[fjtorres]

You've never run into a James Patterson book?
Or, much older, a Byron Preiss production?
Ghost written books are by now an old tradition goihg back at least 50 years.

The oldest I have is the STAR WARS novelization by "George Lucas" and it wasn't the first by far.

What is relatively new, 21st century new, anyway, is listing the ghost writter as a collaborator instead of pretending the big name is the actual author.

These kinds of "work for hire" books tend to break down into three categories:

- Complete work for hire projects where the producer, be it author (often prodded by an agent), publisher, or movie studio, owns the story and pays the actual writer. Most typically a flat fee. It gets published under the producer's name. The Lucas book was almost certainly a full ghost job. It's followup, SPLINTER OF THE MIND'S EYE by Alan Dean Foster was a creditted work for hire. (Foster has a lot of those, typically movie novelizations.) There's a lot of variation but in all cases the writer is just an employee with zero ownership rights.

- Reworked/relabeled projects where (most often) a new writer's book gets the established author's name attached more or less after the fact. Some times the name author edits or reworks the story to varying degrees. Some become actual collaborations.

- Accidental collaborations, where a writer steps in to finish a work by an established author. Often posthumously. Occasionally it is to write the entire book off notes or a first draft. Stephen Goldin doing the Family d'Alembert series off E.E. Smith's notes and Sanderson finishing off Wheel of Time are examples where the writer got full cover credit.

Beyond that, but less common, are true collaborations (for a book or two) and long term partnerships. Each one of those is its own creature but what distinguishes them from the "contracting jobs" is the independent success of both authors. Niven&Pournelle being one of the best examples. Individually successful, they were big time best sellers as a team.

Tom Clancy is a special case because he sold his name to be used as a corporate brand and had nothing to do with the works bearing his name afterwards. Not that he had much in many before the deal. Even his first books are reported to be at best secret collaborations.