Biggest Beauty Blogger Bogus Book-writer?
- the-thread
- Dec 8, 2014
- 2 min read
Photo sourced from Facebook With six million YouTube Subscribers and 2.5 million twitter followers, it was no surprise when the biggest ‘Beauty Blogger’ in Britain became the fastest selling debut novelist of all-time.
By Nicole Williams
Zoella, or Zoe Sugg as is her ‘real’ name, beat J.K Rowling, Dan Brown and E.L James to the top spot, but did she? Sources are now saying she didn’t actually write the book herself and that it was in fact, ‘ghostwritten’.
Ghostwriting is basically the act of getting someone else to write the book for you, based on your ideas. Celebrities use this all the time. Katie Price makes it no secret that her books are ghostwritten by Rebecca Farnworth, so why is it a big deal that Zoella has done the same?
Zoe’s online personality paints her as down to earth, truthful and annoyingly cute, but can she really be these things if she has essentially lied to millions of people about ‘writing’ a book? Penguin, the publishers behind ‘Girl Online’ have confirmed that it wouldn’t be ‘factually accurate’ to say that she had no help.
Zoe herself tweeted that “everybody needs help when trying something new” and that she “had help from Penguin’s editorial team” but that the “story and characters of Girl Online are mine.”
Other evidence to support this includes the idea that in the acknowledgements of the book, Zoe thanks Siobhan Curham, who is known for freelance writing of Young Adult novels, exactly the genre Zoe has gone for. Curham also allegedly wrote a blog post, which has since been removed, that tells of how she was asked to write 80,000 words in six weeks. This coincides with the length and time period of the announcement of Girl Online.
Many of Zoe’s fans have rushed to her defence, and fairly saying “singers don’t write their own songs” but how does that even compare? A songwriter still gets acknowledged. They still get royalties and things like that. The singer is still actually singing the songs, using their own voice. What Zoe has essentially done is come up with a few characters and a basic plot, paid someone else to write the story and then just put her name on it and let her millions of fans think she wrote it.
In the wake of this news, Zoe is currently taking an internet break. What do you think? Should Zoe have written the book herself? Or should she have at least credited her writer?
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