Does it matter if I wrote this post or not? Or is it okay to have an idea, have the money to pay another writer to bash it out, and then sit back, make a few corrections and then finally place my name on it?

Recently I read about an author, well-loved, well-respected, who is doing just this. His age, he says will not allow him to write as he has in the past.

But….I have to qualify this post as I have not read any of this author’s books, nor am I a dedicated fan. Perhaps if I was a dedicated fan, I would be so desperate for anything from my beloved, that I would pay for his idea to be written by someone else. And he is getting a hefty sum, a 15 million pound contract for six books. Egads…what am I doing wrong?

I want to read something that the author has worked on, the actual creation, and by doing so I become part of the novel, part of that author’s psyche for just a while. I don’t want to read his idea filtered by another writer no matter how good the idea, or how good the other writers are.

Fans may be well aware that their author did not pen what they are reading and be okay with it, but what about the first time reader? The first book read of ( fill in the author’s name) and then find out, it was his idea, but not his actual writing?  There is something about this process that I find distasteful.  I want authenticity in the books I read. I may be old school and this Orwellian way of producing books may well be the way of  future publishing.

Will the publishers put on the cover, idea by famous best-selling author and written by….

Isn’t there a point when we have to be satisfied with what an author has produced and not demand more and more product? And it becomes product rather than art when it becomes produced to such demands. I am saddened when I can no longer read more from the writers that I love, but it makes their work already created all the more treasured. If this is the way of the future, I may have to remain silent and content with the musty books on my shelves, but at least I know they were written by the author. Anyway I desperately hope so….