Harper Collins author 'fired' and another author will be writing under her name?

[Steerpike]

Read your contracts with your publisher before you sign. That's all I can say.

P A R A F A N T A S Y: This Is Utterly Ridiculous…I Can’t Even.

[Codey Amprim]

Wow. Anyone up for some head-hunting?

That's awful... Almost unimaginable. Of all things writers are encumbered by, the least they should have to worry about is losing the very thing they created. That's like ripping a part of your soul out, and saying it wasn't yours to begin with.

That poor author. I don't want to remotely imagine how she feels.

[Devor]

That's skeezy beyond belief.

I would like to know why she was fired. I've heard people say that her writing wasn't very good. But a ghostwriter writing her series under her name without her consent? That's just crap.

[Steerpike]

I can see the publisher continuing the series, particularly if it was IP they developed and brought her in to write, but continuing to publish under her name is way beyond the pale. If her publishing contract allowed it, I have to think she didn't read the contract very well and/or didn't have a competent agent to do it for her. Or maybe she agreed to it, thinking it would never come to pass. But there's no way an author should agree to such terms in my opinion.

[JCFarnham]

The main thing you need to realise is that she agreed to a "work for hire" contract. Its a common contract that means she never legally owned a single bit of the work. And technically its not Harper Collins firing her its the packager she signed the deal with. As mentioned by someone on that blog the Work for hire is the same kind of deal that all those authors who write Star Trek books for Paramount.

Its lame, and I hope fans of LJs series' don't bother with buying any new books that appear out of thin air and support her intellectual property. But should Harper Collins be the subject of a boycot? No. If she signed the "work for hire" with a Packager then they shouldn't have anything to do with what happened to her.

The moral of the story. Know what you're agreeing to.

Support her by all means, but she did sign the shoddy deal ...

[Devor]

As mentioned by someone on that blog the Work for hire is the same kind of deal that all those authors who write Star Trek books for Paramount.

I almost asked if that might be the case, but I don't know anything about the series. Still, it's a ghostwriter, writing under her name. Are her picture and biography going to be in the back of the book? Is it at least a Pen Name?

[Sparkie]

That's skeezy beyond belief.

I would like to know why she was fired. I've heard people say that her writing wasn't very good. But a ghostwriter writing her series under her name without her consent? That's just crap.

If I remember correctly, I think she stopped writing (or at least submitting her work) for about ten years. A hiatus that long might make a publisher think twice about using her work. I'm not trying to justify this sort of thing, but writers have a responsibility to continue writing.

[Steerpike]

From looking into it further, it looks like the books are only going to say "Created by ...." and then have the original authors name. It doesn't look like they'll necessarily be trying to pass off the ghostwriter's work as that of the original author. If they did that, I think there is a problem. Otherwise, this is just an example of bad judgment in entering into the publishing contract, since she apparent didn't know what she was doing.

Never sign a publishing contract unless you are sure what you are signing.

[JCFarnham]

From looking into it further, it looks like the books are only going to say "Created by ...." and then have the original authors name. It doesn't look like they'll necessarily be trying to pass off the ghostwriter's work as that of the original author. If they did that, I think there is a problem. Otherwise, this is just an example of bad judgment in entering into the publishing contract, since she apparent didn't know what she was doing.

Never sign a publishing contract unless you are sure what you are signing.

Exactly that. The Publisher and who she signed the deal with won't be claiming its her writing (after all that would get their businesses shut down fairly quickly if enough people mentioned it... maybe...), but as they legally own the setting, the premise, everything to do with all her books series so far then you know.

I guess it's nice that they're acknowledging that she created it. That's a good thing right.

Shame about author error really

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Sounds unpleasant, but here's a quote from Smith's letter, quoted by the blog post:

Although I didn’t even understand what “for hire” meant back in 1990, when I agreed to write books for them, I found out eventually, to my horror and dismay. It means that even though I have written the entire series, I don’t own anything about The Vampire Diaries.

She didn't understand what "for hire" meant but signed a contract agreeing to work for hire? I really don't have a lot of sympathy, in this case. "Work for hire" wasn't exactly an obscure term even back in 1990; two seconds of research (even pre-internet) would have told her what she needed to know.