Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 18 months, you will be highly aware of one of the most famous bloggers and YouTubers possibly, well, ever. That's right, it's Zoe Sugg a.k.a, Zoella.
Her debut book Girl Online has become the fastest selling debut book since records began,, surpassing the likes of J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown. Obviously, a great achievement for any first time writer, for anyone, let alone someone who is not known for being 'a writer', however, what are you to do when the whole of the media is accusing it of not being your work?
"My dream has been to write a book, and I can't believe it's come true. Girl Online is my first novel, and I'm so excited for you to read it." is what Zoe has labelled on the back of her book and I remember watching her daily vlog back in june when she announced that she would be writing a book with penguin, she had made it exlplicitly clear that she had always loved to write stories as a young girl and I have to admit that as a dedicated viewer of Zoe for the past few years, I saw this as legitimate and never thought anything other than she would be writing the book on her own.
However when speculation in the past week emerged about the fact that tht this novel was not her own work and spokesmen from Penguin released the quote "To be factually accurate, you would need to say Zoe Sugg did not write the book Girl Online on her own" to The Sunday Times, I can hardly say that I was overly surprised about it. It isn't uncommon for someone in the public eye, who isn't trained as a writer to use the aid of a ghost writer, such as Katie Price or David Beckham.
You may even question why there has been such a large hype and bashing toward the teen idol, when so many others do it? As the independent suggested, it was not the fact that she had a ghost writer, it was the fact that her 6 million subscribers thought that she was legitimately writing this book on her own and were so proud of her.
As a viewer of Zoe for almost two years, I will admit that I am quite a large fan of her and it was, in all honesty, very strange to see speculation in a negative way, when you feel like she is in a way, an online friend, which many girls my age and a lot younger also geel like.
In my opinion, I do see why Zoe decided to take a few days off of the internet and do believe that on Zoe's part, it may not have been made clear by the publishers just how much having a ghost writer could have caused her issues if it got out.
We are still waiting for a response from Zoe that includes more detail and more justification than the short message she gave to but I have no doubt that any explanarion we do get is honest and just.
What are your thoughts on ghost writers? And do you think that it's right that so many YouTubers are getting book deals?
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