Link first, then question.

Kaavya's expensive inner circle

Question: what does this article mean when they say that 17th Street/Alloy "packaged" Viswanathan's novel? I'm assuming they mean something word-wise happened to it before an agent or editor ever looked at it, but do they mean that someone went through and proofed it, or that someone rewrote whole sections to make it more palatable to the publishing industry?

Or is this just someone trying to make a bad situation sound worse?
 

If you google book packager, you'll find a lot of interesting links that explain it better than I could. But basically a packager takes a concept, develops it, often finds writers, edits it, and turns it over to the publisher as a finished product. They often work on series books - think Nancy Drew or Sweet Valley High. They employ a fair number of freelance writers.

Miss V. did not plagiarize on her own. Depending on how cynical you are, she might not have written much of it at all. Hard to say, though I expect we'll hear more about how the collaboration worked as this unfolds.