James Frey Writing Factory

This is quite an interesting read if it's new to you. This isn't the first time it's happened in the literary world either.

Frey saw collective writing as a way to get around the conundrum of having umpteen ideas for clever commercial book series but never enough time to write them. He also liked the idea of applying the model of an art studio along the lines of those run by Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons to the book world.

So he came up with the concept of a book-writing factory that would go beyond the basic model of existing companies such as Alloy, which use teams of writers to produce books to order.

Ideas for books, or ideally series of books, would either come from him or an author recruited to the Full Fathom Five stable. Then Frey would hold the writer's hand, providing critical feedback as they wrote.

The finished product would be sold to publishers and/or film studios, and the writer would be given a share in the royalties as incentive to produce their best work.

Again, this is nothing new but I still have major reservations about the methodology.