2000 AD Online Forum

Desk Editor
Ref 2W148JO
Oxford based publisher Rebellion seeks an experienced Desk Editor for established line of genre fiction. The ideal candidate will have at least 2-3 years' experience of working in an editorial role, copy-editing and proof reading skills, an understanding of book production, an enthusiasm for the fields of science-fiction, fantasy and horror and will preferably be educated to degree level. To apply please send CV and covering letter, including details of your current salary, to vacancies@rebellion.co.uk (mailto:vacancies@rebellion.co.uk) quoting the job title and reference number.
 
Production Assistant
Ref 2W150JO
Oxford based publisher Rebellion seeks an eBook Production Assistant for 3 month contract role to turn our published genre fiction novels into online eBooks, involving use of InDesign to extract text, minor editing of script files and HTML files and resizing of graphics. You will need excellent proof reading skills, and take pride in producing accurate and neat work. InDesign experience is preferred but not essential if you are a quick learner, have basic technical ability and a genuine interest in furthering your production skills. To apply please send CV and covering letter, including details of your current salary, to vacancies@rebellion.co.uk quoting the job title and reference number.

Oh, I wish....

Aww, I ain't qualified for none of those

Surely anyone who posts on this board is automatically disqualified from employment by Rebellion...

Why? Because we are posting here when we should be working? Ridiculous.

I suspect I'm well-qualified for one of those, but I doubt they can afford me!  

- Trout

Quote from: "DavidXBrunt"Surely anyone who posts on this board is automatically disqualified from employment by Rebellion...

I bloody well hope that's not the case - otherwise that's all my dreams stuffed into a pillowcase and drowned in the nearest river...

Actually, if that was the case, why the hell would there be an advert here in the first place?

Quote from: "kevlev"Actually, if that was the case, why the hell would there be an advert here in the first place?

They are telling us to go away, or they shall taunt us a second time! </python>

Cheers

Jim

I don't think they can afford me either  

I doubt a desk editor for tooth can be colour blind anyway...

Quote from: "King Trout"I suspect I'm well-qualified for one of those, but I doubt they can afford me!  

- Trout

I suspect I'm NOT well-qualified for ANY of those, but I doubt they can afford ME!

I expect that they posted the Ads here because there is a possibility of finding someone who is qualified and who has an enthusiasm for genre fiction.

I can lie like an MP and bullshit on a CV like no other, but unfortunately for them I actually enjoy my job (at the moment). And they couldn't afford me. The cake bill alone would be astronomical.

besides, no doubt they would want the lucky b'stard to work in Oxford.  Appealing as the opportunity might be I know I couldn't afford that, even if they could afford me ( which they could easily! ).  

I can make tea.

Quote from: "updatatr0n"Desk Editor

I reckon I could manage that one, although my experience is entirely amateur and they'd never go for it.

More importantly, in my current role I get to cut up human body parts, and since not many people get to say that sort of thing it would be a shame to get a different job.

Regards

Robin

I'm pretty sure they could afford me - a good rummage down the back of the sofa should suffice. What is a 'desk editor'? is this effectively Tharg with a seat? Do you get a droid name on successful application - I could be 'Off-Button' or 'S-Stop playing bejewelled blitz on Facebook, you'll never beat Cosh, but his wrists are wrecked -bot'.

Do you think my 64 letters and three years of Lettersentertainyou would be enough? Who dares me to apply? Might get  'fuck off' on some nice headed paper!

Whats the difference between an editor and a Desk editor ?

Is the "desk editor" *the* editor or a subordinate to the editor who has an office instead of a desk ?

Is a desk editor a sub - editor ?

Got to be worth a punt, Buttonman!

double dare!

First draft...mmm, maybe to modest?


                                                                           
                                                                                                            29 June 2009
The Nerve Centre
2000ad
Oxford
                                                     Desk Editor Ref 2W148JO


Dear Sir / Madam,

I enclose my C.V and would be grateful if you would consider myself for this vacancy, which was listed on the 2000adonline website.

As you will note I have worked the majority of my career within the Insurance claims industry and whilst I appreciate that you may find this incongruous with your own business may I point out that both involve the assessment of works of fiction.

My own writing career has been prolific with my works appearing in Eagle, 2000ad and the Judge Dredd Megazine. Samples of my output can be found in Prog 1642 and Megazine 286 and my present salary consists of a Heroclix figure (broken) and a Judge Anderson graphic novel (bent at corner). My salary package is negotiable although I won't accept Tony Lee's post bag or 'Cronos Carnival' scripts by way of remuneration.

I also produce the select letters review journal 'LETTERSENTERTAINYOU' on a sporadic basis and it enjoys a healthy readership of seven. I do my own word processing although I do outsource the graphics to the cat. I can also produce art works of a high standard and regularly score a single honourable mention in the readers' art contests.

The job offered may be a slight restraint on my talents but with coaching I'm sure I can bring out the best in you. I own a full run of all Rebellion publications and frankly after 'Dead Meat' you owe me.

If it seals the deal, I have my own desk.

I await your chauffeured driven limo in due course.

Sincerely

Mr B Man

Genius! They should hire you on the spot!

Give the man a job!

They can afford me - I'm not getting paid at my current job.  Only been there less than a year, though.

Send it, Button - they love us in the 2000ad offices.
It'll really make someone's day.

Application sent - will keep you posted. Pray for me!

Quote from: "Buttonman"I do my own word processing although I do outsource the graphics to the cat.

First draft...mmm, maybe to modest?

And to whom do you outsource the proof reading?  


(on which note, I might observe that their chances of finding InDesign, HTML and graphics re-sizing skills and proof reading ability in the same droid for the Production Assistant job must be fairly slim! Sounds like two people to me. The Desk Editor job sounds easier.)

Just said I did it, didn't clam to be good at it!

Quote from: "House of Usher"(on which note, I might observe that their chances of finding InDesign, HTML and graphics re-sizing skills and proof reading ability in the same droid for the Production Assistant job must be fairly slim! Sounds like two people to me. The Desk Editor job sounds easier.)

Oddly enough, I probably could do it, but I also know that there's no way they're paying enough for me (and the missus) to relocate that far South. They interviewed me once before, many moons ago, and my research into property prices between first and second interviews was enough to make me glad I didn't make the cut for the second round!

Cheers

Jim

your hired.

I always do my own proofreasding but if i mis- spelling errors or poor grammer then i dont really think it matters that much.

B-Man is our last hope to stop the inevitable catastrophe that is Blood of Satanus 4: Fuck all y'all. Godspeed old friend, your task is too much of a burden for the best of men. But you are more than man. You are Buttonman.

QuoteOddly enough, I probably could do it, but I also know that there's no way they're paying enough for me (and the missus) to relocate that far South

Arse! Too slow for the edit!

After posting, I realized that my previous post makes it sound like I know for a fact that the positions pay peanuts. I know no such thing[/b]. There's good money in novels, probably more than comics, to be honest ... it's just that the difference between a 3-bed terrace here and a 3-bed terrace [/i]there[/i] is still ~£100K, or £500 a month on a regular 25yr repayment ... so they'd have to do £6K over my current earnings in order for me to stand still, and then I'd have to persuade the missus!

Nonetheless, I hope that some of our fine boarders DO apply. If any of you get one of these jobs, do come back and let us know, eh?

Cheers

Jim

ya best of luck to Buttonman and anyother boarder who applies.

Well do BUttman, its in the bag!


Personally I think Bolt should be given it without the whoha of interviews and all that gubbings  :D

so who exactly is moving on from Oxford or is it an GASP! staff increase?

Well, hang on thar, Buttonman.  I've looked up this Oxford place and it's not that far a commute at all from me - sixty minutes, tops.  I'm looking for new work right now anyway, so I reckon you've got competition for the position.  Is there a Waffle House near the Rebellion offices?  I'll be needin' my grits every mornin' before work.

(//http://pics.livejournal.com/hipsterdad/pic/002tx67p)

Quote from: "Buttonman"Might get  'fuck off' on some nice headed paper!

I've got some nice headed paper.

Ugh. Grits.  Never was there a more disappointing food experience.

"Quotey stuff:(on which note, I might observe that their chances of finding InDesign, HTML and graphics re-sizing skills and proof reading ability in the same droid for the Production Assistant job must be fairly slim! Sounds like two people to me. The Desk Editor job sounds easier.)"

I 'can' do all that, and what is worse I enjoy that sort of stuff- however I only have amateur experience and 17 years NHS pension built up.

What I would 'love' is an opportunity to spend a week in the nerve centre (The commute from the brum wastes wouldn't be too bad I think) to actually gain some experience of the reality of putting out the comic/books/collections. As I reckon that just sitting at my PC and talking rubbish with mates and hassling folks fer pretty pictures isn't really representative.

Ha, typing that I've just realised that I'd actually pay for that sort of experience.

Reckon you should give it a whirl, Bolt- you never know. What's the worst that can happen?

Yes, Bolt, it has to be worth a letter to Tharg. The stuff you put out is top-notch and surely Old Mossface knows all about it. I'd be willing to bet at least 20p that he'd be happy to show you around - even if only for an afternoon. Good PR for Twoothy (Tharg holds out helping hand to small press/Rebellion looks to the future, and suchlike) and invaluable experience for you (How to horsewhip writers properly/Demanding artwork with menaces in a subtle way).

What have you got to lose?

With all you do for the cause of Thrill-power Bolt, I'm sure that Tharg would be willing to let you into the nerve centre for a gander at least!

So have we worked out if its Jonathons Job thats up for grabs?

I commuted from Norfolk to the Nerve Centre but thats in the days when they had a staff house to use. Although since thats now gone and they've moved to new offices you may be lucky and be able to roll your sleeping bag out on to carpet.

Go for it, Bolt. Whisper it, but there are unofficial DC Thomson tours for comics pros - I've been bugging one prominent artist to take up the offer so I can tag along - and I can't think of anyone more worthy of a few hours in Tharg's mighty presence!

- Trout

Quote from: "the_legendary_shark"Yes, Bolt, it has to be worth a letter to Tharg. The stuff you put out is top-notch and surely Old Mossface knows all about it. I'd be willing to bet at least 20p that he'd be happy to show you around - even if only for an afternoon.

An afternoon?  You could comfortably see all of the Command Module in about 30 seconds, and there's really not that much to see, unless a bunch of people sitting at desks and working on PCs is an unusual sight in your life.

A bigger issue would be that the Command Module is in one corner of Rebellion's large open-plan studio, which is full of development teams working on super-secret games projects.  Guided tours and drop-in visits from outsiders definitely not encouraged in these kinds of environments.

Hell, the last time I was there, I was carefully kept away from one part of the studio because I wasn't allowed to know what was being done there, and I'm already working for them on one of their games.

Stop being so negative. I have 20p riding on this...

Quote from: "TordelBack"Ugh. Grits.  Never was there a more disappointing food experience.

I can vouch for that. Imagine porridge with the taste removed and gravel added.

Quote from: "garageman"I can make tea.

Cheers! milk two sugars, ta. Anyone else, while he's up?

As for the vacancies, I think that there are loads of jobs I could do if I was thrown in the deep end, but there just happen to be thousands of people out there who are actually qualified and experienced.
Bastards.

QuoteHell, the last time I was there, I was carefully kept away from one part of the studio because I wasn't allowed to know what was being done there[/quote

Could this be a Judge Dredd MMO? Or Grand Theft Dragon?

QuoteHell, the last time I was there, I was carefully kept away from one part of the studio because I wasn't allowed to know what was being done there

Could this be a Judge Dredd MMO? Or Grand Theft Dragon?

Quote from: "Jim_Campbell"... There's good money in novels...

Bwahahahaaaaaa!

Oh man, now that's funny!

-- Mike

Quote from: "Mike Carroll"

Quote from: "Jim_Campbell"... There's good money in novels...

Bwahahahaaaaaa!

Oh man, now that's funny!

-- Mike

Argh, you sod! Just as I was about to supplement my meagre income as a community education tutor by dashing off a couple you go and dampen my enthusiasm.

Sorry, Ush...

The truth is that 99.9% (at least) of novelists don't even earn the minimum wage from their books. I work between 60 to 80 hours a week, often more, and I'm still not earning as much as I would working a 35-hour week in McDonald's... And that's with fifteen published novels behind me!

But don't let that discourage you too much: you never know, your novels might hit the big time and really take off! Just, y'know, don't go spending the money until you actually have it!

Mike, impoverished author
Visit my website to learn more about my books, or even buy some. At the very least, click on my AdSense links so I can earn a few pennies! //http://www.iol.ie/~carrollm

Quote from: "Jim_Campbell"... There's good money in novels...

Only if it's chick-lit.

Quote from: "Mike Carroll"Bwahahahaaaaaa!

Oh man, now that's funny!

Mike ... I didn't say that there was good money writing novels. There was a very telling survey of US science fiction writers (//http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2005/10/05/author-advance-survey-version-20/) done a few years ago that should give pause to anyone thinking that they can make a living from writing novels (remember that those numbers, although from 2005, are in USD ... divide by 1.65 for a figure in Sterlng, True Believers!).

Publishing novels is a different story entirely. These things are relatively cheap to print and are certainly cheap to commission (not that I need to tell you that). Distribution -- actually getting the bloody things onto shelves -- is the real challenge for a new publisher, since shelf-space is finite but if you can crack that, then it's a fairly tidy little business model (with a nice VAT refund every year from HMRC to sweeten the deal).

Cheers

Jim

QuoteI work between 60 to 80 hours a week,

Perhaps some form of Speed Typing course would be in order?  

Anyway, that's novels. I plan to make my millions by writing comic scripts...

Quote from: "Tiplodocus"I plan to make my millions by writing comic scripts...

Step Three = Profit!

Cheers

Jim

Quote from: "GordonR"You could comfortably see all of the Command Module in about 30 seconds, and there's really not that much to see, unless a bunch of people sitting at desks and working on PCs is an unusual sight in your life.

So are the droids kept in the basement?  

Well of course. They need to be kept close to Mek-Quake at all times, so that the noise of his hrrrrrrggh Big Jobs keeps them motivated.  We wouldn't want another Space Girls incident, now would we?

Quote from: "Mike Carroll"Visit my website to learn more about my books, or even buy some. At the very least, click on my AdSense links so I can earn a few pennies! //http://www.iol.ie/~carrollm

Cheers, Mike. I enjoyed looking at your website. Some cool stuff there, and fantastic reviews too! You must be doing it right. I wish I had written as much (or indeed anything).

Quote from: "Mike Caroll"Impoversished author

Cheekily I ask: have you ever thought about getting a job?  

Quote from: "TordelBack"Well of course. They need to be kept close to Mek-Quake at all times, so that the noise of his hrrrrrrggh Big Jobs keeps them motivated.  We wouldn't want another Space Girls incident, now would we?

Very good points. I was having flashbacks to the whole "Santa murdered my dad and stole his shoes" incident and was getting nervous.

Ok seing as nobody has commented on this aspect of the story, does this mean that Abaddon Books are soon going to be available as eBooks?

Quote from: "House of Usher"Cheekily I ask: have you ever thought about getting a job?  

Oh, many times... But I always go and have a lie down until the feeling passes!

That said, I'm actually more than a little tempted by the Production Assistant at Rebellion job - I reckon I could do that, and three months wouldn't be too long a sojourn in Oxford... But would the job pay enough to cover living expenses?

It would be great if any applications from boarders received a rejection letter in the style of the weekly Prog reviews.

Dear The Cosh,

Qualifications: Oh dear, not this tedious pish again. When will it end?

Relevant experience: Even for a sci-fi comic this is too far fetched.

Achievements: It's a shame. Not bad, as such, but Wagner does this stuff so much better.

Hobbies and Interests: You keep sending it, but I don't even bother reading this any more.

Overall: Go and piss up a rope, fuckstick.

Love, Tharg.

Quote from: "Jim_Campbell"Mike ... I didn't say that there was good money writing novels.

I remember reading an interview with Neal Stephenson a while ago. He'd been invited to (and actually attended) some sort of book festival. Prior to appearing at a panel, one of the other delegates (no names were named, but the implication was that the majority were the sort of "literary" novelists who get full page write ups in the broadsheets and nominated for the Booker once at the age of 59) asked him what he did. His reply, naturally, was that he was a writer.

"Well, we're all writers" was the reply, "but what do you do for a living."

If you need a DROID REPAIR DROID, or Meq-quake needs some down time then i'm your man.

The Rose Hill and Blackbird Leys estates just outside Oxford are quite cheap if you dont mind high levels of crime related to Crack and Heroin and street crime and anti social behaviour.

Not had a reply yet and me being a black lesbian too. Anyone got Dave Stone's number?

I would imagine that several posters on this forum are very well qualified to do these jobs, and it would be aces if that was to happen.

Myself, well, not only do I have a  totally irrelvant chemistry degree and a CV largely spent in advertising and media, I also have never drawn, edited, or written *anything*, apart from copying the occasional frame from 2000AD when I was about 14 (quite well as it goes), and I would require a salary of c. £100,000 a year in order to keep my wife, children and absurd 2000ad habit in the habit to which they are accustomed.

Please do PM or e-mail if you are interested.

Quote from: "Mike Carroll"Sorry, Ush...

The truth is that 99.9% (at least) of novelists don't even earn the minimum wage from their books. I work between 60 to 80 hours a week, often more, and I'm still not earning as much as I would working a 35-hour week in McDonald's... And that's with fifteen published novels behind me!

But don't let that discourage you too much: you never know, your novels might hit the big time and really take off! Just, y'know, don't go spending the money until you actually have it!

Mike, impoverished author
Visit my website to learn more about my books, or even buy some. At the very least, click on my AdSense links so I can earn a few pennies! //http://www.iol.ie/~carrollm

I've always wanted to write a book, and think I've "got one in me" because I'm arrogant like that, but when you say so many novelists can't make a living, one has to wonder - if that is true, and I have no reason to disbelieve you -  how do useless cunts like Dan Brown and James Patterson earn a living via the literary drivel they churn out?

Is it marketing? Luck? Connections?

Obviously Patterson had a whole cadre of advertising and media chums to plug his shite via his old "day job", and he also had an expert insight on what "sells", but Christ almighty, his books are shite.

Quote from: "brendan1"I've always wanted to write a book, and think I've "got one in me" because I'm arrogant like that, but when you say so many novelists can't make a living, one has to wonder - if that is true, and I have no reason to disbelieve you -  how do useless cunts like Dan Brown and James Patterson earn a living via the literary drivel they churn out?

Is it marketing? Luck? Connections?

Obviously Patterson had a whole cadre of advertising and media chums to plug his shite via his old "day job", and he also had an expert insight on what "sells", but Christ almighty, his books are shite.

Well, Patterson and Brown are in the 0.1% who make a living because lots of people buy their books. That sounds like a glib answer, I know, but it really is as simple as that.

Now, as to WHY lots of people buy their books... That's a question that requires a somewhat longer answer. The truth is that the average reader doesn't devote much time to reading. I don't know the exact figures but I'd be surprised if the average person reads more than ten books a year. Books aren't a huge part of their lives - they just don't care all that much. So their primary criteria for choosing a book are recommendation by friends, brand recognition and market visibility... This last one is key: people pick the fruit of the best-seller tree and don't often forage any deeper.

So best-sellers are best-sellers because they're best-sellers! Gotta love that!

That part of it is all down to marketing: a successful book rarely has anything to do with the quality of the writing or the storytelling, because success is judged on sales and the sales are almost entirely the product of the skills of the publicity department.

In many cases the publishers decide in advance which books will be their best-sellers. To make a book a best-seller the publishers offer quantity-based discounts to the big bookstore chains (seventy or even eighty per cent isn't unheard of), and on top of that they buy prime shelf-space to ensure maximum visibility: those big window displays of the latest best-sellers in your local bookstore don't come cheap!

Sometimes a book will break through on its own, but this really only happens maybe once a year. The Da Vinci Code is a textbook example: its initial sales were about average, but somehow it caught the public imagination and people started talking about it. The publishers capitalised on this and started pushing it like crazy. Pretty soon everyone was buying it to see what the fuss was about.

It's possible for a publisher to deliberately ignite the public interest, but it's a very unpredictable science. One Big Name publisher (who shall remain nameless) recently paid a huge advance - seven figures in UK money - to a new author for a three-book contract, and they used that as the focus of their publicity campaign: "Look at how much money we're giving this author! That just shows you how much confidence we have in the books!" When the first book was published the author was interviewed dozens of times on prime-time TV, radio, top newspapers... The sort of blanket coverage of which every author dreams. Unfortunately, all the interviews focussed on the impressive advance and pretty much ignored the books.

The books themselves - while certainly not terrible - were nothing particularly special and sales were only slightly above average. So the bookstores were left with thousands of unsold hardbacks, which meant that when the second volume was published a lot of the bookstores didn't want to know. A friend of mine who's well-immersed in the book trade receives the UK's sales figures every week, and through those figures we were able to calculate that said publisher would have to sell the same amount of books more than three hundred times over just to recover their costs.

To break that down:
Let's say that the advance was £1,000,000 (it was actually quite a lot more than that, but let's keep things simple).
Let's say the hardback sells for £10 in the shops... Out of that, the author will receive a royalty of about 5% - 50p a copy.
£1,000,000 divided by 50p means that the publisher has to sell 2 million copies (of the three books in total, not of each book) to cover the advance.
However, since the publisher offered huge discounts to the distributors and bookstores, the author's royalty would be reduced. Let's say it's down to 3.5%. This means sales of 2,857,143 copies to break even.
But we haven't even added the costs of publicity yet... Advertising isn't cheap. We'll err on the side of thriftiness and give them a budget of £100,000... Now they have to sell 3,142,857 books, but a book that sells well but isn't a genuine best-seller might shift (in the UK) 30,000 copies over the course of its life.

One would be forgiven for wondering why on Earth the publisher shelled out so much to begin with: there's only about 60 million people in the UK and it would be madness to expect one person in every twenty to buy a copy. However, publishers can usually expect to recover a lot of their costs by licensing the book to other countries... But that'll only happen if the foreign publishers are interested, and they'll only be swayed by the number of copies sold, not the amount of money paid to the author.

Hmm... I know I had a point before I started all that!

Oh yeah, now I remember! People buy James Patterson and Dan Brown books because those are among the few books to which the people are exposed. They can't easily buy books that aren't on the shelves.

It's the same with comics, of course... 2000 AD used to sell a quarter of a million copies a week when it was prominently displayed in every newsagent. Now, well, you'd be hard-pressed to find a copy in a newsagent within a five-mile radius of my house (and I don't exactly live in the sticks). It's a matter of debate as to whether the comic doesn't sell because it's not being stocked, or it's not being stocked because it doesn't sell...

-- Mike
(We've kinda gone off-topic here. A bit.)

'Course being a writer has all sorts of non-financial benefits - like developing the ability to compose several pages of fascinating factual insight at 4.42am.

Quote from: "Mike Carroll"-- SNIP: A lot of fascinating stuff that I'm much indebted to Mike for typing --

It's a matter of debate as to whether the comic doesn't sell because it's not being stocked, or it's not being stocked because it doesn't sell...

An excellent point. I'm reminded of a very telling op/ed piece published in (I think) Speakeasy or something similar by one of the managers a Page 45 comic store waaay back. I've forgotten his name, sadly, but in the piece he challenged the larger retailers by pointing out that the biggest sellers in their stores were the likes of Sandman and Hellblazer, noting (IIRC) that Cerebus would regularly feature in their monthly top ten sales.

His point was that they gave shelf space, prominence, and staff recommendations to the books they liked, and thought their customers would like, and were rewarded with sales of these books that were unheard of in larger stores, or chains of stores.

His point, essentially, was to give the lie to the mantra chanted by the larger (chain) stores, which was: "We stock a lot of crap, because crap sells", by pointing out that their experience suggested that the big stores sold a lot of crap because they stocked a lot of crap.

Interestingly, the Page 45 in Nottingham seems to have weathered the storm in the industry over the last 15 years or so better than many other comic shops in the town.

Cheers

Jim

I'm suposed to be looking for work and you do sort of know me by now.

Quote from: "Mike Carroll"Oh yeah, now I remember! People buy James Patterson and Dan Brown books because those are among the few books to which the people are exposed. They can't easily buy books that aren't on the shelves.

Patterson's books are one of the few I ever see advertised on TV - granted the adverts are the cheapest you could imagine and not in the primetime slots but people are prepared to spend money to make money.

What interested me was that he is also the most borrowed author in British libraries:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/fe ... -libraries (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/feb/06/james-patterson-libraries)

It also outlines his success - he gives people what they want:

QuoteIf there is a defining feature of Patterson it is the fantastically short chapters, often just three pages. His ability to know what pushes readers' buttons may be explained by the job he gave up to concentrate on a full-time writing career: chief executive of one of the world's best known advertising firms, J Walter Thompson.

What is interesting is that he doesn't even write a lot of them:

QuotePatterson and the writers he employs are happy to keep the fans happy, with the Patterson name emblazoned across at least eight books in the last year, in genres from thriller to romance to misery memoir. Other writers' names regularly appear on the cover - often in much smaller type - but he denies that he sometimes has no involvement at all in the writing. Last year he said: "I get all this baloney about well, what does he do? Does he even look at them? Well yes, he does look at them."

And:

QuoteHow does he do it? Well, ever since 1996, when he published a novel called Miracle on the 17th Green with a golfing buddy, he has done it by finding collaborators to help him fill in the blanks. He comes up with the plot, they write the sentences, he reviews draft after draft. To hear Patterson tell it, he simply has too many ideas to write them all up himself, so he enlists an army of co-writers. He resists the word "factory", of course, or "formula".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/ap ... bestseller (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/05/james-patterson-author-bestseller)

He is basically a brand based on some formula he has devised and then hammers out volumes. It is pretty much what Barbara Cartland/Tom Clancy did. It is horribly cynical but it works. it must be depressing for authors actually trying hard to write decent material, but that is the way the world is.
 
His success may be mystifying to folks like us, but so is the success of My Family and it pretty much comes down to a similar concept - you are giving people a bland, predictable product and once you've honed the formula you can then pretty much crank it out (My Family, as I've mentioned elsewhere, is one of the few British sitcoms written by a team of writers - often the scripts are so bad the actors have refused to participate). The sad fact is an awful lot of people don't want to be challenged or engaged by their fiction.

Years and years agoI used to live a few doors up the road from Catherine Cookson in Hastings.She moved on after a while but i think she is still one of the biggest selling authors in the world with books translated into nearly every language imaginable.

I think she hit upon a formula and cranked out the novels as well that was romantic fiction or historical novels in a period setting with a sort of upstairs / downstairs theme that was partly based on her own childhood.I have never read any of her fiction so i cant comment on how good or bad it was.

She wrote 100 novels and sold 123 million copies and she wrote every single one of those herself.She started writing as a form of therapy to fight depression and i got the impression that she wasnt a cynical writer who was in it for fame and money as she was a bit reclusive and all the time she was writing she was suffering from a rare vascular disease.She also gave away a lot of money to philanthropic causes without any publicity.


There was also a theory that was never proven that Jeffrey Archer didnt write his own books.

Quote from: "peterwolf"There was also a theory that was never proven that Jeffrey Archer didnt write his own books.

I heard on television years ago that he does write his own books, but they are heavily edited to be made legible.

I read somewhere that there were FOUR writers employed by his publisher to excavate a half readable novel from the turgid shit that he submitted. Detestable little arsehole.