To ask if celebrities write their own books?

[MinkieCloth]

Do celebrities really write their own books? I'm not talking about a single autobiography or something like that. But I mean their own novels or series of books. Surely they must not have much downtime in between their packed schedules I see on Instagram and with their regular tv appearances and all the other things they do. People like Katie Price, Georgia Toffolo, I even wonder about David Williams sometimes. Do they have ghost writers they pitch their ideas to and then sit back and take the glory once it (often) hits the best sellers list. I even wonder if Mrs Hinch did hers. She's the only one I can think of that actually maybe has the time to do that

Richard osman definitely writes his. Surely
david walliams will do his as well?

I know Katie price never wrote a word of any of hers.

Katie Price does not. She has said that she comes up with the ideas while someone else ‘puts them into book words’. Sarah Ferguson does the same, while the actual writer of her book appears in small print. I’m pretty confident that’s the same for Georgia Toffolo.

On the other hand, Richard Osman, Fern Britton, Graham Norton - as far as I know, they write their own.

I do believe that David Williams actually writes his, but wondered if he had some help perhaps. But he does seem pretty genuine about them. And not so busy with trivial things as the others

Generally, no. Because it’s actually really difficult to write something readable. Richard Osman, I would guess, writes his but most celebrities will be given a team of ghost writers and editors to help. Many autobiographies are interviews that have been written up by someone else.

Williams co wrote Little Britain so it's not much of a stretch to believe he wrote his books too.
Their schedules are no more packed than normal working people, in fact they may have quite a bit of time between jobs. plus consider they may have quite a lot of suppprt employees.

I've wondered this. I'd love to write a novel but I'm conscious of the fact that I don't have any 'training' for want of a better word (a degree in a related subject, a creative writing ma etc) and I certainly can't afford to do that now.
Yet celebrities who are already talented in one area, are also talented in this area too. I'd love to ask Tom Fletcher (who my kids love) if he had any help or training or if he just bashed out the christmasaurus and it just happened to be fab.

So my other question is how is this able to happen? Firstly why would the celeb want to do this aside from the obvious reason of money? Do they not feel like major frauds? I can't imagine going on daytime tv to talk about the release of my new book and the details of it without having actually wrote it myself. I would also feel terrible for taking credit for someone else's work - obviously the author has been compensated, but why would anyone want to be a ghost writer and have someone else take all the glory? Do they get paid a decent amount? I would assume a set amount and then the celeb gets a portion of the sales? I just find the whole concept very bizarre.

I’ve done ghostwriting previously. You get a big range of approaches/mindsets, in reality.

Some write every word and I just have to do a quick edit. Some have vague scraps of half-written content, but know what they want and we work together to pull it into a coherent narrative. Some do it through interviews. Some want the whole thing done for them and to put their name on the finished product.

Some do and some don’t. The thing with comedians is that they have written a lot of their own material anyway so a book is not that different.

Richard Osman definitely wrote all his books and Stephen Fry does.

For things like autobiographies a lot are ghostwritten but novels are more usually written by the author. When Katie Price put out her ghostwritten novels it was very unusual but more people do it now.

I've often wondered this too. I heard that a few do have ghost writers , do they end up with a percentage of the takings as well or set fees?

Ghost writers are well paid and good writers, but know that in general their original work wouldn’t be likely to get published under their own names, as there are millions of unknowns out there trying to get noticed. They sort of get the best of both worlds by ghosting, with the celebrity name guaranteeing bestsellers, and then knowing it’s actually their work.

’Celebrities’ with little genuine talent, like reality stars, have a short shelf life because they don’t have skills they can employ to ensure the longevity of their careers, so will try to cash in in any way they can while they are still current. Having a book or two that is guaranteed to sell because their name is known right now is a good way to add to that income.

At the end of the day, all books are a team output. Writer, agent, editor, publisher, seller. No reason why these books should be any different.

Genuinely talented people like Richard Osman, for instance, who are professional creatives, often flourish in many areas of creativity, and they are a different kettle of fish entirely. Lots of comedians, for example, make good writers because that’s what they do for a living anyway. Publishing books rather than delivering stand up or scripts is just another way of getting their work out.

You can easily look this up online. Most openly use ghost writers and talk in detail about the process. Others are clearly described as being the writers of their work. It's rarely hidden.

If you want to know more about ghost writing as a career, then make a thread about it. Some might answer. There are also popular blogs out there where ghost writers talk about their careers.

I don't see what's bizarre about it. The celebs very rarely claim to have written the book themselves - they usually say 'I have a book out' or something but I don't think they're allowed to claim they wrote it if they didn't. Just celebs doing the usual banal celeb shit isn't it?

And no, I don't think they have feelings of guilt. Plenty of regular people self publish dreadful books through vanity presses - they just pay for printing and distribute it themselves, or self publish online for cheap, it doesn't mean it's any good nor will they earn much from it but they'll still claim to be published authors without any shame.

I think they think the ideas are the difficult bit and the words are the easy bit. So if they have an idea for a book with basics of character or setting or plot, that’s the equivalent of writing a book. Whereas any writer will tell you, ideas are ten a penny, and the words are like blood out of a stone.