Zoella : Who Wrote Girl Online?

Who Wrote Girl Online?

A Blog Entirely Free of Ghosts (but which I previously published here)

Ghost writers aren’t uncommon, there are very few stigmas attached to the authors that use them or the writers that eventually come forward to claim a little responsibility.

Yet Zoella has taken a break from the internet in an uncanny case of literary déjà vu.

In the same way as an online backlash forces protagonist Penny offline in Girl Online, negative responses to the ‘help’ she received from a well-known young adult writer and a high-ranking editor has made Zoe Sugg, author, take a step back from social media (NB. she has NOT quit YouTube).

Previously, I mentioned Zoe Sugg, AKA Zoella, in a blog about thought-leadership. As a leading voice for fashionistas, YouTuber’s and young people the world over; I described Zoella as part one of a group of powerful online personalities that exemplify the ‘power of we’.

The release of Zoe Sugg’s first book emphasised her enviable, much-loved status. Girl Online disappeared off shelves faster than Harry Potter, selling a record-breaking 78,109 copies in the first week.

Yet even in the early days there were a few raised eyebrows. Readers and rivals questioned whether ‘Zoe Sugg’ was merely an ‘authorial manifestation’, a name slapped onto a book that somebody else wrote.

And as the reviews came pouring in, critiquing the story that is tooth-achingly sweet and more than a little predictable, this little chink became a fissure.

I should probably admit here that I spent four hours reading this book cover-to-cover, which is why I was intrigued when Penguin Random House admitted that Zoe Sugg’s first novel was not written entirely by the YouTube sensation.

“To be factually accurate,” claimed a spokesperson, “you would need to say Zoe Sugg did not write the book Girl Online on her own.”

So she had help.

Is this really a problem?

This might answer some of your tweets! X pic.twitter.com/NCuC3VhxiG
— Zoë (@ZozeeBo) December 7, 2014

I have mixed feelings about the news, uncertain about how I feel about ghostwriting in general but also in the way the story has been handled.

Siobhan Curham, a young adult author, allegedly helped create Girl Online. Recognised in the acknowledgements as being ‘with [Zoella] ever step of the way’, it was this brief mention that has given rise to much of the speculation that Curham wrote the book. I sympathise for a ghostwriter whose novel rockets to success under the banner of somebody else’s name, however, what we need to remember is that a ghostwriter signs a contract. They agree to the terms and conditions of ghost-hood.

This means Curham would have known that she was going to sign away her rights to authorship or even co-authorship when she agreed to help Penguin Random House make Zoella’s first novel a reality. It wasn’t stolen from her and ‘thanking’ her supporters on twitter probably wasn’t best practice for a ghostwriter…

On the other hand, why didn’t the publisher think to make this information clear from the start?

Ghostwriting is a relatively common practice. In fact, going beyond the celebrity examples of Katie Price or David Beckham’s ghostwritten literature, plenty of popular novels, especially children and young adult literature, have shadow writers. R.L Stein’s children’s horror stories, Goosebumps, were ghostwritten by various writers; The Man With the Golden Gun was the first Bond novel to be written by someone other than Ian Fleming but it was not the last; and there are even unconfirmed rumours surrounding To Kill A Mockingbird’s potential link to Truman Capote.

Now, unsurprisingly, many have leapt on the opportunity to tear into Zoella for being dishonest.

However, despite the people calling Girl Online an act of fraud, or plagiarism (it is actually, by definition, neither), the sad fact is that Curham would never have received this attention if her name had been beneath the title.

Because Zoella is the name that sells. She is the entrepreneur, the personality, the businesswoman and the brand.

Whether or not she is an author, she is, and will remain, an inspiration for her fans, and a thought-leader who has carved out a niche in a world where multi-channel media reigns. With millions of subscribers who love her, an endorsement from Zoella on her YouTube channel will indubitably still be worth its weight in commercial advertising regardless of the current media scrutiny surrounding her abilities as a writer.

Zoella is taking the fall but really, if there is blame to lay, surely it should be laid upon an institution that perhaps needs a little bit of rethink. It would be nice for a ghostwriter to be recognised for their prose and for success to be shared when it is due…

…But if the story winds its way to its natural HEA, #WeLoveYouGirlOnline will be matched by #WeLoveYouZoella, Zoe Sugg will bounce back to our blue screens with a smile and the déjà vu will come full circle.

And, hopefully, Curham’s sales will skyrocket as well.

Penny discovers Girl Online is still loved by fans, (p.335)

Disclaimer: This blog is free of ghosts. We tested it with the Specter Detecter AND a PKE Meter, just for good measure. Also if you would like to read TEN MORE THINGS about why we shouldn’t be horrible to Zoe Sugg, read the piece on the Guardian by Matt Haig (author of The Humans). It is excellent. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 
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Vloggers vs Bloggers: Who do you love more and why?

Bloggers vs Vloggers : 

Thought Leadership in the Age of Collectivity

Top fashion and beauty vlogger Zoella

Not that long ago I wrote about collective mourning, about how grief had changed because of the way that we use social media. But it’s not just our emotions that are shared.

Collectivity and collaboration have fast become the default mode of the 21st century.

Online social media has exploded and now more than ever, our personal and business success is dependent on the way that we work with the larger world around us: from people, to brands, to corporations.

We talk in terms of influencers and thought-leaders: the power of an individual voice discussing ideas with their audience. Establishing a person or business as one of these leaders is dependent upon their appeal and relevance within the larger whole, in inaugurating them into the collective voice and then making them stand out.

It can be tricky. Yet one of the least expensive and most effective ways to create a platform is to become part of the shared world of multichannel media. Tweeting, blogging, having a Facebook page – this programmes the self into the digital landscape. Plugging in, the virtually extended reach of a social media can be a dynamic tool in the would-be thought-leader’s arsenal.

This might seem strange, after all back in the beginning of blogs, around the early 1990s, they were just ‘web logs’: easy-to-add-to, often journal-like, sometimes inspired but often rambling, online diaries.

Now there are tech blogs, sex blogs, philosophy blogs, blogs about dogs, blogs about cats, blogs aboutdogs sitting on cats, and, of course, blogs like this one which offer a mix of business advice and current affairs analysis. Interestingly, as Andrew Sullivan discussed, ‘poised between media and blogs can be as nuanced and well-sourced as traditional journalism, but they have the immediacy of talk radio … blogging is changing the media world’. More than that, it is changing the world in general. Despite being online, they have power and prominence that increasingly impacts the ‘real’, offline world.

The Huffington Post, of course, is the prime example. The Guardian put it perfectly when they said that ‘the history of political blogging might be usefully divided into pre- and post-Huffington’. The Huffington Post turned an underdog hobby into a lucrative market space. Now, some bloggers are far more powerful than journalists. Some blogs offer the widest and most influential marketing tool available, if you just know how to tap into it.

They can drive traffic, generate sales, create additional content, and instigate new conversations. Informal, often colloquial, they’re a relaxed way of engaging an audience without spending thousands on a platform. It takes time and dedication but once the ball is rolling, it’s out there

For example, on Wednesday, I’ve been invited to a bloggers event hosted by Bloomsbury. It’s a Christmas Special event with James Runcie, whom many will now know because of his bromantic, 1950s Grantchester Mysteries, the first of which was recently dramatized for ITV. Whether you agree or disagree with the plaudits calling the television adaptation ‘the new Morse’ or the criticisms that it was ‘undemanding’, there is no doubt that overall the six-part adaptation of James Runcie’s Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death was successful. So I wondered – why invite bloggers, everyday people using social media, to this kind of event?

Would you like to win this @GrantchesterUK bundle? Join us at 1pm today for our final giveaway! #Grantchester pic.twitter.com/Vog03oVrO4
— Lovely Day (@LovelyDayUK) December 8, 2014

It’s to keep the conversation rolling whilst the professionals, ie. the journalists and critics, lose interest in the off season. Plus, the conversations of the big, relevant bloggers means the series, in print and on screen, will reach a bigger, more relevant audience. This works particularly well because bloggers use social media accounts in addition to their blogs– so content travels far and fast.

Beyond the bloggerati, there are the vloggerati. One sponsored three minute video or single tweet from the Digifest Generation of video bloggers can reach millions in moments; having just one of them at James Runcie’s event could reignite the conversation, attract more readers or viewers, sell thousands more copies.

Video bloggers, like their wordy counterparts, have become thought-leaders, influencers and trend-makers. Ranging from ‘vloggers’ like CharlieIsSoCoolLike, who rose to fame after vlogging ‘How to be English’, to the effervescent Jenna Marbles or the prominent beauty and fashion vlogger, Zoella, AKA Zoe Sugg – the fact is that they have become sensations on and offline.

Every one of these ‘professional internet humans’ has an invaluable stake in the media.

Unlike bloggers, often hidden behind their words, the vloggers appear closer to their audience. They speak to them, answer their comments in their videos, offer direct advice, engage and befriend them, albeit through a camera. Many recognise these fresh voices as key to reaching younger audiences, for commercial advertising but also as a replacement to broadcast and print media.

Both do engage though, and this is crucial, because they are directly appealing to the communal internet, putting themselves in the public eye and asking for feedback, even criticism. They generate an audience. Good ones then reply and engage with that audience; the one-way street of publication becomes a multichannel conversation.

Admittedly, vlogging and blogging have pros and cons, and they are not for everyone, not even for businesses striving to be thought-leaders.

However, in today’s shared, social, collective sphere, online media is an indubitable force. They are an intrinsic part of contemporary society.

My point is not to convince anyone to become a blogger or a vlogger. My point is this: brands and businesses, individuals and extended networks: no one can afford to ignore the pull and drive of the digital world. If you want to be a thought-leader, you need to embrace all sides of the media to engage your audience.

At the very worst, blogs and vlogs are narcissistic echo-chambers of the online world. But they have revolutionized the way that the media works. Blogs can be the equivalent of a column in a national paper. Vlogs can be a TedXtalk or a segment of primetime tv. They reach across the globe and enable collective and remote collaboration, thrive because they, as so eloquently put by Ernesto Priego, embody the ‘power of we’.

And if you want to be a thought-leader, that is one of the most powerful forces in this strange, new, digital world.

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 

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This blog was previously published by me for PHA Media