Cover Credit Redux

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post, “How to Piss Off a Novelist.” As you can guess from the title, I wrote that post because I was mad. Anger can be a good thing, because it means you care about something. But anger also clouds your thinking (do I sound like Yoda now?), and that’s bad. I’m not really satisfied with what I said yesterday, so I want to correct a few things.

First of all, I was talking with someone yesterday about this issue of cover credit, and she brought up a good point. If an author knows up front that she won’t get her name on the cover, and is okay with that, what’s the harm in receiving compensation through money rather than name exposure? It’s her call. For all I know, Lynn Vincent was perfectly happy not getting her name on the cover of Going Rogue, the book she wrote for Sarah Palin. I mean, it still seems kind of crappy to me, but it’s not up to me; it’s a choice each author has to make for themselves.

The bigger issue with cover credit, then, is that if you’re a celebrity, putting your name (and only your name) on a cover implies that you (and only you) wrote it, which isn’t true. To whatever extent you represent yourself as the author of the book, you are being dishonest. Some people look at a celebrity book and assume there was a ghostwriter, but many, many people don’t make that connection. You’re more or less lying to all those people.

The deeper problem, as I said yesterday, is a lack of respect for the writer’s work, a failure to recognize that the service writers provide – turning your hazy notions into a coherent, concrete product – is nontrivial and powerful. Having an idea isn’t writing; it isn’t even almost writing. Only writing is writing.

Something else about yesterday’s post. When talking about Snooki, Kardashians, & co., I did what nearly all intellectual-wannabes do: I got snarky. I threw out a bunch of smug sarcasm, like, look how much better I am than them. This is the same thing English professors do when they talk about Twilight and Harry Potter and even The Lord of the Rings, and frankly, it’s bullshit. Reading more books than somebody else (or reading more “literary” books) doesn’t make you better than them; and even if it did, people are still people, and the world could do with a little more respect.

Hell, didn’t I just say on Thursday that my entire M.O. is to assume I’m way, way better at something than I really am, then keep failing till I succeed? If I had enough money and fame that my dreams actually did turn real on my first try, who’s to say I might not also be tempted to get something published on the strength of my name, rather than my writing? I mean, I hope I’d be better than that, but it’s hard to know.

So, for my attitude yesterday, I apologize.

(I do not apologize, however, for being mad about Snooki claiming she wrote the book herself. Because that is also bullshit.)

All right. New topic tomorrow, I promise!

Second pass revision progress on The Counterfeit Emperor: 95%!!