4 Great Examples of Ghostwriting Success

I’ve written about failure the last two posts. Now, it’s time to write about success.

The end of the year is a time to take stock and celebrate what went right. Ghostwriters enjoy success for many reasons: 

• They refine their client’s ideas into a clear, consistent voice that feels authentic yet polished.
• They turn memories, notes, interviews, or raw expertise into a compelling narrative.
• They draw out vulnerability and humanity.
• They synthesize vast amounts of material into a readable book.
• They enhance a client’s brand.
• They deliver books that meet industry standards in pacing, clarity, and storytelling.

Every ghostwriter has done these things. Here are four well-known examples.

1. Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi. Before he succeeded with Prince Harry, J.R. Moehringer ghostwrote this critically acclaimed, emotionally rich bestseller using common literary techniques such as scene writing, dialogue, and symbolism to elevate a straightforward life story into a powerful narrative.

A memorable example was how Moehringer often used short, punchy sentences to convey pain, conflict, or psychological intensity. For example, Agassi says “I hate tennis” several times in the book. Moehringer uses that as a refrain.

A second example is how he brought inanimate objects to life and used them as recurring metaphors to give structure and theme. The tennis ball machine became “the dragon” and is a metaphor for Agassi’s demanding and exacting father, pressure, and fate. The sport itself became a metaphor for imprisonment, repetition and the struggle for Agassi to find his own identity beyond the one his father demanded.

A third example was how Moehringer dug deep and uncovered Agassi’s emotional truths. The tennis star was insecure about his receding hairline but didn’t like the wig or hairpieces any better. His marriage to Brooke Shields was described as bleak farce “with four helicopters full of paparazzi circling overhead” and Agassi wearing lifts in his shoes so he’d look closer to Shield’s six feet. He admitted he took crystal meth and lied about it to avoid a three-month tennis suspension.

Moehringer took all of those details and many others and crafted raw, unfiltered, and wholly believable memoir.

I won’t say I’m as adept at this as Moehringer, but I try. One of my current clients tells the tale of growing up in the South Bronx and all the dangers that went with it: the crime, the drugs, the gangs, the violence, the racism. I wrote, “The neighborhood takes care of itself” as a metaphor for the dangers my client and his brother had to navigate, to various degrees of success. “The neighborhood” also is personified as the memoir’s antagonist.

The story is told in graphic detail with massive quantities of physical violence and F-bombs because that was how everybody talked and behaved on the streets.

I had an editor look at a draft of the first chapter, and she wrote, “This beginning hook reveals the juxtaposition of a colorful, life-filled neighborhood vs. a venue for death and gang violence. It’s a conflicted setting and antagonizing force that will draw readers in. It sets up nicely the narrator’s path to becoming a doctor and having to grow up around blood and violence.”

I count that as a success.

2. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley. Released nine months after Malcolm’s death, this is considered one of the great 20th century nonfiction books. It came about because Haley had spent hours and hours interviewing the human rights activist, so he was able to weave a religious conversion narrative that outlined Malcolm’s philosophy of Black pride, Black nationalism, and pan-Africanism. Critics found it compelling, cohesive, dramatic, clear, and emotionally resonant. At the same time, Malcolm’s authentic voice shined through.

I recognize the importance of interviewing people for hours and hours. Memoirs require me to delve deeply into a person’s story. The only way to learn all about a woman marrying a psychopath, suffering PTSD, battling the state over monies her ex-husband stole, then getting the law changed to prevent it eve happening again is to interview. Again and again.

The same standard of success holds true for the client who wanted to be famous and tried (and failed) through athletics, movies, stage acting and producing, and music before finding that he didn’t have to be famous to nonetheless have a significant impact in people’s lives. 

Nor without hours and hours of discussions can I tell the story about how one brother escaped the gang-infested, violent streets of the Bronx to become a successful orthopedist while his younger brother succumbed, only to realize his brother’s path was the better one.

3. The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump. Tony Schwartz might now express regret at having ghostwritten this book, but there was no doubt Schwartz succeeded in helping build the Trump brand. 

He succeeded because he crafted a story-driven, entertaining narrative that blended anecdote and advice—accessible even to non-business readers.

I’ve written how ghostwriters help develop a person’s brand, and Schwartz was doing it long before I came along. Read about it here.

4. I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai. Co-writer Christina Lamb helped shape complex political history into a clear, coherent story that also preserved Yousafzai’s youthful perspective and authentic voice. The book is an international bestseller and considered a major cultural touchstone by some (that the memoir is about the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner ever certainly helps).

One thing Lamb had to do was take the pertinent details of life before the Pakistani Taliban, its rise, how it affected not just Yousafzai but other girls, the violence against her, and her recovery, and combine it all to tell a compelling tale.

Lamb is British but has a journalism background, allowing her to learn about her subject and the details that she needed to include to enjoy success.

As I’ve written before, journalists make great ghostwriters for their ability to take complex stuff and make it understandable to a mass audience, as I’m doing now with a client who invented a hearing aid that revolutionized the industry and gave sound to thousands of hard-of-hearing children around the world.

Feel free to read and check out my other posts related to ghostwriting. Go to leebarnathan.com/blog.