I’m going to begin by stating something incredibly obvious: Words matter in speeches. Duh, I hear you thinking. Fair enough, let me continue. A speech should be written concisely, meaning the speaker gets up, gets it done quickly, and gets out. That means the speaker (and by extension, the speechwriter) needs to use the right…
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To AI or not to AI, that is the question. See what I did? I, a human, took something famous written by another human and put a twist on it. I wanted to see if I could get AI to write the same line, so I went to ChatGPT and asked it to “Take Shakespeare’s…
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As a ghostwriter, the copy is everything. If the client doesn’t like what’s been written, it’s going to be a longer, less enjoyable process. Or worse, the client will walk. This means that the copy has to sing. It has to wow. It has to excite the client. Mastering your essay writing can in turn…
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A website is not enough. You need SEO, too. Busy areas have competitive SEO markets where you may need our services like a ghostwriter in NYC. Last week, I wrote about how the best way to find a ghostwriter is to find a ghostwriter’s website. This week, I’m going to twist things around and address this…
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Scripts are out. Spontaneous is in. I recently came across a column by Ted Gioia, who calls himself The Honest Broker. He wrote that the recent presidential election showed that giving speeches from a teleprompter isn’t effective anymore and ”The word ‘scripted’ is now an insult. Plainspoken dialogue is considered more trustworthy.” Gioia then goes…
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I recently introduced a new feature into my contracts: the escape clause. It arose because I had a prospect who insisted on it, and because my business advisor recommended it after I told him about this prospect. But first things first. Escape clauses (sometimes called “out clauses”) let a party leave the contract before the…
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To paraphrase James Carville, not only is it the story, stupid, it’s also the emotion. Plenty of studies have shown that storytelling matters. Here’s one example. One critical aspect of good storytelling is including emotion. Adding details that trigger your brain’s amygdala (the emotional processing center) automatically makes the story better. A story with emotion invests,…
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Occasionally, when I first talk to a ghostwriting prospect, I get asked a version of this question: “Can you help me get my book published?” My standard response has been, “My specialty is writing. I know people in the publishing world that I’m happy to introduce you to, but I focus on making the manuscript…
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Last week, I detailed three lessons I learned as a ghostwriter. Here are two more lessons. A ghostwriter doesn’t need to be an expert in every subject. I have a client who’s a Pennsylvania-based personal injury lawyer. He hired me to ghostwrite some chapters into an already existing book about depositions. In our early conversations,…
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Almost whenever I research ghostwriting topics for my next post, my search engine spits out subjects I’m not asking for. Most common are the ethics of ghostwriting. I’ve written before about how ghostwriting is here to stay and how it’s ethically acceptable to hire somebody to write words for you. Here are some other ethics-related…
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