Very Bad Publishers: James Frey’s Fiction Factory UPDATED
on November 14th, 2010James Frey is a huckster.
On her television show, Oprah Winfrey promoted Frey’s book A Million Little Pieces as a searing first person account of addiction. The book sold more than 3.5 million copies, making it the top selling book in the USA in 2005.
The content of the “autobiography” was a lie. At The Smoking Gun, read the details of Frey’s fraud. Frey’s lies include pretending to be close friends with a young woman who died in a train accident (he never knew her,) liaisons with crack whores, stints in jail, friends dying of AIDS. There was nothing this guy wouldn’t claim for sympathy.
Which, I am sure, makes him like a couple of people we all know.
After learning of the accident the following day, “I got blamed by her Parents and by her friends and by everyone else in that fucking hellhole,” Frey claims. “If she hadn’t lied and if I hadn’t helped her, it would not have happened. If we hadn’t gone to the Theater, she would not have gone on that date.” Sure, a couple of mangled girls landed in a hospital morgue, but that’s narrative gold in the hands of James Frey.
Frey was the subject of a class action suit filed by readers who purchased his fraudulent account. He made a mea culpa appearance on Oprah (“I should have never fucking apologized”). And yet can’t quite shake that pesky reputation that he’s a narcissistic, sociopathic creep.
Not the sort to feel shame (like, duh,) Frey is back, this time with a fantastic publishing opportunity!
You can do all his writing for him. He will pay you $250. There will be no guarantee of credit or further payment. But you can work with the famous James Frey and become…WORLD FAMOUS!
It’s an agreement that says, “You’re going to write for me. I’m going to own it. I may or may not give you credit. If there is more than one book in the series, you are on the hook to write those too, for the exact same terms, but I don’t have to use you. In exchange for this, I’m going to pay you 40 percent of some amount you can’t verify — there’s no audit provision — and after the deduction of a whole bunch of expenses.”
Frey brags:
I have very few friends who are writers … I’m a big fan of breaking the rules, creating new forms, moving on to new places. Contemporary artists like [Richard] Prince, Hirst, and Koons do that, but there are no literary equivalents. In literature, you don’t see many radical books. That’s what I want to do: write radical books that confuse and confound, polarize opinions. I’ve already been cast out of ‘proper’ American literary circles. I don’t have to be a good boy anymore. I find that the older I get, the more radical my work becomes.
He’s just a rebel.
This may be one of the worst contracts I have ever read, and you can read it here at New York Mag.
Some people have trouble reading the PDF, but here are some highlights:
1) There’s a $50,000 minimum penalty for breach of confidentiality. Sign me up! That Frey is such a rebel, he’s positively corporate raider about it.
2) The Company may use your name and likeness in perpetuity to promote the work, but has no obligation whatsoever to credit you. You have no moral right to remove your name if it’s dreck. You have no right to credit if it’s popular.
3) If you drop dead, the Company has no obligation to your estate. That said, it doesn’t seem to have much obligation to you while you are alive.
More horror after the jump.
4) Any future books are bound by the same crap agreement you signed on Day One.
5) It’s all work for hire for your original work, not based on any preexisting material. So, all your work are belong to Frey, and he owns the whole enchilada for a $250 advance. BTW, that generous sum is payable in HALVES. So, go write the novel for $125, and when you are finished, you get the other $125.
6) You have no right to audit the books. You are stuck with the word of the liar as client as to whether or not they paid you what they properly owe you.
7) You get 40% of the “contingent compensation” derived from exploitation rights or film/television, etc. Except you will get squat.
The Company which has been so very generous to you will deduct all expenses including third party costs, agency commissions and fees. The Company will only pay you a portion that “can reasonably be allocated to the rights for the Book”. I laugh and yet I cry.
8) “For the avoidance of doubt, in the event James Frey is engaged as an individual through the Company or through a separate entitiy, to perform services in connection with any production…based on the Book and/or Series, Writer shall not be antitled to any portion of the monies (whether guaranteed or contingent) paid to the Company, Frey, or other entity providing Frey’s services in connection with such services.”
This means Frey will inject himself into the producer role at every opportunity to cut you out of your share of the take.
9) Frey has first option on your next project. God help you.
10) If you get screwed over (AHAHAHAHAHA!) you have to go to Los Angeles for arbitration. And with a whopping $250 advance at stake, we all know how likely that is.
James Frey is Of The Devil.
EDIT: Comments thread at John Scalzi worth the read. Thanks to Robert M Wright.
I thought slavery and indentured servitude were illegal.
He’s insane if he thinks that in this age of e-publishing and POD that this will look advantageous to a smart aspiring writer. But then he’s probably not targeting smart writers. Which leads to one wondering how any good writing could possibly come out of this agreement?
This is the “I want to be Famous” syndrome taken to monster levels. Frey doesn’t really want to do the WORK required to earn true fame. He’s quite happy to be the front man for peon scribblers. What an attention whore.
The article at New York Mag is frightening: a bunch of smart, young well-educated aspiring writers fell for it.
RICH AND FAMOUS bait overcomes smart and well-educated many a time time.
Whomever signs up for this “opportunity” will wind up broke and anonymous. I know times are tough, but to write a full-length novel for only $250 seems to be a real rip-off, especially considering the terms of the contract. P.T. Barnum was all too right about what is born every minute.
We must “thank” Oprah for helping give this dirtbag national exposure.
I wonder if Oprah will step up and denounce him on her show for this. I mean, warn people who were considering it all for one minute. I can’t believe this douchecanoe is still around.
I still have around here somewhere some really hilarious graphics from the “million little pieces” debacle. Also I remember about that time I wrote a fake introduction to my third Pont-au-Change book in the style of the nonapology they put in the book. If I recall correctly it turned out pretty funny. If I do say so myself. (own horn toot here)
I’m just surprised the first sentence was ‘first YOU pay him $250″
Heh.
You wrote “douchecanoe”.
btw I’m rereading the Smoking Gun article, I remember reading it when it first broke. Didn’t this episode totally ruin the person who bought the book for Doubleday or something? I think careers went kablooey after this…
yes I did. I thought that was the most apropos word for the situation.
Still reading TSG. Long article is long. Funny thing is though that Nan Talese was the one who bought the book for Doubleday (wife of writer Gay Talese) but didn’t lose her job over it. I’m thinking it was the one who bought another fictional memoir, I forget the name of that one, but it was some kid who was abused, became a male prostitute, came down with HIV, and turned out to be a brilliant writer, all or most of which is untrue and what actually ended up as a story plot on “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” (one of my favorite eps btw)
Between those two cases and the “Opal Mehta” plagiarism smackdown, the publishing world in the 90′s was full of landmines…
You’re thinking of JT Leroy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/10/books/10frey.html
This article says the editor of the book was Sean McDonald who was working at Penguin when the scandal broke. Talese was the line editor.
I remember when I first wrote about this stuff on my old blog, people thought I was being hard on Frey and on J.T. Leroy. There’s a school of thought that “the greater truth” is more important than fact.
Only if you have to fabricate your facts, IMHO.
I steer clear of people who push this idea of “greater truth”. If they don’t value honesty, they can’t be trusted to be honest themselves.
If you’re writing is all that, you shouldn’t have to pretend it’s a true account to sell it based on context. These people are nothing but old fashioned hucksters, playing on public sympathy for money. It’s no different than pretending to have cancer to get donations, IMHO.
From the New York Magazine article: “It’s a crappy deal but a great opportunity” is how one writer put it.
IMHO, “crappy deals” and “great opportunities” are mutually exclusive.
I’m with Bill. Along the lines of: “This must be some new definition of ‘great opportunity’ I wasn’t previously aware of.”
/Arthur Dent
oh, and btw, I just remembered: it was this debacle that now makes it necessary to put the word “FICTION” on the back of fiction novels now. Yes. I noticed that with my third book, I laughed until I cried. Also do not play with the plastic bag it came in and for God’s sake do not put your coffee in your lap.
Proximity to famous people or infamous people doesn’t guarantee anything. What you create gets you stuff.
Don’t give other people power over your success.
It’s the reason why the fan artist I wrote about a few days ago went off the rails when her picture in my book didn’t deliver chocolate kisses on the back of a unicorn.
People don’t make successes for you. A pic in a comic won’t bring you a career.
The author who sold his one book to Frey found out he could not sell others. And Frey has been unable to sell others.
Hype is not enough.
On the few occasions when I have had serious problems with semi-pros or fans, it has all boiled down to the fact that they thought proximity to me (or people they hoped to get to through me) would pay dividends. And when the jobs didn’t show and the cash didn’t flow, there was much resentment.
And that tells me that these people have no confidence in their work or who they are. Their stories don’t end well.
Distillation:
Many people believe success is not about what you do, it’s about who you know.
But who you know is because of what you do.
So have respect for what you do.
Don’t sell to creeps like James Frey.
wait, someone fell for this already? Who sold him a book?
oh, okay, found the other article. Let the facepalming commence.
Can we just shoot this twatwaffle and his associates and be done with it? Though I’m tempted to believe that anyone who fell for this ridiculous scheme deserved their fate…
@ MaryAnne:
I know many people who simply cannot understand legal speak, and have no frame of reference for how this industry works. Smart people.
It’s like trying to describe plaid to a blind person.
People like Frey enrage me. They take advantage of the hopeful heart. It’s incredibly cruel.
I suppose, but you’d think that the thing saying “I’ll pay you $250 for writing an entire novel” would be a bit of a put off. Especially saying that it’ll be paid in two halves with no guarantee of anything.
I agree, it is cruel and dishonest in the extreme.
I think people just see the 40% on the back end, and don’t understand that what they see is the back end of Hollywood accounting. They think that if they just suck it up and take the $250, there will be a payoff later. And they hang on to that dream.
I can see why a kid would be fooled. Educated adults? Not so much.
That’s really… Saddening. There’s really no other way I can put it. Too bad we can’t just lock people like James Frey up just for being cruel, selfish and dishonest.
Whew, I can think of a couple of my ex publishers who would make fine cellmates.
maybe we can put them all in a room together and they could ego each other to death or something?
From what’s been said, and in the article, it appears Frey is targeting MFA writing programs.Various comments indicate that few such programs bother to teach the students anything about the real world of publishing, possibly because the majority of such programs don’t want students doing writing that would be grubbily commercially successful. Frequently the writing from such programs is published in “little magazines” devoted to such, which pay in copies.
Note that there are programs that have seminars about real world publishing and/or do allow for writing outside the “literary” genre, so the above doesn’t apply to all MFA programs.
I’m sure this is a silly question, but I’ll ask it anyway…
Do MFA (and Ph. D.) writing programs have specific accreditation guidelines?
Do the accreditation guidelines vary among the various regional organizations?
I ask because that would be the easiest way to limit “m.f.a.s” like Frey from exploiting writers. Require at least one class explaining the business of writing… agents, editors, publishers, rights, licensing, trademark, copyright…
Oh, and Real World 101, a one-day seminar where all the new MFA writers are sat down and explained the economic realities of being a writer.
(Ms. Doran, I prefer marzipan to chocolate, but the unicorn is okay.)
This is a great thread with some great comments.
I think some programs actively discourage thoughts of economic realities lest artistic aspirations be tainted by a slap in the face with an empty wallet.
What? They still do that? I thought we’d already moved on from the notion that common (monetary) sense and artistic ability and aspiration would somehow be mutually exclusive.
Though I guess that would explain how a lot of aspiring artists don’t seem to consider setting up several venues of income for themselves where they could exercise their abilities.
Heck, no.
Even in comics, we still get the old My Stuff is Beyond the Taint of Filthy Lucre crowd.
Oh! Filthy Lucre! That reminds me! I need to get my Zazzle shop set up finally — time to hype t-shirts with my Christmas angels on them, and suchlike.
I’ve long thought that creative writing programs in college do a disservice to those who go through them. Some of the graduates I’ve seen from them (prose writing, especially) back in the day, they got so much “You’re wonderful!” back patting in the program, but they were unprepared to deal with the constant round of submitting to editors, magazines, etc. They didn’t do well with the pile of rejection slips, because they had no realistic awareness of the marketplace. I knew one writer who quit writing because it just “didn’t happen” (fast enough, I’m assuming). And he was quite talented.
Me, I didn’t care how long it took, I’d keep plugging. But I also studied the market. Writers Market and all their introductory essays were my textbooks. And sending in submissions and dealing with the rejection letters.
It’s still bewildering that when an unknown/niche artist or writer obtains larger exposure, recognition and success they suddenly get labeled as “sell-outs”.
There’s a difference between creating something kitchy and overly commercial (e.g. Thomas Kinkade) and creating something of merit that enough people wish to patron the creator so said creator doesn’t need to make their art secondary.
These M.F.A. programs are doing a major disservice to their students in not educating them to protect themselves. If I was a parent of one of these students, I’d seriously question how my money was being spent on these sort of courses. Churning out highly-educated suckers ripe for exploitation is not a positive contribution to literature and the arts.
The whole notion of “selling out” is bandied around way too casually. Not to be too cynical, but I do think there are way too many people with delusions of being a “special little snowflake”. The era breeds that sort of thinking; individualism without merit or responcibility. But that’s sort of another can of worms.
I’m really concerned that an MFA program would totally overlook the functional side of working as an artist. Even by the most outdated terms of being a “true artists”, you do need to eat and sleep and have a roof over your head. Da Vinci did commissions. So did Shakespeare. It’s just a fact of life that making a living as an artists means earning moneys from somewhere.