3 Solid Specialized Skills for a Ghostwriter

Last week, I started discussing how ghostwriting is expensive because it is so specialized. Read it here. I covered three skills: writing as someone else, organizing massive amounts of information, and understanding what is a compelling story.

Now, I’ll tackle the abilities to interview, research, and budget time.

Interview — A ghostwriter has to spend a majority of time interviewing the client. That means asking open-ended questions (the kind that begin with who, what, where, when, how, and why).

These are the kind of questions that lead to long answers, which ghostwriters want because more information leads to more options to use the info or not. Long answers also inevitably lead to other questions, which leads to more information. Et cetera.

When I first speak to a prospect, I ask four questions: Why do you want to write this story? Who is the audience? What is the story? What does success look like?

I ask these because I want to get a sense of how much the prospect has thought about the story, who should read it, how organized they are, what they need, and if their hopes and aspirations are realistic or not. Ghostwriters should consider asking these or similar questions.

Research — Before any words are written, a ghostwriter needs to get to know the subject. That means, in addition to interviewing, reading about them, watching videos, listening to audio recordings—anything to give the ghostwriter a sense of the person. 

According to Danielle Hutchinson, chief creative officer at Authors on Mission, proper research can take a total of eighteen hours per 5,500-word chapter, or a total of 216 hours for a 12-chapter book. That’s 27 eight-hour days.

It also could mean reading what they’ve written. I once had a client who suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, so the writing samples I received were very stream-of-consciousness. Still, it proved helpful because within that hard-to-follow text were her words, and I needed to know them to write as her.

I had a different client who wanted me to write new chapters into a pre-existing book. That meant I had to read the book first. 

Another client wrote about everything touristy in Palm Springs. I had to research all the characters, the places, and the legends to verify all his stories and facts. 

Time budgeting — I graduated second in my high school class. The school paper interviewed me as salutatorian, and I told the reporter that my goal was to finish in the top 10, and the way I succeeded was because I made good use of my time.

“Studying doesn’t necessarily come naturally, but I have motivation built into me,” I said.

That continued in college, where I graduated cum laude. My goal was a 3.5 GPA. I finished 3.59.

There was no way I would have accomplished these goals had I not been able to 1) prioritize the tasks I needed to get done, 2) allocate the necessary time to complete them, and 3) have a backup plan in case the time I allocated was insufficient. Ghostwriters have to have this skill to take on multiple clients at a time.

If I had to get up at 5:30 a.m. to finish my homework, I did that (many times in high school). If I needed to spend seven hours studying for a final exam, I did that (twice in college, and I got A’s both times). I never pulled an all-nighter, and I usually gave myself one day off a week (Friday).

I told a client I’m going to write 15,000-20,000 words in three weeks, and I did. 

However, that doesn’t mean a client will meet deadlines. A current client has refused to increase our time per week, even though he has expressed concern we’re moving too slowly and won’t finish in a year. I gave him options, but he declined. 

I gave this same client a week to read the 7,866 words I wrote, and he didn’t get it done. I told him, “When you next complain about how slow we’re going, look in the mirror.”

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