Gredunza Press

What?

Books are a sales tool. They’re propaganda.

And they’re fake. A lie. So many are just simply not written by the people the publisher tells you they are written by. Somebody should sue.

First off, I love that Michael Wolff is talking about ghostwritten or co-written memoirs being the worst thing ever while a floating Sarah Palin ad encroaches on the article to the right. Secondly, dude is crazy.

This really isn’t quibbling. We have created a giant system of national agitprop, in which books and the book business have become one of the most effective tools. Literate people should boycott books. 

Let me repeat that. He says that literate people should boycott books. Well, who would buy books? The illiterate? That's just silly. 

Ghostwriting and co-writing has been a mainstay in celebrity publishing forever. Here's the business plan: Sarah Palin wants to put out a book. A publisher knows this book will sell a ton of copies. But Sarah Palin is not a great writer, so the publisher brings in someone (Lynn Vincent) to write it for her, because she is a qualified writer (at least, according to the publisher). This sort of thing happens all the time, and has been happening for many, many years. This isn't a bad thing. This isn't a good thing. It's just a thing. Celebrity memoirs are generally ghostwritten, because celebrities are generally bad authors. People get this. People accept this. People do not buy celebrity memoirs for the prose. 

I'm pretty sure Linden MacIntyre is still writing his own books. I'm pretty sure Jeremy Lethem is still writing his own books. James Patterson isn't writing all of his books, but that's another story. Let me know when the real authors of this world start hiring scabs. Then we can have the conversation about publishers being evil. Until then, give it a rest.