I don't know what Jim's actual experience with book packagers is, but my experience and impression of the ones I have worked with is not nearly as negative as his.
I have worked mainly with textbook packagers.
A lot of textbooks are put together this way. The packager gets one or several experts to do a detailed chapter outline for a book. Someone else with research expertise in the field does much of the research, usually with direction from the expert and concentrating on what is new in the field since the competitor's books have been published. Next a writer is hired to write anything from one chapter to the whole book based on the outline and research. The packager then hires artists and photographers to do the graphics and often another writer to do side bars and textbook features (those little half page bits that are usually highlighted in colored boxes) and a professional indexer for the book.
The "package" has already been presold to a textbook publisher, who in this case is more of a printer than a publisher, although throughout the project people on the publisher's staff have editorial input. However, the writer never deals with the publisher directly. Everything gets hammered out between the publisher's staff and the book packager's project manager, who is normally the only person the writer has to deal with.
Jim is right that the pay is work made for hire (with payment usually a flat rate per chapter or word length), but if you have expertise in a technical area, the pay can be good, and since the structure and research are already given to you, you can move along quickly. The last time I did a project like this (several years ago) the flat rate came out to anywhere between $50 and $75/hour (I was writing about a topic I was already familiar with.) Plus, you normally only write one (high quality) draft and once it is accepted then you're done and you can move on to the next project. I don't see this work as any more degrading than any other kind of corporate writing. The downside is that you usually get a teeny tiny writing credit somewhere in the front or the back of the book that only your mother will look for. But if you write to pay the bills, a project like this can be a godsend in a slow freelancing period. I wouldn't dismiss all book packagers simply because you aren't the sole creator of the book. It isn't the only kind of writing you'll want to do, but it can be a legitimate form of paid writing.
), but what's a book packager? I keep hearing the phrase. Is it a good thing? Is it for fiction and non-fiction?