… or are they just out of ideas?

ith all due deference to both authors I’ve begun to notice a trend lately between Stephen King and James Patterson (there may be others but I’m noticing it more with them) that more recent books from them have been co-authored with someone else. At first I thought maybe it was just a new trend, perhaps it makes for more interesting literature like the mother-daughter duo who wrote the bestselling ‘House of the Night’ series. Admittedly I’ve never actually read the series but it’s very popular which makes me wonder, is co-authoring the new vampire novel… or are they just running out of ideas?

Maybe one or two books I would think it’s just authors trying something new, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it on at least three from both authors, and I’m sure there are plenty of other authors out there doing it, but the question to me is why? And secondly…how? I am very personal with my writing, the idea of letting someone else, particularly another author come in seems horrifying.

It’s worth noting that in both cases, some of the authors that both James Patterson and Stephen King are co-authoring with are to my knowledge unknown. So perhaps it’s in the same spirit of unknown singers being featured on the albums of very well known singers in the hopes of getting people interested in that unknown singer or conversely getting a different generation interested in the older singer.

What do you think? Is this the same as new/unknown artists being featured on the album of bigger artists or are authors running out of new ideas?