's name was on the book, but I honestly could not care less. What I guess bothers me the most is potentially the quality of the actual book. As in, what it's about and how it's been written. I read a bit of the first chapter, and I wasnt exactly overjoyed. I guess it would be great for younger readers, but I've passed that stage of my reading life.
Congrats
Sorry! I really didnt mean to sound pretentious at all :/
Thanks for making a video on this topic, I think it's an interesting phenomenon and I've been thinking a bit about it since I heard about it. I suppose the main thing that upsets me is the commercialism of it all. There just didn't seem to exist any love or respect at all for the art of writing and reading. The book was so blatantly marketed towards really young people as a book written by Zoe and quantity and sales were so obviously prioritised before quality and actually providing a good product. I realise that publishers are having a hard time with people reading less and less and decreasing sales numbers, but it makes me really sad to think of all the talented, hard-working, unpublished authors who have to stand back and remain unpublished in favour of this kind of low-quality, mass-produced product. I don't really think the blame lies with Zoe, but with the publishers who are desperately grasping at straws to survive in a competitive industry.
I came to this video from a different video by someone else and don't really care about the Zoella controversy, but you have made very great points about books and ghostwriting that go beyond Zoella. I'm not a fan of ghostwriting, but I actually take major issue with it only when it is not transparent, as you so eloquently explained. I can't think of any off the top of my head now but I'm willing to bet many, if not most, of the books marketed as written by celebrities (autobiographies, etc), are ghostwritten, possibly in their entirety. Some are transparent about it, others are not, but the cynic in always assumes that the celebrity did not actually write the book. Mind you, I don't normally read that type of book because I'm not interested in autobiography, or in biography for that matter.
At any rate, I just found your channel and, as fellow bibliophile, now I'm hooked.
It doesn't bother me too much if a book is co-written by two or more authors. What does bother me is when a person does the majority of the writing and never gets any credit. Even if Zoella came up with the concept, she probably didn't do the bulk of the work and I don't think she would really deserve to earn more in royalties than the ghostwriter. The biggest problem is that she lied to earn more money than she already makes from CZcams.
I think the whole zoella issue is an interesting one, some people expected a ghostwriter to be involved at some point.
I agree with your points, I think people believe it is those whose names are on the cover (or inside page) created this book so when a ghostwriter is given no credit it seems like a lie to the audience.
The other issue with celebrity culture vs youtube is that celebrities are distant from their fans (not in a bad way they just are) whereas a CZcamsr may appear to be talking directly to the person watching. There is a lot more of their life available for a fan to get, which creates the idea that they know this person. So when Zoe said she was writing a book her fans may have believed that was all there was to it.
I believe all of that makes sense.
I don't mind music being cowritten and same with books I don't mind. But like Elixir, I would live all the authors to get known credit.
I really enjoy hearing your thoughts, so thank you for sharing the video!
Great video, totally agree with what u said and your book display looks amazing!
2:57 Like the book display
Love the red and green :) Thank you for that!
Great points! I wanted to read that book until I heard about this so I'm kinda hesitant now. I'll see :)
I guess I was just annoyed because some people dedicate all their lives to writing and never get the publicity and the chance to get their book published and just because Zoe is mildly famous she gets a crap book published just because it has her name on it AND SHE DIDN'T EVEN BLOODY WRITE IT. She lied and if anyone ever calls her an inspiration again they need to rethink their role models.
Personally, I think that having someone help you write a book is fine, it's great. My main issue with the Zoella situation was that the ghostwriter didn't get any kind of acknowledgment in the book. It feels like she lied to her audience who wanted to read her writing. I think it wouldn't have been a big deal if everyone had been open and honest about the situation in the first place.
I don't mind a book being written by two people where one person comes up with the characters and the story, and a different person writes it. What annoys me is one of those people doesn't get credit for their work. I have only just started hearing about this situation with Zoella's new book so I don't know all the details but if the ghost writer doesn't get any credit then that bugs me. However if the ghost writer wishes to remain anonymous then I can understand that. As I said I don't know the whole situation.
My main problem is that she lied. She's taking credit for someone else's work. If you say that you've written a book, the implication is that you actually sat down and wrote it. Plenty of people have ideas for a book but never are able to actually write a book because it takes a lot of work to write the sentences and make the story into something that can be read as a book.
Great video. Always such fantastic and on point points/ideas. Always a pleasure watching your videos, Ariel.
My only thought is that its unfair. Someone getting all the credit for something somebody else did. Personally if it were me, id feel too guilty to do that... Guilt weighs me down too much. Its not fair. Second, i hate how famous people can publish books no problem just because they're famous.. Like, people work hard to do that! They already have money anyway, ugh
I remember Zoe telling in a vlog that she had help with writing so I wouldn't say she lied about it. ( though I agree it should have been said on the cover aswell). To me its pretty obvious and natural that she had help since she was approached by a publishing company and had never done anything like it before. I think people judged her very harshly. She should have received better guidance and advice in the matter I think.
Also, don't you think that it is extremely unfair in this case since it was said that the ghostwriter of Girl Online got paid around £7000 for the book, when over 70,000 get sold in less than a week, meaning that Zoella will receive an incredibly large amount of money for only giving the plotline and characters. To me, a good novel is all about the execution, the actual writing, which is the hardest bit, the biggest bit and also the bit she didn't do, so why should she be paid so much? It's just unfair in my eyes and even worse, now that the ghost writer's identity was uncovered, she is getting an extraordinary amount of hate from the readers - ironically, considering the book they just read was on how online hate on someone who you barely know effects them. Very ironic.
Life isn't fair. This is a business. The book literally only sold because it had the name of a famous person. Had the author published it on her own, I doubt it would have even broken 7k.
I think it has a lot to do with our experiences in writing too! In school, we are not allowed to write together- it's cheating and violates academic integrity. Even in creative writing classes a lot of people aren't allowed to collaborate.
That might push the belief authors aren't allowed to write together either.
Yes! This needed to be said. :)
I wasn't really upset with the ghost writer situation. I mean course I would prefer was written only by her, but whatever... What really upset me was that she lied, and I believe most of the people think that as well...
Personally I loved Zoe's book and my view on it has not changed because of the ghost writing 'scandal'. She had help, that doesn't mean the whole book was written for her like people are saying- there are clear parts when you can see Zoe! Like her panic attacks and how they scare her or her first experience on a plane and first empression of New York. The colour part where she imagined her panic could be an actual technique she performs. The only part in this whole ghostwriting debate is that from what I see there is no mention of the ghost writer, that could just be selfishness and wanting to hog light or the co-writer may not want his/her name on display for certain reasons.
We should all just appreciate good books and not let are sub-conscious give us impressions on book because of an authors status😊
Couldn't have said it better myself. Great video Ariel.
I've actually done some freelance ghostwriting, and it's not awful. They're pros and cons though. Pro; it is a good source of money. (I mean depending on who your working for, but most jobs pay pretty decently). Now, obviously the ghostwriter won't get as much as the "author", but that's to be expected. Should it be different, maybe... again gray area. In my experience a lot of "authors" go in with an outline of the story, maybe some rough paragraphs and/or chapters and then the ghostwriter sort of asks as an editor and makes it better. Though, some "authors" will literally just say, "I want you to write a paranormal romance". So yeah, it depends.
Wow I was wondering how it works. Is it just when an author feels they can't do a piece of the novel? Or they can't be bothered? It's an odd concept to me! And why is it common in memoirs? Surely the whole point is that it's THAT authors memoirs? Confused, sorry rambles at you!
I agree with you, however, don't you think that it is extremely unfair in this case since it was said that the ghostwriter of Girl Online got paid around £7000 for the book, when over 70,000 get sold in less than a week, meaning that Zoella will receive an incredibly large amount of money for only giving the plotline and characters. To me, a good novel is all about the execution, the actual writing, which is the hardest bit, the biggest bit and also the bit she didn't do, so why should she be paid so much? It's just unfair in my eyes and even worse, now that the ghost writer's identity was uncovered, she is getting an extraordinary amount of hate from the readers - ironically, considering the book they just read was on how online hate on someone who you barely know effects them. Very ironic.
Yasmine5874 I totally agree, it's extremely unfair. Unfortunately, this type of thing happens a lot with ghostwriters, especially when the books sells well. That being said, I don't think it's right, and I agree about writing being about the execution.
Flobberworm Sometimes it's when the author needs assistance, sometimes they just don't want to do it, it depends on the book. I do find it weird when people hire ghostwriters for memoirs, honestly I don't know why they do.
Flobberworm ***** I actually think it makes most sense with memoirs and I'm okay with those using ghostwriters. In those cases, it's a much more collaborative process, it's not just someone giving a basic idea, the ghostwriter doesn't really have room to be creative because it's literally someone else's life and feelings they're writing (which I give them major props for, because that wouldn't be easy).
As for why they do it... Sometimes people just want their life written down (for a lot of reasons), and sometimes there's just a demand for their story because people are curious about them but they lack the skills to write it themselves (or perhaps it's too painful for them to relive things that way).
Great video and I think you're probably right. I don't know what people expected, writing a book is insanely difficult and Zoe is not a professional writer, of course she needed help! But I've heard that the character and stories are all hers. She definitely should've been honest from the beginning, and it shouldn't be used up against Harry Potter, because Harry Potter is forever and the best series ever. It has parallels with fan fiction writing except kind of the other way round. I don't fully understand what ghost-writing is, does it mean Zoe said "here are my ideas" and the writer just wrote it or did Zoe and the writer keep having meetings and did Zoe edit the book at all? I also feel like the publishers are somewhat to blame, they're clearly using Zoe's name because she's popular and to make money, so it's not entirely Zoe's fault. She should sit down and explain exactly what her involvement in it all is.
I think many people read or want to read her book because just she's the author. I'm sure there are people who don't care about the plot; they're just fans of zoe. That's how I feel about my favorite authors. The appeal is gone after finding out that the book isn't completely their creation, it's that someone they don't know.
This has nothing to do with the video, but I just happened upon this channel and now I'm in love with it.
I agree with you. It is all emotional when it comes to books, I think.
I'm soooo glad you made this video!
As a fan of Zoe's, I must admit that i was quite mad about her lying about the ghostwriting in the book, but i was more mad when she still didn't admit it AND still thinks that all of us would know that she "wrote" the book on her own, she could've at least made a video about it expressing her opinion about this stuff -that would be fine, and it would fix a lot of things- but she didn't ... she lied and is STILL lying about it. honestly, if only the ghostwriter had his/her name or at least an acknowledgement about his/her writing in the book then none of this would've happened, if only Zoe didn't lie then none of this would've happened. it's all about "If only" 's in this situation.
OH also i had to add: people hating on zoe and her ghost writer or ghostwriting in general NEED TO READ the blog post written by Girl Online's ghostwriter. you can find it on goodreads. it highlights a lot of positives about the situation and other things you can't deny are either positive/not zoe's fault. but the bottom line is still that zoe deceived (practically) the whole world into believing she wrote the book.
I watch her occasionally, but don't follow her enough to have heard about this until this video. Wow. I don't have a problem with youtubers (or other well known people in society) using their popularity to sell things, but it bothers me when they use it to sell lies. I also occasionally watch the videos of some of the people she regularly hangs out with and several of them have mentioned how hard she worked and how much time she spent on the book and things like that, but that can't be completely true if she had a ghostwriter. I mean she may have done work, but not nearly as much as people have alluded to if she had someone working with her. There's nothing wrong with using a ghostwriter if you really need the help and there's nothing wrong with admitting it. In fact, it should be admitted, the "author" should be honest with herself and with people who are spending money on the product. The people have a right to know. So if she's even getting her friends to lie for her to make money off a product she wants people to think she created by herself, that's a big issue for me. I may need to stop watching these people.
What annoys me is how there are people out there with actual talent and skill that could work for years on a book which is turned down by publishers. Zoe will have done next to no work compared to the grafting of a normal author, and her book (or rather the one she would have written by herself) will be not as good as some books that get turned down.
haha thank you for filming this. It pissed me off so bad, I don't mind if its ghostwritten, as long as its credited.
I love this video, Ariel!!!
My biggest problem with ghostwriting is the fact that one person does all the work and the other gets credit. That sure sounds a lot like plagiarism, except backward. I get that the idea was hers but for me to call it Zoe's book would be a lie because it was someone else getting credit. Of course, even if they put the ghostwriter's name with Zoe's, no one would pay any attention to it.
It makes me uncomfortable because it's a lie, they're not giving the ghostwriter any accreditation like you usually see (eg. that Hilary Duff book and also any James Patterson novel) and so therefore it's a deceiving fabrication of the truth.
For me, it hasn't got anything to do with the fact she's a CZcamsr, each to there own, she's not a bad role model and if her fans are willing to buy her book then fine, no problem. But it still doesn't resolve the fact she isn't the writer.
About your third point- novels are never just down to independent genius even the classics, an author has an editor and their significance cannot be underestimated. Author's come up with the plot and characters (like Zoella claims she did) but they also...WROTE the damn thing. It's a skill to write a flowing narrative, in fact it is THE skill of novel-writing. All she's done is repackaged her own life into some unimaginative story and reaped the financial benefits of misinformed fans.
First of all, I love Zoe and I will continue to watch her videos. When I first heard about this, though, I was pretty upset because it did feel like there was a lack of transparency. If she had at least given credit like HD did, then it would have been fine. I still think this, but I think the main culprit is the new CZcams society. These people gained SO much popularity and became Starr's in their own right almost overnight. They have a TON of things going on that they are all expected to do now. A lot of CZcamsrs are now doing books, and I feel like there is the pressure of doing what everyone else is doing to stay relevant and popular. This is how they make their living, and I blame the CZcams society I think more than Zoe for because of all this added pressure. If it were an A-list celeb, this wouldn't be so much of an issue now would it?
On point as always. When you move to Birmingham, do you think you'll do a meet up in Scotland at some point? And on that note, Scotland is amazing, and you should do a meet up in Scotland :p
i don't mind the fact she used a ghost writer to help her write the book i just hate the fact she didn't say from the start that she did have help with writing the book because it's not fair on them. It makes us feel that we can't trust her for not being honest from the start. I think it's also unfair on the people who genuinely want to become authors and write their own books.
I think that the difference between books and movies/music is that theres only ONE name on the cover for books. With music, bands require the members to work together to achieve the final product and with movies, the audience is usually aware that the process requires a huge team of people because there are credits at the end. But books have the author's name in giant letters on the cover and if the audience finds out that most of the work was not done by the author, it feels like the credit terribly misplaced.
I was going to buy Zoella's book, but I am not. I do not feel like I should pay, and give her money, for something she did not do. If I had the certainty that most of the money would go to the writer (who should not be ghost) I might consider buying it.
One thing also is zoella signed a contract,
Most of the time it's the publishers plan of what happened with names and etc.. What if zoella as part of her contract was told that she couldn't say things in her videos or that the ending decision was to not put the other writer on the cover.
We don't know all the facts... And those angry about the fact that she can get a book published with not writing it herself. I understand but why just blame one person... Who really is just the brand image...
I actually disagree. We accept books as not too personal and many people don't even look at the author's name. It is a product. However a youtuber is a friend; people aren't buying this book because it looks like an interesting product, but because they love Zoella. Zoella has created a massive platform of people who intensely care about her, as a person, not about what she's producing, therefore even if they enjoy the book, they still feel cheated when they find out it's a ghostwriter because the fact Zoella wrote it was the only reason they care.
This is a pretty complex issue. One thing I think it is necessary to bring up is that books are very seldom the work of just one mind. Even independent writers get help editing, or just bounce ideas off of. Covers are almost always the work of other people. For big publishers, there are usually editors that have to add in their own two cents, especially with newer writers. I may do my own video on this in the near future.
THANK YOU, really, for finally saying out loud what a lot of people (and fellow BookTubers) are thinking in the back of our heads with this Zoella-nightmare. I don't mind a book being written by multiple authors, but lying about the fact that you're getting help, AND showing up at a promotional event, AND making a hell of a lot money over it.... LYING to your subscribers about a book that you were helped to write (and with that I presume that she wrote at least 30% of the book, and I'm sure it's way less... why do I have this impression?). NO, I'm sorry Zoella, you make enough money with your CZcams videos and your 5M subs. Don't LIE to make more. Be honest at least. Ugh, this is driving me nuts. And on top of it, I don't know about the English speaking BookTube community, but I recently found out that some very famous French BookTubers are going to review it, for real? Hello?!... I'm a French BookTuber myself (sorry if there are potentiallysome English mistakes in my comment) but I think that there are so many great books out there, that we will never in our entire life have the time to read... and even books written by many authors, but who are honest about their work... that makes me sad...
when you were talking about a author taking a typewriter to a cabin surrounded by nature it reminded me of the movie 'Love actually' lol
Ariel,
Here are my thoughts about ghost-writing.
I’ll begin with a little disclaimer so everything is clear. I do not know anything about neither Zoella nor her book so I’ll just try to give my opinion about ghost-writing in general. Now, I would like to apologize in advance for two things:
First, english isn’t my native language so the quality of my written english might be awful.
And second, I mostly know about french litterature so most of my examples will come from it.
To begin with, I think you’re right when you say that one the reason of why people dislike ghost-writing is that they don’t like to be fooled. Personnally, I don’t mind reading a ghost-written book, what bothers me is to give credit to the wrong person. What I mean is that a masterpiece will stay a masterpiece, ghost-written or not, but you have to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”.
Let me give an example to illustrate of I feel about that. Emile Ajar wrote 4 books, one of which won the famous “Prix Goncourt” (a famous french litterature prize). We later found out that these books were written by the famous french novelist Romain Gary, when before commiting suicide, he sent a manuscript to his editor revealing the trick. The person that was known to be Emile Ajar was in fact Romain Gary’s little cousin, who played the role he was asked to play. I don’t know how people felt about that at the time, but I just find this anecdote funny, and that only make me love Romain Gary and his books even more. I don’t think I would have even been upset with the guy claiming to be Emile Ajar at the time, he just played the role Romain Gary asked him to play.
But I guess the situation is very different here. The person claiming to be Emile Ajar was not a famous person. And I don’t know what is the context of this ghost-writing: Is it by the will of the real author that the book publish under Zoella’s name ? Is it because it is a pure marketing product ? Is it because it was not good enough to be selled without being associated with the image of a famous person ?
I guess depending on the situation I could be upset.
Now, about your second point, I have to say I disagree with that. I’m not really sure to understand what you mean by the “celebrities culture”, but I don’t think that the “fake author” being a celebrity would change my opinion on the book, the “fake author”, or the author.
About your last point. I agree that if a book was written by different people, it would change my perception of it, I would maybe think of it as a marketing product. However, I will give it a try and here is why: there is examples of four-handed book, that are recognized as very good litterature, and art (like Goncourt brothers’ books, two french novelists who used to write together). So I don’t think four-handed writing or x-handed writing is a problem as long as it is honest.
With all of that said, I AM uncomfortable with ghost-writing because I very often decide to read a book because of the author. In fact, I mainly decide to read a book because I already know the author, or because I know the story of the author or the story of how the book was written and it made me want to read the book. To take the example of an author you seems to like: if tomorrow I decide to read a George Orwell’s book, it will be because I read “1984” and “Animal farm” and I loved them, and I would like to find what he put of himself on those books in the book I decide to read.
I guess you could argue that if an “author” use the same ghost-writer for all of his books, I should be pleased, and you would be right in a sense I suppose, that’s pretty much what happened with “Emile Ajar”.
So I guess what bothers me with ghost-writing is that the real author doesn’t get the credit for his work, which didn’t really happened.
Well, I think that sums up what I think about ghost writing. I hope you didn’t fall asleep reading that wall of text ^^'.
No I really disagree with the last point. Books being co-written is not a problem at all - its just that fact that she could have credited the "ghost-writer" but the fact that she portrayed it to be solely her own book - that was the issue for me.
I remembering finding out that James Patterson had ghost writers in Maximum Ride. It made me upset because a) it felt like a COMPLETE LIE and b) the books spiralled into hell
I think the biggest reason people feel cheated is because the main selling point of the book was that it was written by Zoella. So if she didn't write it, the whole reason many people bought the book is a lie.
I agree with most of the things you said!
I appreciate books so much when they're only written by one person, because you know they poured their heart out into writing it and thought it through and through from beginning to end. Books like Harry Potter and Cassie Clare's shadowhunter chronicles, you can appreciate because its a demonstration of how unique one's mind can be. With ghostwriting, the book has already lost its magic even if it is really good.
I think you hit the nail on the head, Ariel. Look, here is what I think if it was Zoella's characters and Zoella's ideas, great. But the bottom line is if it is not YOUR words, it is not YOUR book.
I think when I think of ghost writers, I think of V.C. Andrews books because she has so many series and most of them were written by or finished by the ghost writer because she died of breast cancer awhile ago (like 1986) and books are still being released under her name on the books, which brings up the discussion of transparency, because it's her name on the book, but if you know anything about V.C. Andrews, you know its not her that wrote them.
I covered the topic of ghostwriting the day the news properly hit. Was so concerned people would give massive backlash, but it just paved way for a good discussion. I don't like dishonesty especially when it's something I really like :/
I feel that we get more disappointed with CZcamsrs ghost writing compared to normal celebrities because since we've seen their videos, we know them on a more personal level than a regular celebrity, so we feel like since we have this deeper connection, that the CZcamsr owes us something.
What do you guys think of James Patterson, who mostly wrote detective novels and now adds his name to a bunch of kids / YA books? I know he credits the co-author, but it seems he should just have his own publishing house if all he seems to do now is add his name next to the books' author.
my issue with the whole Zoella thing is less about the ghostwriting and more about the rise of marginally famous celebrities using books as another marketing tool. example a: elle and blair fowler. these girls make beauty and lifestyle videos on youtube, and they're good at it. they're entertaining. but then they started writing books. and they're not good books; they're just another way of putting their name out there and building a brand.
to me, every book that gets published (because it's written by a celebrity) means that an actual GOOD book (that gets written by a normal person just trying to make it) doesn't get published. and that's not fair. I don't like that crappy literature is put out while possibly better literature isn't, just because someone with a youtube channel decided they wanted to dabble in book writing.
A couple of my favorite books/series were co-written by two authors. I hold no prejudice toward co-authored books. Or ghost written books. I do agree with you that transparency is the best course in these matters. This person should have been upfront about working with a ghostwriter and had she done so there probably wouldn't have been an uproar. Have a Merry Christmas and an excellent New Year!