Celebrities Pretending to be Writers!

Okay so my bone I have to pick is with celebrities or TV reality stars pretending they are writers. Sure they can be called authors as their name is on the book but 99% of the time they didn’t contribute one sentence to the story. They had the idea and hired a ghostwriter.

Writer Definition: one who writes, esp. as an occupation; author.

Author Definition: 1. one who makes or creates something. 2. A writer of books, etc.

Ghostwriter Definition: one who writes books, articles, etc. for another who professes to be the author.

Collaboration Definition: 1. to work together, esp. in some literary or scientific undertaking.

Last year Kendall and Kylie Jenner were being interviewed about a novel they were releasing and it is being released now. They were asked if they had sat down in front of a computer together and wrote it or did different parts separately then came together to make it all blend together. They said no they don’t know about that kind of thing and writing books. They said they wrote down ideas and emailed them to the person they were collaborating with. I knew instantly that meant a ghostwriter, unless the name of the third person was on the book. Sure enough the name isn’t there so it was confirmed as a ghostwritten book.

Those Jenner girls really sounded like they believed it was a collaboration. They need to be told if the other person writes it for you and you give them only the idea and are the only names on the cover then that is a ghostwriter. I hope they are not so dumb to really think that they are writers and authors in the real sense of those words and I only hope they said it was a collaboration to hide the fact their mommy hired a ghostwriter.

I have not read the book and I don’t intend to. I don’t waist money on Kardashian / Jenner products. But I did look up critics reviews of the book by professionals and normal people who just happened to read it. 99% of the reviews were quite funny because they were saying how horrid it really was. Most said don’t waist your money or time on such horrible garbage. Indeed the book details seemed like they stole some story lines from Hunger Games, Twilight, City of Bones, Divergent, and a few other well known YA books out on the market.

Another thing is the title, and mind you I hate bringing attention to the book but if ya’ll googled them you would see the book title anyhow. It is called “Rebels: City of Indra: The story of Lex and Livia.” First off is anyone else thrown off by the long title? I mean it seems no one could decide on the title. Like one wanted Rebels, the other wanted City of Indra, and a third party suggested The Story of Lex and Livia. Like they should have chosen one or the other, like “Rebels: City of Indra or City of Indra: The Story of Lex and Livia or Rebels: The Story of Lex and Livia or really any combination of no more than two of those.” I just can’t believe the publishers didn’t change it or say something about the title, I mean were they just so desperate to just have the Kardashian / Jenner name associated with their publishing company they didn’t care what the title or anything else was.

Also how obvious they are making what the story is about in the title, like trying too hard and seeming like if they don’t tell us what the story is about in the title then we won’t pick it up.

Like we can see from the title that it is about Rebels in the City of Indra and that Lex and Livia are the characters the story is about and perhaps they are rebels or know rebels and live in the city of Indra. Most people that read books no matter what age are not dumb so I think you don’t need to be so literal with the title. If you keep it interesting and explained somewhere in the story people will read to determine what the title has to do with the story, or at least I do that.

Example from Last Novel I read: “Malice in Miniature” by Jeanne M. Dams. It intrigued me and made me open it. It was about an amateur sleuth who investigates a double murder at a museum that houses miniature doll houses. So the story tied in nicely with the title but wasn’t overly obvious like, “Murder: Brocklesby Hall: Dorothy Martin.” LOL!

I sometimes tend to title my stories with my characters names played within the title. Sometimes it can be cheesy but most times I am better at it. Example: Harmony’s Destiny, Jousting for Honor, and The Price of Mercy… only Harmony’s Destiny has been written to date, the others are on my to be written list but probably only The Price of Mercy will be written. Most times the character’s name is not in the title, I have moved past that, LOL.

Of course maybe I am being too hard on Kendall and Kylie Jenner, I am just so mad at celebrities and TV reality stars that get ghostwriters to write for them and then call themselves authors. I have tried for years to get published with manuscripts I wrote but can’t get published because I am no celebrity with a name that will sell.

Lastly the names Lex and Livia. For some reason the names are throwing me off. I mean I like Lex, I assume it is a shortening of Alexandra or Alexandria, again haven’t read story so not sure. As for Livia, I am assuming it is a nickname for Olivia. I like as I said Lex and Livia separately but together the names don’t mesh well to me. I would rather see Lex and Liv, two three letter names rather than a shorter Lex and a longer Livia.

Plus I keep stumbling over saying Livia for some reason because if it is indeed a nickname of Olivia I prefer Liv as the nickname because I hear it a lot on Law & Order: SVU as Detective/ Sergeant Olivia “Liv” Benson. Plus Liv is the more preferred and used nickname for Olivia.

Anyway Lex and Livia are fine but I keep stumbling over it and I don’t like them together at all.

Okay so I am sorry if someone who reads this likes the book by Kendall and Kylie Jenner and gets mad at me. These are just my thoughts and assessments but I haven’t read the book and don’t intend to, so I can’t really judge but by what I have read and what limited information I have.

Have a Great Day! Happy Reading! Happy Writing!


EDIT June 13, 2015:
 

Okay so I had read comments about this book where people said they thought maybe people were being harsh and exaggerating the badness of this book so they read it only to prove it wasn’t very good indeed.

Well I vowed after writing the original post that I would pick the book up and read the first few pages which I usually do to see if a book interests me. I thought too maybe people were just you know exaggerating or hating and to be honest on my post I said I didn’t read it and never would but curiosity got the best of me, lol!

So a few days ago while at the local Books-A-Million with my mom I decided to try and find the book while I was in the Teen Books section. Since I write Young Adult Novels I like to see what is new and fresh and occasionally love to read some.

Usually when I see a book I read the first page to get a view of if it will draw me in. Since I am dead broke right now books are a luxury so I don’t buy even the ones I love, instead I put them on my To Read in the Future list, which I will admit is growing longer by the Day, Week, Month and Year, lol!

Okay so I assumed when looking for the book that there would be more than one and it would be easy to find even it has been out for a year now. I looked and looked and finally found it, they had only one copy there on the self.

So I picked it up and while standing there I flipped to the Prologue and began to read. I honestly expected it to surprise me and be good and make me want to read more. About one paragraph in I didn’t care why the character was digging to the surface of earth that they didn’t think people survived, or I think so as I kind of skimmed. So I thought maybe it is one of those Prologues that are kind of boring, though I admit I love a Prologue in books and heck I write seriously long Prologues for my novels but some Prologues can be boring so I skipped to the first chapter.

So the first page annoyed me. The writing was flat and just boring. Some words didn’t make sense or were spelled wrong and a few paragraphs should have been two paragraphs instead of one, they were way too long. Plus there was an area that had way too many and’s repeated. I can’t remember the words used but it was like this:

First part of sentence then Word and Word and Word and Word. – Didn’t look right to me, there should have been commas instead of ands. I just put in Word in place of the actual words I can’t remember, lol! Sorry it’s been a few days and I forgot!

I would have written something like this though much more polished lol! This is just my example not taken from novel- The heart of the dwindling fire mesmerized her senses as she watched enthralled by the smoke, ashes, embers, and the crackling logs.

Okay so I skimmed to the next page and couldn’t be bothered to care as the feel of the words didn’t feel right. You would think with the publishing house, editors, and ghostwriters they had that the book would be engaging, well written, and well edited but it didn’t feel that way. So I skipped to the end page and was like oh great there probably will be a sequel as others said.

I put the book down and went onto other books as I wanted to browse more engaging novels before my mom finished and was sure to ask if I was finished as I can be a lengthy browser at book stores. I can literarily spend hours browsing and occasionally buying, lol!

The cover wasn’t impressive, the story theme is over done, the wording was mediocre, there were grammatical errors, and it just wasn’t something that made me want to read more.

I really did go into it wanting to give it a chance but I didn’t care for what I read at all. I am sure maybe someone else may like it but I didn’t care enough to read more or put it on my To Be Read in the Future list.