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This is very lazily researched, a few minutes in google will give you pretty clear confirmation that he did in fact use several contracted ghostwriters. This wa

This is very lazily researched, a few minutes in google will give you pretty clear confirmation that he did in fact use several contracted ghostwriters. This was brought up by Scholastic publishing as evidence of breach of contract when they sued Parachute Press back in 1999. See this link for the court filings [0], note here that RL's representatives do not deny the claim that the ghostwriters were employed by RL but instead that the use of them did not suffice to constitute breach of contract. So he has essentially via his legal representation confirmed that to varying degrees he did not in fact write many of the books past the first 20. Instead, this filing shows that he often wrote outlines which he then passed onto other contractors. Scholastic claims here that they lost substantial amounts of revenue because the ghostwriters did not write stories as well as RL. [0] https://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/NYSComDiv/Oct02/600512-99-003.PDF https://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/NYSComDiv/Oct02/600512-...

elliekelly 4y ago
It’s a blog post from a decade ago. It’s not “researched” because it’s more like a journal entry (or a tweet, perhaps) than an “article” the way blog posts are often viewed now. It’s purpose isn’t to deliver readers a definitive answer but to spur discussion and get readers thinking. I might even go so far as to say the answer to the author’s question is entirely irrelevant.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > It’s purpose isn’t to deliver readers a definitive answer but to spur discussion and get readers thinking. What is this supposed to get people thinking about beyond "Did R.L. Stine use ghostwriters for his Goosebumps and Fear Street series?" It's pretty much the only thing brought up in the post. How could the answer to that question be irrelevant? I'll admit that this reads like a journal entry and it's pointless to try to hold a random blogger to the research expectations we might have for actual journalists, but if this post was intended to get people thinking or engaged in discussion there's really not much there to work with outside of the "Did R.L. Stine use ghostwriters for his Goosebumps and Fear Street series?" question which makes the answer pretty relevant. If this post was intended to provoke discussion or thought it might have been better to address the concept of ghostwriting. The morality of ghostwriting, the impact it has on the quality of literature, the importance of branding, the economics of it etc. As it is, there's not much food for thought.
  - elliekelly 4y ago
    > What is this supposed to get people thinking about beyond "Did R.L. Stine use ghostwriters for his Goosebumps and Fear Street series?" Perhaps the comments in this very thread might give you an idea of the sort of thoughts the blog post provokes...
    - autoexec 4y ago
      Let's see... right now we have the actual answer to the question right up top (as expected) then near the bottom some discussion on the wisdom of Captain Picard and the sleeping and vacationing habits of Bill Gates, and in the middle some general commentary on the Goosebumps books (they don't hold up/helped someone learn English), and even on ghostwriting in general, but I'm pretty sure we're doing all the heavy lifting here. With the exception of posts about the question in question, it's pretty much what I'd expect people to come up with from the title alone.

elliekelly 4y ago

It’s a blog post from a decade ago. It’s not “researched” because it’s more like a journal entry (or a tweet, perhaps) than an “article” the way blog posts are often viewed now. It’s purpose isn’t to deliver readers a definitive answer but to spur discussion and get readers thinking. I might even go so far as to say the answer to the author’s question is entirely irrelevant.

autoexec 4y ago
> It’s purpose isn’t to deliver readers a definitive answer but to spur discussion and get readers thinking. What is this supposed to get people thinking about beyond "Did R.L. Stine use ghostwriters for his Goosebumps and Fear Street series?" It's pretty much the only thing brought up in the post. How could the answer to that question be irrelevant? I'll admit that this reads like a journal entry and it's pointless to try to hold a random blogger to the research expectations we might have for actual journalists, but if this post was intended to get people thinking or engaged in discussion there's really not much there to work with outside of the "Did R.L. Stine use ghostwriters for his Goosebumps and Fear Street series?" question which makes the answer pretty relevant. If this post was intended to provoke discussion or thought it might have been better to address the concept of ghostwriting. The morality of ghostwriting, the impact it has on the quality of literature, the importance of branding, the economics of it etc. As it is, there's not much food for thought.
- elliekelly 4y ago
  > What is this supposed to get people thinking about beyond "Did R.L. Stine use ghostwriters for his Goosebumps and Fear Street series?" Perhaps the comments in this very thread might give you an idea of the sort of thoughts the blog post provokes...
  - autoexec 4y ago
    Let's see... right now we have the actual answer to the question right up top (as expected) then near the bottom some discussion on the wisdom of Captain Picard and the sleeping and vacationing habits of Bill Gates, and in the middle some general commentary on the Goosebumps books (they don't hold up/helped someone learn English), and even on ghostwriting in general, but I'm pretty sure we're doing all the heavy lifting here. With the exception of posts about the question in question, it's pretty much what I'd expect people to come up with from the title alone.