YA Book Council discussion

What do you think about what James Frey is doing to young writes like the author of I am number four?

http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/...

Whoa. Sell your soul for $500? And be on a gag order? That's a really dumb deal. Frey can do whatever he wants; doesn't mean I agree with any of it or think he's right, but you have to admit that he's a smart scoundrel. In this case, Frey didn't lie about what he was doing or what sort of deal the writers were getting. Stupid of them to take the deal--but some writers are so desperate to be published that it doesn't matter. The most disturbing thing about this is how the credit and royalties are distributed. Not being able to talk about or even admit that they wrote it?!? Way to break the spirit. With James Patterson's collaborative novels, at least the writer gets their name on the book.

I think that it definitely sucks for the authors but they know what they are getting themselves into. This is not very different from the way that some artists work. For instance, Da Vinci and Michelangelo all had assistance that helped them prepare paint, set up scaffolding, and paint some of the figures in their frescoes. The "masters" would polish the drawings/paintings and complete the work. Yet we see this as masterpieces. I am not saying that these works will be masterpieces, but it is not that different to how this masters worked. What Frey has created is his own workshop that will do most of the work for him as he puts the finishing touches.
Some people will automatically jump on him because they think that he is a fraud, but he is a postmodern writer. In postmodernism there is no truth or rules. What I think is interesting is that the article mentions that even some established authors have signed on and at the moment he has about 28 writers participating in his workshop. As Janey mentioned, the author takes all of the risks while Frey reaps all of the rewards. What I like is that he makes it no secret that his objective is to be commercially successful. Authors and artists want to make money; if they didn't, they would only write for themselves and not publish anything. What Frey is saying is, bring me something that we can make money off of and how can we make money with other merchandising.

Wow I'm so out of the loop...

I like the comparison Alfonso made to the workshops of The Masters but I think Frey's mastery of anything but deception is in question. I Am Number Four was unreadable--even before my opinion was affected by knowing about the book's provenance.