Ghostwriters
A [slightly] changed opinion
As you could tell from the first part of this article, I was very much against having ghostwriters because I felt that they were the final step in Scholastic taking over Animorphs. Pretty soon, K.A. wouldn't be writing Animorphs at all. However, I got some information that ran counter to this statement. It came from Jeff Sampson, who as you should know is the webmast of MORPHz and has some connections with K.A. Applegate.
K.A. has definitly seen the Animorph fan's opinions on Scholastic's commercialization. However, the important thing is that she is *not* a victim of Scholastic, nor has she become just a name on a book cover. For one thing, Scholastic isn't responsible for all of the previous much-critisized comercialization. One of the most commonly sited examples is Gossbumps, which was merchandised like mad. However, much of this was because of Parachute Press, which was owned by R.L.'s wife Jane Stine. It seems that Scholastic hopes to avoid the mistake they made with Goosebumps; overexposing it until virtualy all the readers were turned off.
The main point of this is the ghostwriting. And an important thing to know is that Scholastic is also not responsible, for hiring the ghostwriters. KA is. She works closely with them and pays them herself. One reason for this is that KA was once a ghostwriter herself -- that's how she started out. She worked on another kid's book series, and tried to make the books better by adding her own elements in. This is what she has in mind for Animorphs. She feels that she can add to Animorphs by bringing in other minds to the process with fresh perpectives and ideas. And, we all must add, she has a family including a two year old son.
Some people felt that this meant "KA was turning her back on Animorphs," giving it over to other people. But when you consider it, especially taking into account almost all other kid's book series, it ceases to have much anything to do with the original author after about book #20. K.A. Applegate, on the other hand, has stuck to her books like no series author before her. Not only does she continue to write them, but when ghostwriters become a nessesity, she personally hired them and worked with them to keep the quality high. She writes out basic plots as well as chapter-by-chapter outlines of all the ghostwritten books. And she actually goes over the finished product and edits it, or in some cases, rewrites it. Like #32: That book is *all* KA. Yes, the the "good book" ratio has gone down (I say this because the only other word would be "quality," which has thankfully been consistant), but hasn't that happened before the advent of ghostwriters? And, although I (and I'm sure many others) don't like the fact that our favorite series isn't absolutly, 100% always done by our absolute-most-favorite-author-in-the-world, this is a lot better than the usual alternative. As we've seen from the past, the books will soon get better and better.