All my own work. Or is it …….

The claims by Wanderingscribe that her writing skills alone won the book deal have come under scrutiny recently with two opposing statements. One by Wanderingscribe herself that she’s "scribbling away furiously" and the other by her ghost writer about his Modus Operandii of interviewing the named author and then writing the book himself. Others have picked up on this latest in a series of anomalies and even questioned the (alleged) author herself via emails. Surprisingly she has deigned to answer one or two with the explanation that she and she alone is creating the masterpiece with Andrew Crofts merely "on standby" in case he is called upon to make any minor adjustments nearer to publishing time. Call me cynical if you like (it would make a change from Shirley) but would a Publishing House risk leaving it to the last minute before asking their ghost writer to "hone" the writings of a first timer with no experience of writing for a mass market? Especially as they have publicly stated that the book is being "written with Andrew Crofts" already. Another clue would be in the classification that Harper Collins are assigning to the the book (although even they aren't sure how to define the hotchpotch). Category: Biography and autobiography Come come HC, I realise that writing skills or a command of the English language aren't really a pre-requisite for your authors but even you must know the difference between a biography and an autobiography. Perhaps Anya is also confused over those big words so I'll help the poor soul out by presenting this "Print, Cut out and Keep" guide. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Bi·og·ra·phy: An account of a person's life written, composed, or produced by another (that would be the bit where Andrew Crofts produces it) Au·to·bi·og·ra·phy: The biography of a person written by that person. (that would be without Andrew Crofts) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Noblesse Oblige

Art imitates Life

Acknowledgements to Private Eye

How many posts?

To aid newcomers to the phenomenon known as Anya Peters, I was going to do another "Anya Peters Abridged" post in which I provide just bullet points of previous posts by Anya. Although this would undoubtedly prove an invaluable resource and save new readers from having to trudge through the endless tedium of her blog, thereby allowing them to get "up to speed", I was struck by a question. Just how many posts has she made in her quest to get that book deal? Hmmmmmm.............. Those of you with as much time on their hands as I have could pop over to her blog and do a bit of research but here's a helpful summary of all daily articles since she started back in February 2006.

February - 17

March - 19

April - 15

May - 10

June - 3

July - 2

August - 2

September - 0

October - 1

Total Daily Posts = 69

Another interesting fact is that Anya admitted that she secured her agent and book deal in the middle of May. Sacré Bleu !! I've just noticed that since she got the book deal, she has made a grand total of 8 posts. That's 8 posts in 5 months. Oh well, I guess she's been busy writing that book. Hang on. It's being Ghost written for her !?!

Oh well, I guess the time must have been taken up with trips to see the family. Then there'll be all those meetings to arrange her book tour and personal appearances. Funny how this isn't even mentioned in her latest posts. Just vague reminisces about when she was homeless.

Of course, that was 6 months ago but the blog still has its uses.

After all, HC have already stated their intention to use her blog as a marketing tool.

I'm sure they'll be advising her get her finger out and to start posting some more soon.

Unless she's going to get a ghost writer in for that as well .......

A chance to verify Anyas Tale?

In what must be a shocking blow for Harper Collins (HC), Wikipedia have deleted the entry for Wanderingscribe from their site. Why should it concern HC? Well, as you will be aware, the purpose of Wikipedia is to act as a repository for truthful facts. A notice posted on Wikipedia (dated 23rd September) stated that Lawyers of Harper Collins had been in touch regarding some of the so called facts and that further additions to the page were temporarily banned whilst legal teams looked at it. Quite what they were looking at was never disclosed. Within a day or two, the ban was lifted and the Anya Sicko-fants continued to alter the data and, as previously seen on the Anya Peters blog comments section, attempted to manipulate the facts to bolster the fanciful tale being woven by the author. On 19th October, Wikipedia posted a notice at the top of the post regarding the Wanderingscribe blog ands subsequent Wikipedia entry and stated that "it looks like an attempt by a publisher to whip up controversy about a book in order to generate sales." Although stating that there would be a 5 day period of grace allowed to prove the claims presented by the author using the pseudonym of Anya Peters (either directly or via HC), the page was deleted less than 48 hours later. Wikipedias rules state that "content which fails inclusion criteria for Wikipedia, is incapable of verification with reputable sources, .... is usually deleted." One can only imagine that the combined might of Harper Collins legal team (who would surely count as a reputable source) were unable to provide any substantiated proof about their claims regarding Anya Peters (which you would have thought would be easy to prove). Will this stop the marketing process for the book that has already swung into action? Doubtful, however, you can be pretty sure that any mention of the deleted Wanderingscribe entry on Wikipedia will be omited when HC are trying to drum up interest. Unless of course folks stumble on this humble little blog ...... You can find a copy of the Wikipedia entry before the Anya Sicko-fants tried yet another cover up, here.

Who ya gonna call? GHOST-WRITER !!

As Anya Peters (and that's not her real name, folks) forthcoming book has been ghost written by Andrew Crofts, Anya's Sicko-Fants might be interested in who this dude is.

After all, surely he must be sympathetic to homeless folks to have taken on the assignment. A quick sneaky peeky at his website indicates that he does indeed have "form". Curiously though, I couldn't see much evidence of his work with homeless folks. Tellingly he does confess that it does not take him that long to write someone's book. for them. "We sit down with a tape recorder and I try and get twenty to 30 hours of information on tape. Then..... I have the book" So just what is Anya doing these days? What is it that's keeping her from updating her blog seeing as how Andrew must have all the info he needs by now? Perhaps lots of meetings with her publishers and agent about her forthcoming book tour. Maybe discussions about how to maximise publicity by accentuating her blog? Who knows.... Meanwhile Poor Andrew must be slaving away over Anya's book. I guess it will be a change for him after ghost writing for so many other folks. A chance to put the perspective of a homeless person. After all, Harper Collins will be using (is that the right word?) "numerous homeless charities and the Big Issue magazine to promote, market and distribute the book". And all to support Anya in the manner to which she has become accustomed to..... (oh go on then, we'll throw a few bob at the homeless folks if you insist). But what of poor Andrew, slaving away to bring us the story of a poor Anya Peters as she struggled to come to terms with homelessness. After all, it was homelessness that was the reason for creating the Anya Peters blog in the first place, remember?

So as Andrew slaves away, adding his own personal spin on the story of homelessness, lets take a quick stroll down (Andrew's') memory lane about some of the books he has ghostwritten in the past.....

For imstance, there was The Little Prisoner. This is the true story of a girl who was dominated, bullied and sexually abused by her stepfather..... Then there was Please, Daddy, No. The tragic story of an abused boy ...... Let's not foget The Kid. This moving story of an abused boy,........ Hmmm..... Is it just me or can anyone see a formula appearing here .......... Of course, that fact that there was no mention of abuse on Anyas' blog till she had the book deal and the ghostwriter was commissioned must be purely coincidental. Makes you think though .......... (Obviously this last sentence does not apply to Anya Sicko-fants ).

Abandoned. The true story of an author with poor writing skills.

News reaches me via the grapevine that Anya's writing skills so impressed Harper Collins that they decided to get someone else to write her book with her. Sacré Bleu !! What about our heroines valiant struggle to be recognised as a bona fidé author? What about her half finished novel about romance in the Scottish highlands? A post on the Harper Colins site reveals how the book is to be ghostwritten by Andrew Crofts "the ghostwriter who crafted three No. 1 bestselling memoirs, including 'Just a Boy' and 'Little Prisoner". Hmm.. Could it be that the flowery clap trap that Anya has been posting on her blog is considered not good enough to publish? Evidently so as the services of another writer have been called upon to ensure that the book isn't filled with the dribble that we have had to endure so far. But how will the Anya Sicko-fants take to this new improved style of writing which involves a real life author pointing out that "Mills and Boon styley prose" belongs firmly in the last milennium? Only time will tell but Harper Collins are determined to claw back their advance fee (rumoured to be in excess of £20,000) and are "bigging up" the fact that Anya's blog was nominated for a media award run by the New Statesman magazine. Spookily they fail to mention tha it was nominated by one of Anya's loyal Sicko-fants or that t it didn't even make the short list. Never mind. Let's not let the facts get in the way of a good marketing campaign, eh! The proposed advertising campaign aims also state that "Coverage will include interviews, features, reviews in key woman’s and lifestyle media. Strong strong serial sale expected." Looks like a comment left in response to a post on this blog that it "Sounds like a 10 part "Bella" special to me." is spookily accurate. At least they are going to be using Anya's blog as a marketing tool to promote the book (I was under the impression that was the raison d’être from the outset!) I wonder if she'll be kind enough to add a link to this humble blog to present a balanced view. Hmmm.. there's more chance of parking for free in a London hospital car park ....... We are also informed that the name "Anya Peters" is a pseudonym. Blimey! So she was lying to the New York Times as well as the BBC. Who would have thought it ...... Image © Harper Collins Ltd

Delete ! Delete ! Delete !

In what must come as startling news to the Worlds favourite (un)homeless author, there are plans afoot to delete the Wanderingscribe entry on Wikipedia. As most readers will be aware, Wikipedia is the 21st Centurys equivalent of a universal encyclopaedia. One that can be counted on as a source of irrefutable reference. It seems that the constant edits by the Wanderingscribe sicko-fants to cover and obfuscate the facts supposedly reported on Anya Peters blog have come to the attention of the admins over at Wikipedia who have decreed that the whole stunt is just that. A stunt by the publishing house to drum up publicity for a book. Accordingly they have set a 5 day deadline for anybody to prove that the whole sorry tale is indeed true. After that, the entry will be deleted. Will Anya emerge from her dingey bedsit to address the numerous anomolies that occur in her blog and thus seal the Wikipedia entry as fact? Or will she just continue to waffle about arty farty romanticised fictional accounts of a non existant person on her blog and have the ignomy of being declared by an iconic site of the internet as a fraud? Some may say (to quote an old Irish saying) that it's time to "piss or get off the pot ......" Did she think she could fool all of the people all of the time?

The plot thickens

Do you think that I should go into the fortune telling business? I only ask as the first synopsis of Anya's book reveals that, Lo and behold, she was abused as a child. Strange that her blog never mentioned it. Not once. Perhaps my post of August 10th (I remember now ....) was a foretelling of things to come. Or things that had passed. Was I a fly on the wall of a certain café? Or perhaps my cynicism of the whole "Homeless persons blog" is proving to be well founded. Here's a snippet: Born illegitimately to Irish lovers, Anya was given away by her real mother and brought up in England by her loving aunt. However, her childhood with her new family was far from happy - verbally and sexually abused for years, Anya finally cracked and shopped her violent uncle, resulting in his imprisonment. After his imprisonment and a few months before her twelfth birthday, Anya lost her whole family overnight. Blimey O'Reilly!! Did it really happen like that? Of course, those of a cynical nature (such as I) may hypothesise that Anya has been "cherry picking" from the selection of misery memoirs already on the market. After all, in this manufactured world we live in, it makes sense to see what's proving the hook for the book buying public and to whack a dollop of that into your own offering. In my post of September 23rd (More Misery Memoir Fakes...) I pointed out that in a faked blog, the author had been abused as a child in Ireland and had a baby which was given away. I even suggested that Anya might have to up the stakes in her own book if she was to compete. Leap forward a few short weeks and what is now revealed? We now find claims that Anya was an illegitimate child of an Irish couple who was given away as a baby as well as abused as a child !! Is it just me, or is a pattern developing here? I reckon I should get at least a credit in her book as a co-writer. You can't tell me that I don't have a regular reader in a certain jutting out kitchen somewhere in the exact middle of England.

Time passes .......

As the last post by Wanderingscribe was on 26th August (7 weeks and counting), one can only imagine where she has jetted off to this time.

Could it be "A Caribbean Cruise"? A jaunt over to the USA to catch up with her dear mother to inform her that her little girl finally got the book deal she's been hankering after all along? Or has Harper Collins finally got wise and clawed back what's left of the advance fee, thereby forcing Anya to give up her bedsit in London? Maybe the Hospital Car Park where she spent so many weeks and months parking "for free" have been reviewing their security camera footage and, now that Anya is of "fixed abode", have sent a backdated bill for the parking, thereby wiping out the remains of her book advance fee. It's all rather mysterious, wouldn't you agree?

Or perhaps the bottom has fallen out of the misery memoir market and Anya is no longer considered worthy of the attention she so desperately sought.

After all, the "Home Page" for Anya at Harper Collins hasn't been updated. Ever.

It even states that the title hasn't been decided (maybe someove over at Amazon could let 'em know).

Hmmmmm...............

Yet another fake book - Is there no end to them?

The increasingly populated world of faked books is getting even more crowded with the latest revelation that one Rohan Kriwaczek managed to fool the publishing house Overlook into buying the rights to a book he'd wrote about The Guild of Funerary Violinists , a supposedly ancient secret order going back over 400 years. The publishing house lapped it up and his book is currently in print. However, common sense dictates that any organisation existing for over 400 years would leave some traces behind (even a "secret" one). That very same common sense (which appears to be getting less common by the week) would also tell you that if you raise your head above the parapet, someone is going to take a few pot shots. So it came to pass that some folks looked into the supposed existence of The Guild of Funerary Violinists. And found that they didn't exist. Sacré Bleú !! Could it be that yet another publishing house has been fooled by a fake author? Unsurprisingly, the answer is yet again, Yes. Don't these people do any research for themselves?. Just a quick visit to his website to check out his pics would be enough to let you form an opinion that you might be inclined to throw a few bob into his hat as you pass him on the street playing his violin but handing over a cheque for thousands of pounds would be a different matter. Articles have been appearing (including ones by Grumpy Old Bookman, The Daily Mail and other blogs) highlighting the fraud but the publishing house themselves have all but accepted that the book is a fake and are steaming ahead with the publication and distribution anyway. This could prove to be a bit of a double edged sword for Wanderingscribe (who is presumably still beavering away with her own work of fiction in her jutting out kitchen). On the one hand there seems to be an air of almost resignation from publishing houses that a percentage of supposedly real life books are going to be faked and so why bother checking the facts (if it sells then both they and the author get their hands on your cash anyway). On the other hand, it is encouraging folks (not related to the publishing houses) to examine the actual facts behind allegedly factual books in an effort to either confirm or deny the stories presented as truths. So when/if Abandoned ever does hit the book stores then there will be others of an inquisitive nature who will be delving into Anya Peter’s background a little more closely than Harper Collins did before throwing loads of Wonga at her for her dreary tale of one person’s failure to get by in this world we live in. Will she be getting her facts straight before then? Well, if her present track record is anything to go by then it's highly unlikely. Perhaps she'll be reporting it all from her jutting out kitchen which is situated in London, the exact middle of England.