Kaava Viswanathan....and her GhostWriter???

From Harvard Independent

"17th Street Productions, a subsidiary of Alloy Entertainment, is a "book packager." The Globe described 17th Street's job as "developing projects in young-adult and middle-grade fiction." In a March article, the Crimson said 17th Street "helped shape the work in progress into something that would be more easily marketable to young adults." But what does all this mean? What does 17th Street really do?

Rachel Plummer, an author in the young-adult genre who has worked with the company, offers a candid look at its operations on her personal web site. "Book packaging is a part of the publishing industry that is little known by people outside the industry," she says. "In some cases the packagers come up with series ideas on their own. In the case of Sweet Valley, the book packager, 17th Street Productions, contracts with the creator of the series, Francine Pascal, to come up with ideas for the many Sweet Valley books." That's right: the same firm that "packaged" Opal Mehta also churns out the well-known Sweet Valley series, which is written by a host of anonymous, work-for-hire scriveners, including Plummer. "Writers for hire are commissioned to write a specific piece of work and are paid for that work without receiving any rights to [it]," Plummer explains. "As a writer for hire, I'm pretty much told what the book packager wants me to do. In other words, I'm given a plot outline, and the characters and setting are already developed."

On the amateur-writer web site Absolute Write, Plummer expanded on this description.

Many of the middle grade and young adult series you see on your library and bookstore shelves are written by various writers hired to create a specific volume of the series. The book packager...offers a flat fee, a deadline (usually six weeks from the day the contract is signed in the case of the Sweet Valley Twins), and an outline of what has to happen in the story. For 17th Street Productions, once you sign the contract, the editor sends you a two-to-three page outline that relates the plot of the story and which characters are involved. The writer then creates a more in-depth chapter outline and returns it to the editor, who may require some changes, after which the writer completes the first draft. The first draft is edited for corrections and changes, and returned to the writer, who makes the required changes and sends it back to the editor.

However harsh a six-week deadline for the production of an entire novel may seem, Plummer notes that "having the pressure of a deadline really does amazing things for your work output." "

For the rest of the story go to Harvard's Independent or direct URL: http://www.harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9906