FYI or die

If someone calls James Frey “the bad boy of literature” one more time I’m going to vomit.  

Any by the way, isn’t that what we call Michel Houellebcq?  Does broadsheet newspaper literary criticism have space for two authors to hold this cliche title?  

(In other news, I just finished watching season 5 of Bad Girls Club: Miami.  And I can tell you, those bad girls would glass both Frey and Houllebcq in the eye before they even stepped foot into the bad girl house. Those girls are way bad.)

Anyway, the aforementioned bad boy Frey has caused more controversy due to his new venture to get teams of writers to write books for him.  Operating in the vein of Warhol’s factory and Kloon’s art production line, he is contracting young writers to do his scribbling.  But, unsurprisingly, it seems that these writers are getting the raw end of the deal.

The contentious elements include: an upfront payment of just $250 (£156) to the writer for an entire book, which is pitiful unless the book is sold, at which point they get 30%-40% of any royalties obtained; the fact that Frey retains all final creative control and the copyright of the work in his company, with total power to decide what happens to the book; and a system of fines if the writer breaks the terms of the contract. A publishing lawyer told New York magazine that he had never seen a contract like it in his 16 years of negotiations.

Read all about it here.

So is that why they call him a bad boy?  Maybe in the literary world being a bad boy is less about being a bad arse (ala bad girls club) and more about being an arsehole?