A Ghostwriter is Barely There

Ghostwriters are barely there.

Ghostwriters often glide behind the scenes of well articulated copy, haunting the hallways of the entire publishing industry. Pay attention and you might catch them hovering across the pages, but more than likely you’ll never know they were there.

A good ghostwriter can write on any topic, and is often hired to write without credit. A ghostwriter drafts their work, usually from the ideas of the client. A fair amount of celebrity autobiographies are in reality written by ghostwriters. The next time you see a memoir featured at your local Barnes & Noble from a famous person, smile for the specter who may have penned those pages.

Though hard numbers are difficult to come by (due to the nature of the industry), estimates suggest that as many as half of all non-fiction books are written by a ghostwriter.

Why Hire a Ghostwriter?

Clients opt to hire a ghostwriter for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the client doesn’t have the skill required to articulate the ideas rattling around their head, or maybe their schedule could never permit the time needed to take them from start to finish. Ghostwriters are most often well-established with polished portfolios who can move quickly on a project, therefore able to easily please their prospect.

The client is the architect of the ideas. Without them, the ghostwriter has nothing. Sometimes work is ghostwritten of reels of tape or jotted notes, spinning the client’s story. It is then up to the ghostwriter to organize and assemble the content in a way that will make it engaging for the reader.

What Can a Ghostwriter Write?

A good ghostwriter should be able to write on nearly any topic from press release to autobiography, e-book to speech. They also often write novels. In fact there are many instances where a series of books has been produced by the work of a ghostwriting team under a single author umbrella. Ghostwriters have also been known to write continue the fiction of popular authors who have died. One well known example is V.C. Andrews.

What Makes a Ghostwriter Different?

Ghostwriter must be fluent enough writers to handle any sort of copy. They must also have excellent people skills as they will often have to interview many different personalities in an effort to extract their best story. Most important, a ghostwriter must remain invisible.

The eventual reader must hear the voice of the client, not the voice of the ghostwriter.

Does a Ghostwriter Earn Royalties?

No, at least not as a standard. Most often, ghostwriters charge a flat fee for their work. The advantage for the ghostwriter is that they know precisely how much they will be compensated for their services. It is a risk to rely on royalties. Even a masterpiece will fail without the proper marketing and promotion. A ghostwriter rarely receives credit for their work (outside monetary compensation) and in fact, are sometimes legally bound to keep their participation in a particular project secret.

Ghostwriters write everything from bestsellers to bargain books. The next time your enjoying an engaging novel, ask yourself… did a ghostwriter glide across these pages?

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SeanMichaelPlatt@gmail.com (562) 972-6842.