Ghosting

Lee Goldberg asks in his comment below, "So, James, what's your take on Michael Gruber telling everybody that he's been writing all of Robert Tanenbaum's books?"

I don't know the details of the contract(s) between Gruber and Tanenbaum, but if Gruber agreed that he wouldn't reveal he was writing the books, then he shouldn't have revealed it. I understand the frustration he must have felt -- I once ghosted a book that got glowing blurbs from big-name folks who never would have blurbed a book with my name on it -- but a deal's a deal.

Of course there are varying degrees of secrecy on these things. Some of my house-name Western contracts say that I can't publicly claim authorship but that I can use the books as professional credits within the industry. And things change over time, too. I've done books where my participation was a total secret at the time the book came out, but then later the author I was working for decided it was all right for me to claim the book. A lot of these deals are "secret" in name only, especially within the business. Most people knew, or at least strongly suspected, that Ron Goulart was writing those TekWar SF novels published with William Shatner's name on them. Goulart never came out and said as much, though, at least that I'm aware of. From what I've heard about Tanenbaum's recent books (I haven't looked at them), he thanks Gruber in ways that would make it obvious to people in the business that Gruber really wrote the books. Oddly enough, knowing about this whole controversy has made me more likely to read some of the Tanenbaum books, which I probably wouldn't have otherwise.