Does it matter if you don’t write your own book?
Last December Kerry Katona admitted on “Friday Night with Jonathan Ross” that she didn’t 
actually write her first novel, Tough Love. Good heavens, an author who didn’t write her own book, who ever heard of such a thing? Well, Penguin actually. Remember Swan, Naomi Campbell’s disastrous foray into fiction, ten years ago now?
However, according to The Bookseller, times have changed and “the trade has been forced to lay
aside - genuinely or otherwise - any notions of snobbery when faced with the success of Jordan, aka Katie Price. Total sales of her three autobiographies top 1.3m copies; her debut novel Angel has sold 246,082 copies to date; and her second, Crystal, has topped that with 275,211 sold since publication last summer.”
Century, Jordan’s publishers, believe her success is because the stories seem authentic to the reader and reflect life back to British women in a way that chick lit has largely ceased to do. “Chick lit was fresh and funny when it started, but now some of it is a bit mannered and precious. It doesn’t reflect back to people who buy books in supermarkets the reality of their lives.” says Century publishing director, Mark Booth. Cue Random House stablemate Ebury, which was quick to capitalise on the apparent gap in the market with its own tabloid babe, Kerry Katona. Her Tough Love has sold more than 28,000 copies to date. Not too bad, but it’s a far cry from Jordan’s success and of course she didn’t write it herself. Hannah MacDonald, Ebury senior publishing director says, a trifle defensively: “Kerry’s an honest woman - she’s dyslexic, of course she didn’t write them (the novel and the autobiography).” So, you can be a writer but you don’t have to write your own book; a bit like Damien Hirst, really, a so-called sculptor who gets other people to carry out his designs. Macdonald adds: ‘Writing can be a very collaborative process.”
Yes, but. Booth, Jordan’s publisher, says: ” People say (Price) doesn’t really write them - I don’t see what the fuss is. It’s no different to the way the recordings of The Monkees were put together.” But it is different. The public buy into the idea that the writer is the creator of the book; we all know that films and music are put together in a different way; that is why in this literary country writing is regarded as special!
Do the public who buy Price’s books realize that most celebrity fiction (including hers) is ghost-written? I wonder. And for all their editors’ evasions and excuses, it’s about branding: Price is a brand and if she puts out a novel, rather like the last novel that sold so well, then it’s almost a sure hit and the bottom line is secure.