Saturday, February 9, 2013

Ghost Writers on the Sly

I recently heard the old cowboy song, Ghost Riders in the Sky and it made me think of ghost writers.

They hurry to the store to buy a famous person's book.
They can't know he didn't write it even if they take a look
At the byline, 'cause it doesn't even have a "with" or "and"
To show it actually was done by someone else's hand.

Yippie yi Ohhhh
Yippie yi yaaay
Ghost writers on the sly.

Since I'm a writer myself I understand the need to bring in some income, but I think ghost writing without any attribution for the actual author is dishonest. Publishing houses make the ghost writers sign contracts that they'll never let anyone know they actually wrote things attributed to famous people. Some books by famous people indicate in small print that they were written with someone else and I doubt very much that reduces the sales. But, in my humble opinion, ghost writing without attribution is just, plain dishonest.

What do you think about this?

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