L.J. Smith Was Fired!

First off, I want to say that I’m truly saddened that The Vampire Diaries publisher fired L.J. Smith from a series we all know and love and immediately associated the author with. From what I’ve been getting from her website it sounds as though L.J. Smith was hired by The Vampire Diaries publisher (Harper/Alloy) to write the series. What that means is they technically own The Vampire Diaries. Although in my humble opinion the author’s sweat and hard work should count for something.

That being said L.J. Smith has specifically asked fans NOT to boycott the publisher. Her Feb, 2011 Blog post asks this of fans: “Third, and most importantly, I want to ask anyone who was thinking of it, not to boycott Harper’s or anyone.  It just doesn’t make sense.  Although I wanted and still want more than anything to be able to continue The Vampire Diaries series myself, there’s no point in not trying the new books.  (And remember, for fans of Bonnie and Damon, and strict Stefan and Elena fans, the immediate dynamics may be more to your liking.) “

With Midnight’s recent release I can only imagine die hard fans such as myself will be rushing to the store shelves to pick up what will ultimately be the last wholly L.J. Smith The Vampire Diaires book. Recent blog posts on L.J. Smith’s website also indicate that a decent portion of the next TVD installment Phantom will in fact be L.J. Smith’s writing rather than a ghost writer’s. For that reason alone I’ll probably pick up Phantom as well. My very complete L.J. Smith collection wouldn’t be complete without Phantom.

As to any other TVD books following Phantom, for me personally it will be a wait and see game. Obviously what happens in Phantom will have some affect on the books that follow. Therefore if L.J. Smith’s writing mixed with some ghost writer’s cheap L.J. imitation makes for a compelling story I may just have to finish the series because I don’t like to leave a movie theater midway through a movie.

My personal opinion..I think in the end the publisher and The Vampire Diaries will sorely miss L.J. Smith. But there is a silver lining. I may be the only one to look at it this way but with The Vampire Diaries off her hands L.J. Smith will have more time to work on other much awaited and anticipated projects such as Night World’s Strange Fate. I’ve also been seeing in her blogs that there could someday soon be a continued Secret Circle series or even a sequel to Dark Visions. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.

New Links of interest:

Petition for L.J. Smith to continue writing The Vampire Diaries

Email Alloy Entertainment

A special thanks to the fans of L.J. Smith’s Guestbook #9 for providing those links. I won’t boycott because L.J. Smith asked us not to, but I do think we have every right to let the publisher know how we feel about it.

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