Today’s Post by Joe Farace
A ghostwriter is a person who is hired to write literary or journalistic works that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives and especially politicians often hire ghostwriters to write, draft or edit autobiographies, memoirs, magazine articles….—excerpted from Wikipedia
It may not surprise anyone that, other than the two books I co-authored with Barry Staver, I was the sole writer of all of my other published thirty-five volumes. What might be a surprise is that your favorite photographer’s books may not have be written by them but by a ghost writer. How do I know this? Several times in the past publishers I’d worked with before and who liked my work asked me to ghost write books for some famous or Internet-famous photographers. I was usually told the publishers would supply me with photos and I would write the text around them. These publishers all received the same answer from me: I’ll be glad to do it IF my name would also appear on the cover, even tiny, along with text such as “with Joe Farace” or “as told to Joe Farace” or some such verbiage. In every cases they declined my offer so I said NO, even though the money they offered was often more than what I was getting paid to write my own books. And they never would tell me the name of these photographers until after I signed a contract, which probably included an NDA. Otherwise I would spill the beans on who the attributed authors would be right now…
Used Book Update: I ordered two used books from Amazon and they were delivered to me in beautiful condition. They looked new enough to be remainder books. Remaindered books or remainders are books that are no longer selling well and whose unsold copies are liquidated by the publisher at greatly educed prices. Most times the only way they can be told from new is that there’s a smallish ink spot on the bottom of the page’s edges.This is a good deal for a book buyer but not so much for the writers since remaindered books are sold cheaply, vastly reducing any possible royalties. Publishers rarely give the author a chance to buy remaindered books at that same reduced price. This only happened to me with one book, Plug-in Smart, where I was able to buy a case of books cheaply from the publisher and sell them, signed, at prices that were less than Amazon. Just one of the many reasons I loved working with Rockport Publishers when they were US-owned. Typically photo book publishers sell copies of their own books to their own authors at a price not much different than what Amazon charges and you might get free shipping from Amazon but not from the publisher. Go figure…
My Current Books, some thoughts…
The last book I read was The Will to Kill by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins. It’s a Mike Hammer mystery with maybe a different spin. Some reviewers have called this book Agatha Christie meets Mickey Spillane (I would love to be at that meeting) because its setting is a big fancy mansion in the country. It’s inhabited by a bunch of rich weirdos, some of which end up dead. The book’s actual content reads more like a typical hard boiled detective novel and if that’s a genre you like and appreciate you will love The Will to Kill. It’s got a tough-as-nails PI, terrific wisecracking dialog and a twisty and twisted plot with a splash of the humor that either Spillane of Collins, it doesn’t matter which because you can’t tell where one starts and the other ends, has added to their more recent books.
Right now I am reading The Grey Man by Mark Greaney that’s number 46 in my list of “books read” for 2022. I’ll confess that these kind of spy thrillers are not my normal cup of Earl Grey. I used to love the Cold War thrillers written by John Le Carré and Bill Granger, who if I’m not mistaken had a character he wrote about called “The Grey Man,” but I haven’t read any Le Carré since The Tailor of Panama. I picked up a copy of The Grey Man at the library mainly because I saw the book was being made into a Netflix movie. (None of the scenes depicted in the movie trailer are in the book, so far.) I don’t have Netflix anymore but have been enjoying the book and I’m almost to the end. The protagonist seems as inventive as Jason Bourne but far more normal, if the hero of any thriller could be called normal. What I’ve enjoyed most about the book is that Greaney drops The Grey Man in all kinds of cliched situations but quickly turns their outcomes upside down from what you might expect. The book keeps you guessing and I have been enjoying the heck out of it.
My next book sitting on my nightstand is the true crime book American Demon by Daniel Stashower. But it’s the subtitle that got me to reserve if form the Library—Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America’s Jack the Ripper. It’s a combination much like the film The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot. (And yes that’s really a movie and I liked it; it received 75% on the Tomato Meter.) So what’s not to like about this book? Eliot Ness before The Untouchables hunting a serial killer in 1934 Cleveland. Can’t wait to read this one, which will be book #47.
PS. And if you like historical mysteries, please take a look at the Nathan Heller series written by Max Alan Collins. He takes on real historical cases and puts his spin along with deftly inserting his fictional protagonist. Collins did a two book series on the Kennedy Assassination—Target Lancer and Ask Not, Read them in order (the order I listed) for the most impact. I promise you will fall in love with Nathan Heller.
If you would like to send me any books to review or any other stuff that could be used for these posts and my videos you can mail it to: Joe Farace, PO BOX 2081, PARKER, CO 80134.
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Along with photographer Barry Staver, Joe is co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography with new copies are available from Amazon for $21.450 and used copies starting around six bucks.