Celebrities writing novels

I know this was a while back, but I only recently saw this article in the New York Times, about celebrities writing novels. I read the article. I read it again. And then I promptly zoomed over to Goodreads to make sure that Hilary Duff's Elixir was off my to-read list. (I wasn't 100% sure that it had ever been on my list -- as it turned out, it wasn't.) The truth is, learning that Hilary Duff had a ghostwriter for this book killed whatever small interest I had in reading the book in the first place.

Celebrities writing books isn't anything new. Specifically, celebrities writing memoirs. It seems like every other day you see some past politician or movie/rock star signing a deal for their memoir. And I'm fine with that, even though I know that 99.9% of the time, the person who actually wrote the book, insofar as we define "writing" as the putting of words on a page/word processor, is the person who spent hours and hours interviewing the celebrity and then typing up their notes. (Level of celebrity involvement in these cases may vary.)

What I'm not fine with a celebrity announcing a novel deal, and claiming all the credit while a ghostwriter actually writes the book. Duff, in the article, "did not consider crediting her co-writer on the book cover instead of in the acknowledgments. 'It is my story... It is my book. I wrote it, and she helped guide me through the process.'" Hilary, some news for you: coming up with "plot and characters" does not mean that you wrote the book. If that were true, everyone would be a writer. And I mean everyone.

So what's the difference? Seriously, what is the difference between a celebrity "writing" a memoir and a celebrity "writing" a novel? To me, the difference is that people buy a celebrity memoir because they want to know the facts of the matter. They are interested in the celebrity's life. But people who buy a novel are interested in the novel, the story, the writing. A celebrity may easily claim ownership of his/her life and experience, and therefore claim ownership of a memoir even if the words were set down by someone else. A celebrity cannot claim ownership to a novel when they only came up with "plot and characters," and someone else did all the heavy lifting.

To this end, I feel like there is something deceptive about a celebrity claiming to have written a novel in similar circumstances. It might be because I'm an aspiring writer, but I feel like to have really written a novel, you have to actually WRITE IT. (As in, spend those five months on the rough draft, six months on revisions, two months on querying, three months on secondary revisions, etc. etc.) When a celebrity writes a novel, I want the celebrity to have WRITTEN IT. Writing a novel is an exhausting, creative task, and therefore, calling yourself a writer means something to me. So if you claim the mantle of "writer" I want it to be because you wrote the book, not because you tossed around an idea in your head before handing it off to some under-credited, real writer.

The truth is, when I heard about Hilary Duff's book, I was a little impressed. Not extremely impressed, but a little. Obviously her celebrity status made getting a book deal, well, kind of a walk in the park -- but I actually (perhaps naively) thought that the book, the end product, would be her own work, and her own words. Writing is difficult. I have respect for people who actually sit down and do it.

So what do you all think? Does my differentiation between celebrity memoirs and novels mean anything? Does knowing the ghostwriter circumstances affect your feelings toward a book? If celebrities call themselves "writers," does this cheapen what being a writer really means?