Do you want your Book Ghostwritten?

A ghostwriter writes literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts officially credited to another author. Samples of books written by ghostwriters or co-authors is Bill O’Reilly’s ‘Killing …’ series (Martin Dugard), as well as other famous ghostwritten books such as Alexandre Dumas in The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, Michael Crichton in Latitudes (finished posthumously), Ian Fleming created the James Bond series, R. L. Stine authored the children’s series, Goosebumps, as well as Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, and James Patterson’s books.

When using a ghostwriter to write ‘your’ book, there are several elements to keep in mind, including the amount of work to be done and the budget required. According to the USA Bureau of Labor Statistics, writers and authors develop written content for various types of media, including advertisements; books; magazines; movies, and television scripts; and blogs, and earn an average of $61K+ annually (or $29+ per hour). This means a serious story-teller, short on funds, should do much of the initial writing to stay within their budget.

Ghostwriting can be expensive; some ghostwriters won’t even look at a long-term, writing project for less than $10K.  Ghostwriters may request some of the royalties in their contract in lieu of a portion of the up-front fees (especially if a potential best-seller like O’Reilly’s series of books that were marketed regularly with national cable-channel exposure), but the project fees may still start at $10K.

Unfortunately, some authors who want to write a book don’t have a unique enough story – or a highly recognizable brand name – that could create enough of a marketing buzz to get thousands of copies sold. A royalty-share offer may not be enough to persuade ghostwriters to take a delayed payment.  It is not uncommon for first-time authors asking for professional ghostwriting assistance to suffer sticker-shock when quoted.

Authors should not hire a ghostwriter to type their story at $30+ per hour when a transcriptionist can do it cheaper.  Alternatively, an author could voice-record the story via voice-to-text software, organize the content to ensure the story is written in a linear plot, then submit the word-processed document to a ghostwriter to clean up.  The ghostwriter would then take over the project to re-write the elements to ensure a clean story-line, set the tone and mood, edit the story for grammar, punctuation, and spelling, as well as format the galley for publication.  Hiring a ghostwriter to research a historic story and the element surrounding it, typing up the story in a logical sequence, and then interviewing the ‘author’ face-to-face, can take hundreds of hours.  Ghostwriters need to make a living during this project time, so need to charge for monthly expenses and time.  Authors would need to budget regular payments to keep the project going.

Authors eager to get their books published hit huge fire-walls in getting their story published. Large publishers are only interested in potential New York Times ‘best-seller’ types of books, especially with an established author (e.g., Stephen King).  A Kempton Mooney report noted self-published books and books published by small publishers, at 42%, was larger than the market share of big-publishers, at 34%.  Independent authors are looking to simply get their story published may hope for a moderate success in self-published book sales (1,000+ books over five years) if they also spend a great deal of time (and money) in marketing, advertising, and promoting their book.  Ghostwriters rarely get involved in the sales and promotion aspect of a ghostwritten book.

If you are looking to find someone to help you write your story and get your book published, there are thousands of talented (ghost-) writers on the market ready to assist you in preparing the manuscript as a galley for publishing.  Budget a sufficient amount of funds to purchase the professional services of these experts in their field.  Review their recommendations by satisfied clients (other authors) or review as many of their own published books in their name to get a feel for their writing style.  This will help you match the best writing genre to the story you, as the ‘author’ of the books, want to get on the market.  If you can’t get any publishers interested in the book, then go the route of self-publishing.

Dawn D. Boyer, Ph.D., has been an entrepreneur and business owner 16+ years, with a successful business in Richmond, and currently in her own consulting firm (CEO).  Her background experience is 24+ years in the Human Resources field, of which 12+ years are within the Federal & Defense Contracting industry. She is the author of 200 books on the topics of business, human resources research, career search practice, women and gender study, genealogy and family lineages, quotes for motivation and self-improvement, and ‘Interview with an Artist’ series.  Her books can be found on Amazon.com under Dawn D. Boyer, Ph.D.

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