5 Great Ways Ghostwriters Help with a Brand

Every book, whether ghostwritten or not, becomes part of the author’s brand, so every time a ghostwriter helps an author write a book, the ghostwriter must be aware of the author’s brand.

In trying to understand a brand, think about a favorite author, perhaps Stephen King, John Grisham, Robert Ludlum, Ian Fleming, Toni Morrison, Sue Grafton. What do you think, feel, and associated when you read these names? Whatever the answer, the author likely planned for you to react that way. That’s part of the author’s brand.

An author’s brand is the overall perception readers form about a writer. It covers their voice, writing style, themes, visual identity, and public persona that creates a recognizable, relatable, and trustworthy connection between the author and audience. It builds recognition, trust, and loyalty, differentiating the author and their work in a crowded market.

In addition to helping craft the author’s compelling story, a ghostwriter needs to recognize all of the above-mentioned facets to better highlight, spotlight, and position the author in the author’s chosen target market. That means the ghostwriter has to help the author be consistent and authentic, demonstrate unique value, engage the audience, showcase the story by transforming the ideas into polished, engaging words; build trust and increase visibility in the author’s niche, all while ensuring the final product is professionally written and aligned with the author’s unique perspective and goals.

Here are five ways ghostwriters accomplish this.

1. Establish authority and credibility. Any book that’s well written positions the author as an authority in the field, which only reinforces and strengthens the reputation. If for any reason a person can’t write it themselves, a ghostwriter has the professional writing skills to take it on. 

And remember, a professional writer delivers professionally written copy that boosts authority and credibility, in addition to a brand. While I’m focusing on books here, it doesn’t matter if the copy comes in the form of books, blog posts, website pages, social media posts, email marketing, speeches, scripts, white papers, or sales/marketing materials. If you sound like your audience expects you to sound, you’re credible and authoritative. A ghostwriter helps make it so.

2. Help with an author’s voice. Ghostwriters spend hours upon hours interviewing, collaborating, engaging with, and talking to their clients. In addition to gaining the information needed to write the story in its most compelling way, all that communication helps the ghostwriter understand the words the author uses.

For example, one author might say, “I changed the world,” but another would say, “I altered the course of history,” and a third author might put it this way: “I broke new ground.” The ghostwriter needs to know which way sounds most like the author.

As a former journalist, I have found an easy first step to sounding like the author: Quote directly. When I worked in newspapers, accuracy was one quality everyone was expected to have. One never wanted to have a source complain to an editor, “Your reporter misquoted me.” Fortunately, I developed a reputation for correctly reporting what a person told me (thank you, recording devices!).

3. Speed up the process. As I’ve previously written, there are seven steps in the process: idea, format, writing, editing, designing, publishing, and marketing. Of these, the writing takes among the longest, but a ghostwriter has the skills to write faster than if the author did it (unless, of course, the author is a professional writer, but then no ghostwriter would be needed!).

A ghostwriter knows how to take an author’s complex, disorganized, vague, dull, technical, or incomplete thoughts and ideas and turn them into coherent and compelling narratives that keep readers riveted.

Ninety-seven percent of people who start a book never finish it. They lose interest, feel disorganized or overwhelmed or trapped, don’t find the time to write or let themselves get distracted, or stop prematurely because they find out as they write how expensive it really is to publish a book.

A manuscript that will become a 200- to 300-page book takes me between twelve and eighteen months to complete. When prospects who have been trying for a decade to write it themselves know that there is an end in sight, even if it’s a year and half away, they realize that isn’t as far off as they think. They become clients, and when the project is complete, they often shed tears of joy because their dream has finally come true.

4. Increase visibility and impact. Ally Machate, who runs The Writers Ally, a book editing, publishing, and marketing firm, wrote, “If you’re trying to speak to everyone, you’re connecting with no one. You simply cannot serve a broad range of readers in the same way you can go deep with a narrowly defined set of readers.”

As a result, an author needs to understand who’s the target audience, including the demographics, economics, geography, and online location. The best ghostwriters keep current on audience trends, which help them write in ways that meet the audience demands, which increases engagement and trust.

Not only that, a ghostwriter that helps an author put out high-quality work opens the writer up to other ways to publicize and monetize beyond book sales. This could mean, but is not limited to, speaking engagements, media features, podcast appearances, workshops, or seminars.

5. Ensure professional quality. I’ve been dancing around this point, but now I’m hitting it straight on: Ghostwriters are professional writers who ensure grammar, punctuation, style, organization, and overall quality come through.

It’s almost a given that ghostwriters won’t let authors develop weak or inconsistent characters, won’t allow poor pacing, will show instead of tell, will avoid cliches, will write in active voice instead of passive voice, and will use language correctly.

Also, they help maintain a consistently high quality, which helps an author build the brand.

The better a ghostwriter is at these five steps, the better the chances the author’s story will succeed—and that can only help the ghostwriter’s brand, too.

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