Why 1 Ghostwriter Can’t be a Great Editor

Every once in a while, I get a prospect who asks me if I edit. I always respond, “Yes, but not if I’m your ghostwriter.”

Similarly, every once in a while, I get a client who wants me to edit the manuscript I have completed after working on it for more than a year. I always decline and refer them to someone else.

Most people understand why: When a ghostwriter has been at it for months and months over numerous drafts, they have seen the copy so many times that they miss errors right in front of them, errors like misspellings and holes in logic that an editor easily spots. Also, a writer assumes that because they know the information so well, everyone will. As a result, the writer will leave out critical pieces of info. The website proofed.com calls that “cognitive blindness.”

“Writers are aware of what they intended to say rather than what they actually wrote,” according to the website’s untitled article, “so they read their work with an extra layer of context that outside readers don’t have.” Editors don’t have that context, so they won’t understand what has been written and will demand the writer clarify, expand, or explain.

Legal ghostwriter Matt Sullivan has another reason to not be both writer and editor: a lack of objectivity. “It’s easy to become wed to our words and arguments when devoting significant time to a project,” he said. “But that devotion to our writing often disables our discipline, allowing for flagrant and faint mistakes.”

Finally, no one I know wants to wear ghostwriter and editor hats for the same project because it takes too much time and energy.

If the ghostwriter has put in a year’s worth of time to write a client’s story with all the care it deserves, then there might not be enough time to edit it properly with a client demanding the project be done by a certain date, so the editing gets rushed and is sloppy, the manuscript has more mistakes left in, and then the client’s credibility is shot for showing off shoddy work. If the client has a publisher in mind, chances are the client will have to shell out more money for the publisher to get it edited properly.

Definitions

Most people understand the differences between ghostwriters and editors, for it’s in their names. Ghostwriters serving NYC and across the county function with writing, while editors take the next step and edit. Both have very particular sets of skills. Ghostwriters are creators, editors are fixers. 

Ghostwriters are hired to write someone else’s book but receives no credit for it. That person is a ghost, just like the dictionary definition: a mere shadow wandering among people. Or as ghostwriter Laura Sherman put it, “When the project is finished, the author owns all the rights to the book and the ghostwriter disappears into thin air as if they never existed. They become a ghost.”

Editors, on the other hand, take a finished product and make it better without doing major rewrites.

Different editors focus on different aspects. A developmental editor looks at the big picture and makes sure the writer is clearly saying what he or she wants to say to reach the target audience and get them to react the way the writer wants. A copy editor focuses on word choice, punctuation, capitalization, style, typographical errors, and grammar. A line editor seeks out and fixes extra or unnecessary words, run-on sentences, redundancies, tonal shifts, unnatural phrasing, and confusing narrative digressions.  

“What an editor won’t do is re-write the content, or re-arrange chapters,” said Teena Lyons, who brands herself as Professional Ghost. “If they feel revisions are needed, they will return the book to the author/ghostwriter with suggestions for alternative wording, or chapter layouts. It is up to the writing team to fix any rough spots. When the partnership between the editor and writers works well, the end result is the five star bestseller version of the original.”

When I tell clients or prospects the importance of having a neutral set of eyes to edit, they might balk at it because it’s another expense. Whether they are looking for book editors in Philadelphia or elsewhere, I tell them that 1) editing costs much less than ghostwriting, and 2) all the bestsellers have gone through extensive editing.

That’s not to say ghostwriters don’t or can’t do some minor edits. Before I send a draft to a client, I always read what I wrote out loud. That way, I catch typos, identify and fix  awkward sentence structures, and remove redundancies. The result: a more coherent draft.

Then there’s the rare time a person contacts me for ghostwriting and ends up hiring me as a book editor serving Philadelphia and other areas nationally. I’ve had prospects who had written something but needed guidance, so I told them what was needed, and instead of hiring me to expand on what they wrote (thus making me a ghostwriter), they wrote it themselves, and I became their editor.

Client Editors

Once a ghostwriter completes a draft and submits it to the client, the client becomes a de facto editor. They have to read the draft to make sure it is factually correct, it’s in their voice, and it says what they want (and expect) it to say.

I have one client who, after receiving my draft, sends me feedback in the form of audio recordings. With each draft, I can expect between two and five hours worth of notes. These notes correct facts but also expand on points, events, thoughts, and insights my client made previously, so there’s a lot of back-and-forth. He also wants me to send back fixes in red-colored type so he can see what changes I made.

I have another client who wanted me to ghostwrite a three-minute speech. We talked for an hour and then I wrote the first draft. Her feedback was to the point: She liked the speech’s overall structure but felt the opening story was too long and some points she wanted to make weren’t included. After half an hour of discussion, we figured out how to bring those points in by eliminating some other points. In the process, the story got shortened, and its focus changed from one character to another.

Without the client feedback, neither of these projects would be as successful as they are.

Ideally, as the ghostwriter completes more drafts, the client will need to “edit” less and less because the ghostwriter has figured out the client’s voice, style, and tone; the client has learned how to clearly explain things for the ghostwriter, and both sides know that they have the same goal: to make the manuscript the best it can be.

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