I recently attended a webinar given by Lisa Bloom, a corporate storyteller who calls herself “Story Coach.” Her webinar was partly about seven stories that sell. She applied these to business writing—the kind I used to do when I was a copywriter: email campaigns, website copy, marketing and promotional materials, and the like. Before she…
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,…
In a poem from 1711, Alexander Pope wrote, “Too err is human; to forgive, divine.” I’ve recently been dealing with fails as the year draws to a close. I’ve made mistakes, I’ve learned from them, I’ve forgiven myself, and I’ve moved on wiser so the next time, I’ll do it right. Example: I sent out…
What do writers really think of artificial intelligence? It depends on how much you use it. The more you do, the more likely you view it positively. That’s one of the results that came out of a recent study by Gotham Ghostwriters and Josh Bernoff, a Portland, Maine-based advisor, coach, editor, and ghostwriter. Entitled “A.I.…
There is a famous song from “The Sound of Music” in which the first line says, “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.” That might be true, but as a ghostwriter I can tell you how wrong it is to start a book there. I once had a client who…
In his seminal work The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, entrepreneur Michael E. Gerber quoted the U.S. Department of Commerce: Forty percent of all businesses fail in the first year. eighty percent fail within the first five years, and eighty percent of those that last the…
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…
I’ve written several times that when it comes to ghostwriting, humans trump artificial intelligence, or AI, every single time. I recently read an article in the Los Angeles Times that wasn’t even about AI but nonetheless further reinforced my notions. The article’s author, Hossam Elsherbiny, is director of language instruction for the Department of Transnational…
As I wrote last week, everything is ghostwriting—or at least, so many types of writing without attribution are forms of ghostwriting. Here are eight more you might not realize. 1. Professional apologies or public statements. It might be easier to list a famous person who hasn’t had to make a public apology than list those…
When people think of ghostwriting, they often think of celebrity autobiographies or political memoirs. It’s true that’s a large part of the industry. After all, Prince Harry, Richard Branson, Andre Agassi, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Demi Moore, Laura Bush, Michael Jackson, Millie Bobby Brown, Donald Trump, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan wrote books with the…
