I'm contemplating whether or not I should ask my best friend to co-write my book with me. She is also a writer and someone I often go to when I need someone to bounce ideas off of or work out plots. If her and I were to write the book together, would this turn publishers away?
I've worked with co-authors. In my experience, so long as the publisher can acquire the rights it wants, it doesn't really make any difference. The problem comes into play when the co-authors have a falling out. Then you've got some real issues that can harm chances of publication if not resolved.
I just don't understand how co authoring would work. For me writing is such a personal thing. What do you do, one person handles all the words with P in them, and someone else does metaphors?
There are a few ways it can go; I've read books where each author takes on a different POV to tell a single story, and ones where each author writes a chapter, then they swap and edit each other's work. Edit: To answer the OP, I can't see how it would. Literally all that would happen is that the two authors would split rights and royalties - and that is not the publisher's problem.
My novel is a collab and we basically agree on the story together, and then the way we wrote was we have one main character each, and we alternated chapters writing from our own character's POV. We get final say on editing matters on our own chapters, as well as how our own character is portrayed in each other's chapters. I think you've gotta have similar ideas and be willing to compromise on some things to make it work. It was so much fun - 'cause it was like reading your own novel for the first time, as I never knew what my co-author's chapters would turn out like, even if I knew the general direction it's gonna go I think it's probably much harder to turn out a truly polished piece, but hell it was so much fun! In my case I know my book hasn't been edited quite as much as it could have, because while the writing process worked, the editing process with my co-author wasn't great - she's prone to adding and adding and every book she's ever written has turned into a multi-book series because she just keeps adding stuff. It's how her editing works. The last thing I wanted was a novel that never finished. So to avoid the spawning of multiple books from one stand-alone, we never did delve very deeply into the editing.
I wouldn't worry much about the snark. Some good stuff has been produced by co-authors, including one currently-going science fiction series that has been successful enough to turn into a TV show - the Expanse.
Yep, just the example I was going to point to. Five books already published and successful enough to get its own tv show. Both the book series and show are marvelous and I'd seriously recommend them.
