Writing fiction may no longer be a solitary exercise: other people may be involved too besides the person named as the author on the book cover. The New York Times spills the beans on how some teen fiction gets written.

Kaavya Viswanthan is named as the author of How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life.

“But on the copyright page — and the contracts — there’s an additional name: Alloy Entertainment,” says the Times.  “Neither (the publisher) Little, Brown nor Alloy would comment on how much of the advance or the royalties — standard contracts give 15 percent of the cover price to the author — Ms. Viswanathan is to collect,” it adds.

And, best of all, Viswanathan and Megan McCafferty — whose books she plagiarised — both worked with the same editor. Both the writers thanked her in their acknowledgements, says the Times. It has other interesting details in the article, First, Plot and Character. Then, Find an Author.

“In many cases, editors at Alloy — known as a ‘book packager’ — craft proposals for publishers and create plotlines and characters before handing them over to a writer (or a string of writers),” says the Times. And the company boasts several bestsellers.