Ghostwriting & Co-Authoring
What is Ghostwriting, you ask?
Does it involve phantoms and apparitions? Only if you’re featuring them in your writing, or channeling your story via a deceased relative.
But seriously…
A ghostwriter is kind of there in the background, like a shadow, helping you form your fabulous ideas into words, while maintaining your style and tone of your voice. They are often hired to write books, articles, stories, and reports that can be officially credited to another person, who either doesn’t have the time, skill or patience to do it on their own.
Co-authors, who also fall into this category, differ from ghostwriters in that they share book cover credit with the main author, but still do all of the writing. Go to your local bookstore into the non-fiction section. You will observe credits that read “with” or “and” or “as told to” on the cover. That second name indicates that a writer was brought in to actually write the book based on all the creative ideas, input and information supplied by the first name.
Celebrities, executives, political leaders, scientists, or anyone who has something imperative to say, but doesn’t have the time or skill to do it, often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit their stories, magazine articles, blogs, or other material.
A consultant specializing in areas such as career counseling, marketing or finance may pay to have a book ghostwritten to establish or enhance their credibility as an ‘expert’ in their field. Public officials and politicians employ ‘correspondence officers’ to respond to the large volume of correspondence.
The latest form of ghostwriting is the web blooger. Companies or organizations hoping to generate interest in their blog site sometimes hire ghostwriters to actually write the blog or post comments to it, while posing as different people and using pseudonyms.
Though you might not realize it, ghostwriters are also hired to write fiction in the style of an existing author, often as a way of increasing the number of books that can be published by a popular author (e.g., Tom Clancy, James Patterson). These ghostwriters must be really adept at following the form and style set forth by the main author.
Ghostwriters may have varying degrees of involvement in the production of a finished work. While some ghostwriters are hired to edit and clean up a rough draft, in other cases, ghostwriters do most of the writing based on the information provided by the client.
Taped interviews are often a very useful tool for a ghostwriter to really capture a client’s cadence, use of vocabulary, and stream of consciousness, which she can then incorporate into the writing. Clients provide ideas and information, and the ghostwriter culls it, shapes it, and then transforms it into written text. Sometimes the ghostwriter will need to supplement material with a substantial amount of research if there isn’t enough to fill a book, or when she is working on an autobiography for someone famous.
Just like any other relationship, the rapport between the client and ghostwriter is imperative. There needs to be a sense of compatibility, in terms of work and style. Not that you are gong to be spending lots of time together, in fact, just the opposite. But you do need to be able to communicate and understand each other.
There are many ways to accomplish the task of ghostwriting. It all depends on the relationship between the two collaborators and how much time the client is able to invest.
Here is a typical scenario:
The client provides as much background information as possible in the form of taped interviews, email correspondence, letters, seminar notes etc. In some cases, the client will provide an outline of how she sees the book unfolding.
After developing an overall plan for the book, the ghostwriter will come up with a worksheet for each chapter. The client writes brief answers (a sentence or two) to a series of questions that help define what is to be said. During a meeting or telephone conference, the client further elaborates on these points, and additional questions are asked and answered. The ghostwriter then writes the first chapter and sends it for review.
This will follow suit for every chapter. After the first draft of the entire book is completed, the client scrutinizes it and lists changes that need to go into the final draft.
Each chapter requires about four hours of the client’s time. Add to this about eight hours of planning meetings before the actual writing begins, and a long revision session after the first draft is completed. When all is written and done, a client should expect to spend roughly two houses per week. Again all of this planning can go out the window if a client is very busy. Flexibility, positivism and self- discipline are all required from the ghostwriter.
Ghostwriters will often spend from several months to a full year researching, writing, and editing projects. It all depends on the length of the book and the client’s accessibility.
Shorter books (25,000 words or less) can take up to four months. Longer ones (90,000 words or more) can take a year. Six to eight months is about average.
Ghostwriters can be paid by the page, hour, a flat fee, or percentage of royalties derived from sales, or a combination of a few of these.
Rosedove is happy to meet all of your ghostwriting needs. We specialize, but are not exclusive to the following areas: finance, memoir, animals, yoga, personal growth, self-help, holistic health, advertising/marketing, film/TV/theatre, astrology and the esoteric arts, spirituality and comparative religions, and women’s studies.