Thursday, February 14, 2008
Ghostwriting practices. Who Should?
I would like to comment today on current presidents and their use or disuse of ghostwriting tactics. Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream was not a ghostwritten book but rather a book written by Obama himself. Hillary Clinton (Hill-dog) was written by ghostwriters, who received about 6 % of her total profits and royalties. How about ghostwritten speeches? Do presidents write their own speeches? What category would these forms of authorship fall in? Are they effective or should presidents write their own speeches? Personally, high effective leaders in any profession value their time. Taking time to write a book or their speech would dramatically decrease their effectiveness, unless they have time. Thus, I argue that these types of people, with their ghostwriting authors, should not be criticized for their practices. Many examples include Bush, John Maxwell, Donald Trump and many other high effective leaders. My grandpa wrote a book I Can See Clearly Now, but he wasn’t expecting it to be on the best sellers list, so he included the author of his book in bigger letters than his name. However, economics would say for many famous people that putting their name without the ghostwriter would dramatically increase their sales. I was relatively oblivious to how widespread these practices were until now. For example now I know that the Britney Spears mom’s book about parenting probably was not written by her. So who should be criticized for their ghostwriting practices and who shouldn’t (or maybe not allowed).
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3 comments:
I feel about ghostwriting the same way I feel about organic foods. There are advantages and disadvantages to both types, but as long as they're clearly labled and the consumer is fully aware of the product they're buying, I have no problem with either. Ghostwriting is the same. I think there should be some kind of rule/law/something of the sort that ensures that ghostwritten books are clearly labled to ensure the reader completely understands the circumstances with which the book came to be written.
Hahaha, I like your example Amy! I also feel the same way. When the consumer knows what he or she is buying, they are less likely to be disappointed in the end.
I agree that ghostwritten books should be clearly labeled so that the consumer knows what they are getting, but I also do not feel that this is always economical. Like Scott mentioned effective leaders do not always have the time to write their speeches or their books, but that does not mean that the ideas are not all theirs. Ghostwriters should receive recognition but the amount of recognition must be related to the project that they were assigned to do. In terms of a presidential speech, it would be difficult and bad for approval to give credit to someone at the end of the speech, but in the case of books, ghostwriters should be listed clearly.
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