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.
P A R A F A N T A S Y: This Is Utterly Ridiculous…I Can’t Even.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The blog makes it sound as though she wrote it and ended up for hire.
"I even had the last book in that trilogy plotted out, where Stefan’s worst nightmare comes true and he takes so much blood from Elena that she has to be taken to the hospital for a massive transfusion. He then decides to Influence Elena so that she will forget his existence, and he does so, to Damon and Bonnie and Meredith’s consternation. I wanted to show how this affected each one of the characters, and how Bonnie once again begins to write in her diary, since Elena’s diary is also forgotten, along with Stefan. I like to write things from Bonnie’s point of view, as I did in Dark Reunion. But none of these things will happen, because I won’t be around to write it."