Jenna Bush's First Book

The current issue of The New Yorker includes a short and excellent article about Jenna Bush and her first book. I always enjoy reading these entries about new authors and in particular someone who has been out touring and promoting her book. I caught a few minutes of her interview on the Today Show recently.

Reading this article, in the opening, you can see a bit of how the book came to Harper Collins from the lawyer and literary agent, Robert Barnett.

The detail that fascinated me was about whether Jenna Bush wrote her own book or not. Even Clay Aiken's first assumption was that she used a ghostwriter but she didn't (according to the article). It shows again how often high profile people will turn to someone else for writing help. Some times this writer is mentioned in the book and some times they are not. People tell me that the mention of the writer or not is often a marketing decision as much as anything. The writer can still count the book in their list of published books. Interesting to me that many writers don’t want to write other people's material even though it is a huge and ongoing need in the market. Guess it takes the right sort of person to be willing to write for the joy of writing the story--and not for any by-line.