Piers Anthony Collaboration - An Example of Publisher Fraud

[thewormoftheworld'send]

www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/a/piers-anth ... -earth.htm

The 1976 novel But What of Earth? was published as a collaborative effort between Piers Anthony and Robert Coulson. I have not read this book, but I have heard it contained some bad writing. I always assumed that this one, along with his other collaborations, were not written by Anthony at all, and that he was only paid to include his name on the cover in order to help a struggling young author along.

Wrong.

In this case at least, Anthony (who was the original writer of the project) was not told there was another author involved. He was offered a proposal and then he submitted (with some difficulty) a manuscript - which was then hatcheted to pieces by out-of-control copy editors (a couple of whom were obviously feminist women) and rewritten by the secret collaborator (who was an unwitting participant in this thievery). Anthony was unaware of this ongoing hatchet job, as nobody at the publisher had the balls to return to him any revamped versions for perusal.

The result - a novel intended to sell 150,000 only sold a little more than 8,000 copies.

But Anthony got the best of this publisher. He did not sue (opting for a more honorable course of action), and the publisher lost money anyway, while the editor in charge of the fiasco was fired.

Anthony tells the entire sad story in the 1989 edition of But What of Earth? It serves as a good reminder of the dangers of being an author, even a well-established one.

The funniest part I thought was where the copy editors took out every reference to "breast" and replaced it with "teat."